Hello to One and All!
Greetings from Toronto, currently a windy 4 degrees and sunny, with the possibilities of snow and 9 degrees tomorrow?! I haven't completely figured out why the weather likes to have a sudden mood swing, but I'm very much ok with the extended daylight hours and sunshine.
It's safe to say that Kevin and I have been catapulted, tossed around and come out the other side LOVING school and yes, our new community.
The first month was indeed difficult and testing. There were definitely some home-sick tears shed. Now, however, we find ourselves surrounded by 50 new friends from all over the world - Italy, England, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Brazil, USA, Japan, France, Germany and Canada. It's an entertaining melting pot of cultures and personalities, that we have been enjoying immensely! It certainly took us a bit to warm up to the idea of new friends, especially when all you want is what you know and love. Now we realize that we don't have to give up what we love to embrace what is new; that in fact we are just making a fuller life for ourselves by embracing the new things God has given to us.
As for this past week... we have been studying the book of 'Mark' from the gospels. It has been a great teaching so far and we can't wait to see how our amazing teacher Steve Cummings unpacks the rest of it. It's so nice to be at this stage in our lives and be blessed with this opportunity to study and learn at this depth. We are understanding new things and ways to perceive them every day! We have been loved on and taken care of from the very beginning of this journey until now and it doesn't look like the love is going anywhere. This is the greatest part of it all: being able to pack up your whole world and what you love, only to get where you're going and be received in love. Wow! What an honour.
On the lighter side of this adventure, we found ourselves at a BlueJays baseball game the other night. The church was holding an event called 'love your city' in which they do something of a grand scale in the community to reach out and love on people and of course the 'city'. The church sold 500 tickets to the game and we filled one entire section. On our end, we couldn't pass up going to the home opener with all these wonderful foreign students for only $12.
What a steal, and what a game! The Jays won 13 - 3! We've been able to get out a bit as well and see the town a little, start to get our bearings a bit, and with the warmer weather on its way we're hoping to get out even more in the months to come. Our internship starts this week as well which will be entertaining. We are going to be interning at a smaller campus in an area called High Park, which is supposed to be quite beautiful. It'll be nice to get out and about a bit more, not to mention we will be able to put some of this new found knowledge to good use ;)I suppose thats the long and short of this past month and a bit, stay tuned for next months blog cause I'm sure it'll be as jam packed as this one was! In fact, the way things have been moving since we got here, probably even more.
We also got to catch up with our dearly missed friends Mark and Hanna and meet their adorable little girls, Sophia and Lucy. Good times were had by all!
Love all of you and still miss you...
The Friesen's
