Day 5 to 8

Day 5 (Saturday 26 June)
On Saturday we went to the Richmond Hill Grill and Chill, mainly for the worship team to lead some worship. They were going to have barbeque and various acitvites, but because it was raining, there were not as many people as they expected, and we could not be outside for the barbeque. They had some people outside to barbeque the food and bring it in, it was pretty good! We had a watermelon competition, but the only one in our mission team who managed to finish the watermelon at all was Minh Thu.

Preparing for worship. Gloria is with the Sunny side up kids.

After eating we went to the main church building to play dodgeball with the other youth. It was decent fun, played for quite a while before we finished for the day. Jim Chen came by to visit us too with his tiny son.

After the Grill and Chill we went home for a shower and then bought some takeaway from T&T to Ho-Ming’s house to have worship practice. The ones who didn’t practice watched Ho-Ming’s kids and tried to keep them from crying or disturbing those who were practicing. We also played some Street Fighter VI, which is a ridiculously difficult game even on the easy difficulty.

Day 6 (Sunday 27 June)
Today we went to tons of church services! At 9:00 in the morning Leon and Tina went to the Mandarin service, while the rest of us went to the youth service. Then at 11:00 me and Tina went to the English service, Leon, Elin and Minh Thu went to the Cantonese service, and the others stayed for the second youth service. At 11:50 Tina, Elizabeth, Nina and Hanfeng went to Barrie Christian Community Church for a Mandarin fellowship. Tore, Johan, Leon, Vilhelm, Enoch, Elin and Minh Thu stayed behind in our respective church services, and we went up to the office to eat KFC takeaway. The KFC bucket was huuuge! Then we went to Aurora Christian Community Church to share a bit and join their youth and children’s fellowship.

The worship teams from RHCCC were quite good. And the sermon at the English service was pretty interesting. It was about families in the bible, saying how many of Abraham’s ancestor’s families who actually had a lot of family trouble, but in the end God still used them to do his work. I think the point being made was that we shouldn’t be so focused on troubles in our families that we forget about letting God use us for doing his work.

The first youth service didn’t have so many youth, maybe around 30-40 people, but on the second youth service the room was almost full (or so I heard). In both of the youth services we lead the worship and then had three team members share our testimonies to the youth, with Ho-Ming talking briefly to start and finish the services. We later heard from Gloria, a church intern, that one girl went to her to ask about the gospel after the 9:00 youth service, and that girl decided to accept Christ, which is pretty touching!

Aurora Christian Community Church is a “child church” of RHCCC, and was made in an industrial part of Toronto, to acommodate for the famlies who were living there. It was a smaller church and had many young families from China, there were lots of little kids at the Sunday school! The youth service didn’t have so many people when we went, because it was vacation or so.

Barrie Christian Community Church is a small church with mainly Mandarin-speaking Chinese. The church was probably smaller than our church in Oslo. The team members that went there weren’t sure, but I’m guessing that it is also a “child church” of RHCCC, since they sent us there.

After all the church services we went First Markham Place with Ho-Ming’s parents (since Ho-Ming was busy and we needed a ride), and we walked around a bit and then ate at the food court there.

Great food offers at Markham place!

 
Final photos with Ho-Ming’s parents.

Day 7 (Monday 28 June)
We went to Wonderland with Ethan, Scott, Jeremy and Janice(?)! It was superexpensive and they try to extort money from you every way they can. You are not allowed to bring any snacks or food or soft drinks, only water (and candy) was allowed. Additionally you are forced to pay for a two-day ticket, which they called a single-day ticket with an “extra day for free”. Parking costs 10$, and pastor Ivy also accidentally drove to the parking lot instead of the dropoff point, and had to pay 10$ because she couldn’t drive out without going through the parking lot.

It was pretty fun though, they have a lot of rollercoasters, and we took the two water rides which made us completely soaked, making the heat more bearable. Some of us ate a giant cookiewich, which was soft-ice cream layered between two giant cookies, with chocolate pieces on the side. The thing was probably bigger than a Big Mac, and it’s probably the first time some food I bought is bigger than the example they have in the photo! I was the only one who actually ate the whole thing by myself.

At night we went to Maison du Japon for a sushi buffet dinner with Ho-Ming and his family. It was okay, nothing spectacular, but got pretty full in any case. Gloria also joined us for the dinner. Then we went to Ho-Ming and his parents place to get our luggage and to say our final goodbyes, before we went to Ivy’s place.

