My day off

After each conference the SoM students get the Monday off, mainly just because we are all completely exhausted! However, I was so stoked to have a day off that I didn't want to waste it all by sleeping (not that sleeping is a waste of time, but I wanted to go and explore somewhere). So at a very bright and early 10:30 Candice and I headed off to Woodbine Mall with Lizzie and Rebeka. So I got shampoo, flip flops (which when I wore them then rubbed my feet raw in 1 minute flat), jelly beans and phone cards. Lizzie also got phone cards and while she was there she made friends with the guy on the stand. We were just chatting and talking about where he was from and what we were doing in Canada, and Lizzie led him to the Lord! It was crazy exciting. She told him the gospel message, the fact that Jesus loves him and wants a relationship with him and all he needs to do is ask Jesus into his life. She asked if he wanted to ask Jesus, he said yes and so we prayed with him and he accepted Jesus. WOW.
So then on the journey home, we got in the taxi and Lizzie struck up a new conversation with the cab driver.
Every time I complain to God that I don't know how to talk to strangers he reminds me that I have seen Lizzie do it a ton of times. We went to Tim Horton's once and when she came to join us with her drink, she already knew where the server was from and how many kids he had! She has an amazing talent for talking to people.
So she started up “So what's your name?”
“Kingsley”
“So Kingsley are you are believer?”
“A believer? A believer in what? God?”
“Yes”
“Of course”
“So do you have a personal relationship with him?”
“You can have that?”
Oh my word, if there was an evangelism text book I think that would be one of the examples you never expected to get! We of course lept on this golden opportunity to tell him all about the fact that you can have a personal relationship with Jesus, because of what he did on the cross. All you need to do is believe that he died for the sin in our lives, the things that separate us from God and ask him to come into your life. Tell him you know that your way doesn't work and that you want his way. Kingsley had grown up in a Catholic background but hadn't ever really know God and walked away from him. So we asked if he wanted to start walking with Jesus and he said yes. So we sat in front of the SoM building for about 10 minutes talking to him, answering his questions and praying with him.
So there we were, lunch time and I had just been a part of two people becoming Christians! Completely unrequested, both guys had given us their numbers, so Lizzie has been in contact to invite them along to TACF and stuff- so we didn't tell them the gospel and leave them stranded. My goal now is to not make such things any less exciting, but for them not to be so much of a surprise. I want to see people come to Jesus more often!

After lunch we once again rallied the troops and a group of us sauntered down to the bus stop on the start of our adventure to Toronto Island. Well I saw we sauntered, 5 of us sauntered, the last of our member was doing more of a hobble. Poor old Mark was helping set up at his church on Sunday morning and had the 120 pound sound board fall on his foot. He then spent the rest of the morning in casualty. It wasn't broken, but even with a bruised foot I thought he was a bit silly to come on such a long trip, but he insisted. So equipped with a pair of borrowed crutches, old hobble-along joined us on the adventure. To get to the Island is not a hard journey, but it is reasonably long. We took the number 58 bus to the end of the route, the subway to the bottom of the loop, we then had a 10 minute walk to the lake shore and a beautiful voyage across the waters to the Island.
It was one of those times when I truly felt that the atmosphere changed the way I was thinking. I felt alive, there was grass and green and water and ducks and trees and squirrels and birds. It was amazing. So we wandered by the water, swang on the swings, got lost in the maze and strolled along the pier. The pier was strange because the island is on Lake Ontario, however the lake is so huge that it looks like it's the sea. However, seeing swans swimming in the shallows and having fresh water blown in your face rather than salt water, was very strange. We also played pooh-sticks over the slowest moving piece of water I've ever tried to play it on. We must have been standing for about 10 minutes waiting for the sticks to come under the bridge, but it was hilarious fun.
At 6:45 we jumped back on the ferry and headed back to the mainland. We were all flaking a bit by this point (some more than other's), but were all starving, so we wandered and hobbled to find food. We settled on Jack Astor's for dinner, and although the restaurant was far too loud, making ti quite hard to talk to one another, we all had fun. The table cloth was a nice long strip of brown paper and on every table was a pot of crayons! So we were all drawing little pictures on the table cloth while we were waiting for our food. After a hearty meal, we were all stuffed to the brim, so we rolled back onto the subway and headed home, ready for a thoroughly good sleep!