Valentines day.

This week has been packed full of stuff! We had sessions on Conflict Resolutions, Personalities, God and Money and Suffering. It was all really good, but all a bit random at the same time. Each session in and of itself was great, but it was on a wide variety of topics. But again, I took lots of notes so I can go and look back when necessary. That'll be good to have. Then on Valentines day we didn't have any sessions, except for worship in the morning. That was just what was needed, for me anyways. Because I always think that Valentines is sort of overrated, but it was good to re-focus and be reminded of who my love is on that day (and every day!!!). Then in the afternoon we got things ready and then we went to this park in the rough part of Abbotsford and handed out roses and candy to people. It was so awesome to see people, especially the women, faces light up when they say the roses. Like I would walk up to a woman and she would just smile when she saw the roses, and then the look in her eyes when I would hand one to her was priceless. A common response to it was that it was more than they would get from their husbands. The look in their eyes were of being thankful, and also that they felt special. And those looks were worth more than a thousand words.

I got the chance to talk to a couple of people, Ashley and Wesley. Ashley told us how she was a drug addict and that she had just gotten out of the hospital because she overdosed again. She began to cry and asked us if we had ever done dope before. You could tell that her brain was pretty fryed from doing so many drugs. It was really sad. Eventually she kind of started to walk away and we walked along with her. She began to tell Amy (one of the Interns) how she had been abused, physically and sexually, and that is why she began to do drugs. It was really sad.

And then we also talked to this guy named Wesley. Amy was explaning to him what TREK was, because he had asked what we were doing and why we were doing it , and I guess where we were from. And as she was explaning, he began to say something like "That's great you know, because the Harvest is plenty and the Workers are few". He kept spouting off bible verses, and said that he believed and trusted in God. And that throughout the years he had been on and off of drugs, but that he know God was with him through it all. He told me that he had memorized big chunks of scripture, like a big part of Matthew, and he started saying it, but he was a little rusty. And then just as we were about to leave, I told her I would be praying for him, and I guess he saw that look of feeling a bit sorry for him. I just hate to see people hurting or anything. And then he looked at me and said "Sweetie, don't you worry about me, because I know that God will provide for me. I know that I'll be ok." It was so cool because he had such a huge faith, bigger than I usually do.

I think that being there and handing out roses on Valentines day was possibly the best thing we could have done. It was so wondeful to be able to share God's love in that way.

I also took some pretty pictures of the roses that we were giving on the way to the park. Some of them actually turned out pretty good!!!