Day 8 (Tuesday 29 June)
On our first day with pastor Ivy we went to her office to have some briefing about our schedule for our weeks with her. After that we ate at The Dumpling King for lunch, before going to Yorkdale for shopping. It’s a huge mall, but it didn’t really have more stores than “normal European” malls, it’s just that the stores were all bigger. The iPad was still sold out though.

After shopping we went back to Ivy’s place to do a bit of practice and preparation, then we went to Chako Barbeque for Korean BBQ!

Photos 25.-27. June

Workshop with pastor Kelly

The Nexus fellowship

Preparing for Sunday service worship

Eating KFC at church

The youth at the Aurora church

Eating at First Markham Place

Day 4

Today we started off the day with sharing at RHCCC with the staff and pastors. We had worship and shared a few testimoneys and about our church. It went very well, and all the staff were very kind! There are so many pastors at RHCCC that I can't even remember all the names!

Later on we had a worshop with Pastor Kelly, she told us about how the Agape youth group was organized, what co-ordinators there were and so on. It was very interesting, the whole concept of the church sounded kinda like a big business organization somehow. But this is required when they got such a big church!

Later on we had a workshop with Pastor Ray, about Bible study. We learned how we should lead bible studies. Different techniques and values we should be aware of. It was really good! Pastor Ray made me realize alot of things I never thought of. And we will bring all that we learned back to Norway and use it! I'm kinda excited of getting back and lead another bible study now :)

During the evening we split up into two different youth groups! One mandarin/english youth group and another one with only cantonese youths. They were named agape and nexus.

Me myself went to the Nexus one, and we had games and bbq with the youths. It was really interesting. The atmopshere and the people made me feel like I was in Hong Kong! We also shared a testimony after the bbq, before we left church for the day and went back home!

Noch.

DAY 3

Today it was raining a lot at in the early morning. It didn't last long though, and the sun came out after about 8 o'clock, thank God for that!

Our plan for the day was to take the bus into Downtown Toronto to visit Evergreen, which is one of the many centers formed by the "Yonge Street Misson". There, we goto a lot of information about what they do. Their purpose is to help homeless youths and give them hope and encouragement, and show them that there are people out there who cares for them ad wants to help them unconditionally.
At the center they have three departments for the youths, it's the drop-in center where get hot meals everyday, they also get access to computers, telephones (for free), then there is the health center (medical care, dental care, optometry, psychiatry, physiotherapy, child care) and last there is the employment resource center. This is were they help the youths get off the streets by helping them get a place to stay (an apartment perhaps) and educate them and prepare and train them for getting a job.
After we learned about 2 hours worth of information, we were divided into different groups. Two of us were sent to talk to people waiting in line for health care, another two of us were sent to the computer room, another pair were in the entrance welcoming people, and the rest served lunch in the main hall.

After helping out in the center, Lina, a very sweet and friendly lady, took us on a guide to many other buildings that belong to "Yonge Street Mission".
It was amazing to see how much God is working through these people. They give so much just for the joy of giving and helping other people. Knowing that they can help brings them so much joy.


After the tour, we were free to go shopping!!! After a loooong day we retired back to Ho-Ming's place (well, at least us girls) and practiced worship for the session early on Friday (tomorrow).

PS. If u want to know more yonge street mission, this will help u: http://www.ysm.ca/
xoxo

Day 2 - Night

After breakfast today we went to Ho-Ming Tsui’s church, RHCCC, and he gave us a tour around their huge church building. We greeted some of their pastors, walked around in their mazelike basement and had a look at their old and new sanctuaries. We were told that technical equipment in the new, big sanctuary uses 500 Canadian dollars worth of electrical power whenever it’s turned on (or used during a sermon, don’t quite remember)!

Rendezvousing with the girls at the church

Pastor Ho-Ming showing us the church’s emergency exits on the church map. Or is he…?

After the tour we had dim sum for lunch at the Emperor Fine Chinese Cuisine restaurant. It was pretty good!

 
Dim sum!

Then we had a workshop called Scripture-Driven Worship with Shu-Ling Lee back at the church. The workshop was interesting, he taught us a lot that we hadn’t thought much about before! After the workshop he joined us for a bit on our worship practice, giving the worship team some hints and tips. I was playing around with my phone, trying to stream a video on Qik, but it didn’t work. I guess they must have put up some firewall or filter on the church’s internet connection. Uploaded one of the videos to YouTube instead:

After the worship practice we went to pastor Kelly Tam’s house for dinner. Ho-Ming’s family was also there.

Ho-Ming’s kids.

