odd

Today we went to Drumheller. It’s an odd place, but not odd in a bad way. I really liked it. I didn’t really understand what it was like until I saw it; the whole town is in a big valley, along with a few other little towns. Drumheller is home to the world’s largest T-Rex and Alberta’s largest (24-hour) IGA. They have an odd fascination with dinosaurs, which does make sense because of the fossils discovered in their area. The reason it’s odd is because they have statues of dinosaurs all over the place. And murals. And, of course, the Royal Tyrell Museum. We didn’t go there, but we did see the hoodoos. Hoodoos are odd rock formations that are wide on top and thin out near the bottom. They sort of look like mushrooms. They're very cool, and they're all over the place if you take a walk through the badlands. Well, you can't really walk through the badlands, you really have to hike. And jump, and slide if necessary. It's very odd terrain; soft, loose soil, shale, grey clay-like rock, loose grey clay-like rock, hoodoos, endless hills of layered rock, brush full of cacti and prickly plants, interspersed in an odd, seemingly random array of colours and shapes and vegetation. Jonathan, Reneyah and I hiked over the terrain for an hour and a half with a single goal; to get to the odd, 30-foot statue of Jesus on top of one of the hills. I mean, how random is that? Badlands, badlands, badlands, Jesus, badlands. Even more odd is that no one really knows how it got there. It’s at least 30 feet tall, if not 40 feet. It was made with some kind of wire mesh and plaster; someone had to lug all of those supplies up and over the terrain to get it all there and build it in the blistering sun and powerful wind. It can get pretty windy up there.
We also ate at an odd restaurant, where the lady serving us was upset with us for not having bills smaller than a twenty. I mean, she was pretty ticked. We apologized and she told us "Sorry's not good enough!" Maybe she was having a bad day.
Rhonda gave us a tour of the Canadian Badlands Passion Play site; she and Jeremy have worked there the past two summers. It’s quite the site; it’s set in a natural amphitheatre and designed to look like Isreal. It seats three thousand and has a cast of two hundred. I’m hoping to go see it in July; it seems like it would be a great show. I’d have to say that was the least odd part of Drumheller that we saw today.
But you know, I really liked it. It felt real, a little rough around the edges, and oddly endearing. Maybe that means I’m a little odd myself.
I’ve recently bought the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series and am enjoying it immensely. It’s hilarious. If you appreciate wacky humour, you would enjoy it too. In fact, you should go buy it right now. Why are you still sitting there? Go!

There's water in Edmonton, too.

On Wednesday we performed at a funny church in Edson with a funny pastor whose redneck jokes were not so funny. I wore my Birch Bay Ranch hoody and three people asked me if I knew someone they knew from the ranch. Small world!
Thursday we did another Cafe Wycliffe in Spruce Grove. It wasn't as big as the one in Calgary, but I met some great people, one of whom was a female youth pastor in an Anglican church. This trip has really opened my eyes to other denominations; I'm embarrassed to admit that previously, my attitude towards them was flippant at best. I now realize that my ignorance is no excuse to write off an entire section of church history, and that just because a congregation is not Pentecostal does not mean that it does not contribute to the kingdom of God.
Our next show was today at YC. It was so great to be there, cause I saw sooo many people I know! People from the ranch, people from nursing, people from high school, from junior high, from church, from other conferences, from Edson, from Calgary, from Claresholm, from everywhere! I guess it's cause it's home. I've discovered that I really like Edmonton. It's a pretty city; not too busy, but not really sleepy. Lots of festivals, artsy, fairly warm summers. I'm not as familiar with all the nooks and crannies of it as much as I would like to be. When I'm back for good, I think I'd like to learn more about my city. It's definitely not a bad thing to find out that you like your hometown.
It's been a great week in Edmonton. Tomorrow we head to Three Hills. And Reneyah takes quote of the week:
"I love Toronto! There's water there."
Yup. There's water in Edmonton, too.

Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill!

And....I'm back in Edmonton. We had the last week off in Barons, with one show in Medicine Hat. It was a relaxing week; made food, ate food, watched movies, walked around Barons, played Risk, went to Calgary, went to Lethbridge, made up a game called Whack the Pin...and other stuff. Sunday morning we went to a church in Claresholm, and Sunday night we performed at Southside. It was a good show, and I got to see my friends! It was so good to see everyone again. It's interesting to observe how people change and how much I've changed in relation to them. Some a lot; some barely at all. Definitely a difference; but I guess five months would do that to anyone. Monday I got to hang out with my family; it's so great to see people I know. We're in Edmonton all week, so if any of you Edmontonians want to see a show, check out our schedule.
Monday afternoon, we went to my brother's house, and as always, any opportunity to play Settlers of Catan was met with enthusiasm by the team. But this time it was SIX PLAYER! Great fun. I didn't win, but somehow it was easier with six players. Maybe because I was a hopeless case both games.
Today I had the SUPREME priviledge of dealing with school administration. It's been about five months since my last encounter at Grant MacEwan College; now, I have to face the U of A, which is a zillion times bigger. I've already spent five and a half hours trying to fit in the classes I want and I still only have nine courses! Errrg!
I forgot to mention a great moment in my life from last week. I have always loved the show Bill Nye the Science Guy, generating patronizing looks of pity or disgust from my family and friends. Somehow the show came up in conversation, and in fear of the team's disdain, I tentatively mentioned that I liked it. To my exuberant surprise, I found out that both Jeremy and Rhonda like it! And they didn't think I was ridiculously geeky for liking it. So there! To all of you who made fun of me! I'm NOT the only one!
So we hop over to Edson tomorrow, then back in Edmonton area until Sunday. It's been so great to hang out with everyone again. Hope to see you later in the week!

