P.A.T.H. Training • day (sixty one)

P.A.T.H. Training • day (sixty)

P.A.T.H. Training • day (fifty seven)

P.A.T.H. Training • day (fifty five)

We're in the final week of our P.A.T.H. training, we have been finishing up the classes with a module on Church Planting and Team Roles. We've all begun to think about getting back to our fields and getting to work, there will certainly be lots to do back home. We will finish classes tomorrow and wind up our training with a debrief and worship service on Friday.

On Saturday morning we'll be up early and on the road back to Prince Albert where we'll spend the weekend. After some meetings on Monday we'll be off again to Saskatoon to fly out on Tuesday morning!

For those of you who have been watching the video blogs, I've been posting them almost daily during our training, but will be reducing them to once a week from here on out. I hope they have given you a bit of a picture of our experience here at P.A.T.H. training.

It's been an interesting time here and I'll give a bit of a summary on the weekend. For now, have a great day and watch for tomorrow's video :0)

P.A.T.H. Training • day (fifty four)

P.A.T.H. Training • day (fifty three)

P.A.T.H. Training • Urban Impact Part 2

P.A.T.H. Training • Urban Impact Week

It's been quite a week. The "Urban Impact" module of our P.A.T.H. training took us to the streets of Regina. We spent eight days in North Central Regina at the Healing Hearts Ministry. Healing Hearts is, among other things, a church serving a community that struggles with poverty, gangs, prostitution and homelessness. The ministries vary as greatly as the needs.

We had the opportunity this week to see and experience many of the things a person might experience coming to the city for the first time. We had a chance to experience the Love Lives Here ministry, which was a very impactful opportunity for all of us. The bus travels the streets of North Central Regina every Saturday night and offers, food and hot drinks to anyone who wants them. Some come simply for the food, but many come for prayer and encouragement. I had the chance to chat with a guy who was really struggling to get his life sorted out, he wanted very much to complete his GED and move into a career. I had the opportunity to pray with him before he left the bus. There were quite a lot of women that got on the bus and the ladies had opportunity to share with them and just listen to what they wanted to unload.

On Sunday night we had the opportunity to meet a couple of ex-gang members as they shared with us their stories of gang life and the struggle to escape. Throughout the week we were able to visit homeless shelters, assistant agencies, soup kitchens and a hostel. On Wednesday the men were tasked to spend a night "on the street", we had a lot of opportunities to experience some of the challenges of street life and I think I can safely say we all enjoyed the challenge.

The week was quite unique and offered some interesting opportunities for learning. I, of course took along my camera and tried discretely to film some vLog updates. I was wary of being perceived as a "tourist" and so had along a fairly small camera that fit into my pocket... an unfortunate side effect of this is exceptionally poor video quality, but nevertheless there is a video. Such as it is, here is part one!

P.A.T.H. Training • day (forty three)

Today is the last day before we leave for the Urban Ministry module in Regina. We are not sure what the module will entail exactly, it seems to be a surprise. But we're hoping for a wonderful experience.

We'll all be finishing packing and moving all of our belongings once again as we vacate the Nipawin Bible College campus. This second 'eviction' is to accommodate another group that will be living in the dorm while we're away. All of the trainees will be storing their belongings in an empty building while at the Urban or Wilderness Trails modules. The mothers will be living in an apartment on campus while we're away.

There will be no internet access while we're in Regine so this is the last blog entry until the end of next week. So tune in again then to find out how 'Urban' was!

P.A.T.H. Training • day (forty two)

Perhaps next time I'll not do a video from under the yellow light on our porch. Sorry for the yellow Jan!

P.A.T.H. Training • day (forty one)

A bit of fun, everybody chipped in for this one!

P.A.T.H. Training • day (forty)

Okay, so the inevitable discrepancy has arisen between the day numbers on the video and blog titles... although the video brazenly claims we are on day 39 we are indeed actually on day 40... we apologize for this error and promise to fire everyone in the numbering department after a full investigation.

P.A.T.H. Training • day (thirty nine)

P.A.T.H. Training • day (thirty eight)

P.A.T.H. Training • day (thirty seven)

Today we enjoyed the de-institutionalizing ministry module with Dan Woodard. Some of the NCEM executive came from Prince Albert to take part, it was a nice surprise to have them here and be able to spend some time with them.

P.A.T.H. Training • day (thirty six)

P.A.T.H. Training • day (thirty five)

P.A.T.H. Training • day (thirty four)

P.A.T.H. Training • day (thirty three)

We're back in the swing of things (sort of), yesterday we were all able to return to campus and unpack again. We and Jan checked out of our hotel rooms at about 10am and were on campus shortly after. Doug Nelson let us into the admin building to unload our weekend luggage and those of us on campus went to a local diner for some lunch. When we came back we found that the group using the campus for the weekend had finished and gone. So we were able to move back into our rooms early, which was nice. Doug helped us ferry our bags from the admin building and we got ourselves settled in. By supper time everyone had returned and we all ate together and finished settling in for the evening. Unfortunately the moving in and out has been quite disruptive to all of the various aspects of our training, and although a break from routine, was perhaps less restful than remaining on campus might have been. It is nice to be back together with everyone!

Today will be our first day of classes this week, the new module is "Indigenous Church Principles" with Merle Nisly from Living Hope Ministries. Because we lost a day of class time yesterday we will be doing double duty on Friday with one full day module instead of two half days.

We're looking forward to the new week, and what we will learn in the new module.

A shot from the balcony of our Motel, it's like a peek into a 60 year old postcard.

P.A.T.H. Training • day (thirty)