We had a team meeting at their place after dinner, where we talked a bit about our schedule for the week. Then we split up, the girls went back to Ho-Ming’s place to sleep, and the boys tried to go to T&T, but we failed to find the place, and ended up going to a FoodyMart that we happened to pass on our way back home to Ho-Ming’s parents’ house.

Welcome to FoodyMart!

After we got home we were invited out again by pastor Ivy Milanowski, went to Go for Tea for some bubble tea (and cake). Her husband Glenn also went with us. Tried out Peppermint Milk Green Tea, which tasted slightly like toothpaste. According to some people it tasted worse as they drank it, but I guess I drank it so quickly that I didn’t notice. I thought it was pretty refreshing.

 
Having fancy toothpaste tea. Oh the black thing you can kind of see on the back of the standing menu thing is actually a remote control for calling a waiter over to our table.

The weather was pretty hot today, according to Shu-Ling it was usually not this hot in Toronto. Weather.com says it was around 24°C, so not that hot, but the humidity makes it feel a lot worse… Oh also there was a earthquake today! Unfortunately we didn’t notice it, either because we were driving while it happened, or because we were on ground level or outside so it wasn’t as noticable.

Day 2 - Morning

Don't really feel jet-lagged, got up at 7:30 Toronto time. Just a friendly reminder - If you fly Iceland Air Economy class, THERE'S NO FOOD! So on the flight back we shall remember to bring food. Man, what a bummer.

There are lots of swimming pools in Toronto.

Day 1 - Arrived

We have arrived safely to Toronto! Tired and hungry, but safe :) We met up with Pastor Ho-Ming and Pastor Ivy, ate our first dinner at Congee Queen. We write more tomorrow, everyone is tired, we need sleep :S it's 5 o'clock in the morning in scandinavia. Hope we wont jetlagg.. Good night.

E

Day 1 - Flight across the volcano

In just a few hours time we are going to fly to Iceland, the birthplace of the volcanic ash that paralyzed european air traffic not too long ago. Hope for a smooth flight!

Why we're going to Canada

Strike over - Airport security back to normal

The strikers managed to come to an agreement late last night, and so all striking employees are returning to their regular work schedule from Sunday morning. Thank God, we don't need to worry about this for our flight to Toronto at least. Only two days left now!

Strike over (Dagbladet)

About SCCC in Oslo

Tina's testimony (English)

I grew up in a Buddhist country - China, so I have always been open for things about God. In the beginning I went to Church because my mom went to church, and people in church are very nice. And there was a young lady (my leader) who has been very patient with me, and answered me a lot of questions I had about Christianity. So I wanted to get baptised, and I believed that this God loves people, he sent his only son Jesus to the earth and died for our wrong deeds. So becoming a Christian was a decision I made which I felt was right.

17th of May in Norway

Leon's testimony

My name is Leon, and I was born and raised in Oslo, Norway, and my parents are from Hong Kong.

My mom used to take me to church from when I was very young. Norway is a Christian country, so during Easter and Christmas the primary school kids have to either go to church or do something at school, usually involving eating candy, and I always chose to go to church even though it was really boring, because for me being a Christian meant I had to go to church, and I considered myself as one.

Strike causes problems at airports

Because of a strike among security guards in Norway, several airports in Norway are currently expecting long lines at the security control. Hopefully this will only make us have to wait longer in line and won't hinder us in getting our flight. Please pray for this situation.

Store problemer for flytrafikken (VG)

Johan's testimony

Sometimes, I really wish I could just be left alone.

That’s basically what I’ve been feeling for a long time, both before and after I became a Christian. It’s really difficult to be around people. You have to pretend to be interested in whatever they’re saying. You have to try and have some interesting things to say yourself. You have to consider other people’s wants and needs, instead of just doing whatever you want to do yourself.

Enoch's testimony

Before I became a Christian I had alot of questions about God's existence. This world couldn't possible have a God, there are too much suffering and bad things in this world. There are too many unanswered questions about this God thing.

I was born in Sweden and went to church around once a month with my parents, because the church we went to were in another city. I was going to sunday school, playing with my friends in church. All the stories about Jesus was just stories for me.

Tina's testimony (Chinese)

大家好，我的名字叫TINA，中文名字叫孙思佳。21岁.　我也是从挪威华人教会来的。　从来没有来过加拿大，　所以觉得很开心来到这里，有一次短宣的机会。　我其实从来没有在那么多人面前讲过话，也很害怕，可能是因为我是出生在上海，　１３岁才搬去挪威，从小受到的教育就是只听老师的讲话，不像在国外，学校会有很多机会到台上做PRESENTATION。但是我的神可以帮助我战胜恐惧.