Cafe Wycliffe

After four months of performing the show, you start to notice little differences in each performance. We feel confident enough to laugh at them now, and they're usually small enough that the audience doesn't know the difference. We did, however, have one where a zillion things seemed to go wrong; we were forgetting lines, breaking the stage, adding lines, forgetting entrances, and I was trying to figure out why we were doing so badly when I realized that we hadn't prayed before. I'm convinced that that's why, though it wasn't bad enough to ruin the show or our message. At another show last week, Reneyah thought it would be funny to make me laugh while on stage. Oh, it was hilarious.
I have to say that one of the coolest things on this trip is meeting other missionaries. They tell so many amazing stories and shamelessly promote Wycliffe or mission work in general. We were talking to one man who was telling us about jungle camp in Cameroon, where you camp on the beach and live in a village and all this crazy stuff. He also told us about an area of work called ethnomusicology. These people go and help minority language groups to put scripture into song in their own muscial style. Apparently the music varies hugely over cultures, with things like 12 part harmonies and 7-note scales. Can you imagine? I thought that was the coolest job description; not that I'm a musician or ever will be. Who would have thought that you can do that for a living?
Though I know I'm not called to ethnomusicology, I have rediscovered my calling to missions through this trip. It's not really a question in my mind; I'm going to work on the mission field, either in Canada or elsewhere, with some kind of missions organization. Maybe not for my whole life, but at least for part of it. How awesome is that? I'm so excited about it!
Last Saturday we did a performance for Wycliffe campus ministries; they put on an evening called "Cafe Wycliffe" promoting different areas in which you can get involved. It was a really great evening with a lot of missionaries from all over Wycliffe, targeted at young adults and youth. Plus they had cake and chai tea! They're putting on the same thing in Spruce Grove this coming Thursday (the 26th), 7:00 at Spruce Grove Congregational Church, so if you'd like to see us perform, I reccommend that evening. The rest of our schedule for the week is at the Spread the Word site. We're coming to Edmonton on Sunday and I hope to see you guys there!
Ciao!

awesome.

Friday; a triple-awesome day! We drove out to Calgary and set everything up as usual. I was a little nervous because I knew that Barrett (our director) would be coming to see the show. The show went great, and the audience applauded one of my roles! (awesome #1) I was so excited because that's never happened before. We finished our show, and afterward the missions pastor called us up to the front to pray for us. She dismissed the audience and was thanking us for the show when all of a sudden I saw my sister Erin barreling down the aisle! I screamed and started hugging her, the kind of hug when we knock each other over. Then my long-lost brother Dave (who I hadn't seen in four months) comes and hugs us both! By then I was crying. I was soooo incredibly happy to see them. (awesome #2) Reneyah says she wished she had a video of our reunion. They had driven from Edmonton with Dave's girlfriend, Tessa, and Erin's friend Jeanne (Jeanie?) to see our show. They helped us clean up and gave me a Krispy Kreme donut and we went to Peter's Drive-In and took pictures and Erin gave me a freakin' awesome Jimmy Neutron compass and it was GREAT to see them. And after our show, Barrett said he was really happy with it. (awesome #3) So it was a great day!
This morning we left Calgary bright and early (10:00) and drove to Olds to set up for tomorrow morning's show; then in the afternoon we head to Ponoka. Woohoo!

Alberta!

On our way to Guelph on Friday, we had some time so we stopped in Toronto for a movie. Rhonda had a completely private screening of Miss Congeniality 2 (there was no one else in the theatre) and the rest of us saw Sahara. I really liked it; it was pretty good for a fairly mindless action movie. I mean, don't expect too much more than entertainment. I LOVED the character that Steve Zahn plays in it, but then, I always love the quirky sidekick. We decided that in the Spread the Word movie that will be made about our trip, Jeremy will be the hero, Rhonda will be the love interest, I will be the quirky sidekick, Jonathan will be the gadget guy who can do anything, and Reneyah will be the comic relief.
The next day, we drove through Toronto's Chinatown on our way to Knox Presbyterian church. I've never seen so many people on a street at one time! Maybe on Yonge Street, but somehow this seemed busier. There were street vendors all along the road; selling fruit, vegetables, clothes, pillows out of the back of a van, and a zillion other things with a zillion people milling around and speaking Mandarin. Or possibly Cantonese. At least 95% of the people were Asian.
We performed that night at Knox Presbyterian. This church was something else; it was over a hundred years old. The sanctuary had huge vaulted ceilings and stained-glass windows, with a pipe organ taking up half of the front wall. We didn't perform in the sanctuary, but we did go to church there the next morning. We sang hymns from a hymn book to a pipe organ. Crazy! I'd never done that before!
After church we drove up to Ottawa, stayed the night at Rhonda's parent's place, and flew out the next day. Back to the homeland, where there's no PST or HST, where the oil flows like water, where the trees are few and far between, where the highways are straight and long; that sunny province we call Alberta. There's something odd about seeing something that has always been familiar and yet seems out of place. After two months out east, I was used to seeing blue and black Ontario license plates. Now that I'm in Alberta, the red ones look so weird! But I've been used to them my whole life...it shouldn't look that strange. It's a very odd feeling.
Anyway, we're in Barons until our next show on Friday. It's great to see a familiar building with familiar people for a few days. It is such a blessing for people to allow us into their home, but after a while it's hard to answer the same questions people ask when they first meet you. (where are you from, what do you do, how long have you been on the road, etc.) Eventually I realized that everywhere we go we meet strangers, and we are strangers to them. And I can't wait to go to Edmonton, where the city and the people are familiar! We actually get to spend a whole week there, from the 22nd to the 28th.
As of May 2nd; four months down, two to go.