今天我想和你们分享我的见证，关于为什么我会信耶稣。我一开始去教会是因为我妈妈是基督徒，我刚刚到挪威的时候并不认识任何人，我妈妈觉得我能在教会找到朋友。我知道有些人会对关于神的事情，或者是对国外的宗教很排斥，但是我没有。在这方面我和开放，所以我愿意去听，去了解他们的信仰。其实一开始我根本听不太懂什么，但是我记得一个传道人姐姐她对我很有耐心，与我分享了她的信神经过，我当时会问她很多关于基督教问题，她对我真的是很有耐心，还有她的好的行为，让我相 信 她说的话。半年以后, 我决定要受洗，我妈妈还劝我等等. 太小, 当时很坚 决 的要受洗, 因为我相信有个爱我的神，为我预备了基督，为我的错死!　

Nina's testimony

My name is Nina, I am 17 years old and I want to share my testimony with you today. I want to share it with you because I really hope that some of you might connect with the situations I've been through, and that hopefully, some of you might want to have a relationship with God.

So long story short: I grew up in a Christian family, went to Sunday school every Sunday and had fun. This grew boring as a became older, shy as I was at the time I took my little sister with me to join the youth group and it's been my family ever since. I became a Christian very gradually. What really sped up the process, was when God at a summer camp spoke to me through music. Music has always been a big part of my life. I play various of instruments and I sing, so when God gave me the task to lead worship in church I took it. And I've been a worship leader and a Christian ever since.

Elizabeth's testimony

Hi, my name is Elizabeth and I’m fifteen years old. Today I want to share my testimony with you and tell you about how Jesus has affected me and my perspective of life.

So I grew up in a Christian family. My parents took me and my siblings to church since I was little, and I attended Sunday school. At the beginning it was fun and I really enjoyed it. They used dolls and stuffed animals to teach us bible verses, and at the end we always got cookies and candies and stuff. But after a while, when I was around ten – eleven years old, it started to get boring. I kind of outgrew the things they did and I thought it was too childish. It led to me always trying to come up with excuses not to go to church with my parents, and eventually I quit going.

Elin's testimony

My name is Elin, and I am currently studying in England. I was brought up in Sweden, and I live in Norway.

As many of us, I was also brought up in a Christian family. I knew about the different stories in the Bible at young age, but did not understand the significance of them or of God.

When I was 12 I was asked to make a commitment to God, and I got baptised shortly after. One of the leaders asked us whether we wanted to be on God's side or our own side, and I choose to be on God's side. It was not until 2005 when I realised how my life had to be changed and how I had to start living my life differently.

Tore's testimony

My name is Tore, I'm 23 years old and I'm living in Oslo. I will share with you how I got to know Christ and how my life with Him is now.

I was born in a non-Christian family - my mother was an atheist and my father a buddhist. My father converted to Christianity when I was about 8 years old or so, and started taking me to church. It was really boring for me as it was a Chinese church and I don't understand Chinese, the only good thing about going to church was that we got juice and cookies after the service was over. After a little while being in the church I started to attend the sunday school, that was a lot better. I met new friends, we had games and story telling from the Bible, but it didn't mean anything to me, and after a while it got boring, my father had to drag me to church. Growing up I did some wrong stuff with my friends, skipped school, set the woods on fire and stole from the store, but I always ended up being caught. It could be a coincidence, but for me it feels like God stopped me everytime when I look back on it.

Our testimonies

The reason we go to Canada is not simply because we want to have fun and eat sushi buffet - We've all had experiences with God in our lives, that make us want to share His love with other people. We go on this mission trip not because we think we are better than other people and so we shall go and tell them what they should or shouldn't do - We go because we have all experienced how God loved us when we were unworthy of being loved, and we want to share how we've experienced Him in our lives. Over the next few days we will share some of the stories of how we came to know Christ.

Only 17 days left!

Only 17 days left before we are going to Toronto! This summer 12 young people from Scandinavian Chinese Christian Church (SCCC) in Oslo will be traveling to Toronto, and work with two churches, Richmond Hill Chinese Community Church (RHCCC) with Pastor Ho-Ming and East Toronto Mandarin Alliance Church (ETMAC) with Pastor Ivy. Tickets are booked, and planning has started. We will be sharing testimonies and meeting new people, and hopefully be good witnesses for Christ!

Prayer requests:

• Focus on God
• Safe travel
• Enough money to cover expenses