It's Official!

I finally purchased my airline ticket to Haiti! I'll be taking the train down to Chicago on October 17th and spending a few days visiting a friend of mine, Salome Burgin, who is a student at Moody Bible Institute. Then I fly to Port au Prince, Haiti on the 20th of October. I can hardly wait to see all my old friends again, both in Chicago and in Haiti!
It's amazing, but as big as the world is, it can seem really small because it's so connected!

It's Fall!

It's true that it's fall, but I sure was appreciative of the good weather today! I think because I work outside all day, I really appreciate the nice weather so much more so than if I spent most of my day indoors!

I posted a picture of this flower because it reminds me of summer... which is long over by now. The good news is that I have a lot to look forward to this fall! Plans are getting further underway for my trip to Haiti. I'm really looking forward to being back in Haiti and diving right back into the Haitian culture and language!

As usual, my time here in Canada is far from slow and boring. After a lot of effort, my prayer letter is finally finished and I'll be getting it out to the last of the people on my list, tomorrow night. It's nice to know that that's out of the way! :o) This weekend, I'll be driving up to London, Ontario to visit a couple friends of mine from camp... their camp names are Xena and Confetti. It's so fun having camp names... no one outside of camp ever know who I'm talking about though! haha! Anyways, I'm going to be spending the night at Xena's house, so I'm really looking forward to that time of catching up with each other! Until then, I'm working ten hour days at the nursery, trying to get as many hours in as I can, before I leave for Haiti. I guess it just helps me look forward to the weekend that much more!

Heritage Retreat

My weekend cooking for Heritage Bible College's fall retreat, seemed to just fly by! I had a great time getting to know all the first-year students as well as seeing some old friends from when I was at Heritage a couple years ago. That's one thing that I really love about working in the kitchen... I have the chance to meet so many people. All the students took turns helping out in the kitchen, either with prep. work or with clean-up, so I had the chance to literally meet everyone!

It was actually even a nice retreat weekend for me, even though I was working. I absolutely loved being back at work in the kitchen, and it even sort-of felt like it was camp season again... except the kitchen crew were much taller this weekend! haha!
One of my favourite parts of the weekend was by far when we all had communion on the beach, Sunday morning. It was a really calm morning and just being there on the beach, surrounded by creation, and taking communion with my brothers and sisters in Christ... it was very spiritually enriching! I was really reminded of how grateful I am for the body of Christ, and that even though I didn't meet a lot of those people until that weekend, they are still my family and it was nice to feel so connected to them right away.

After everyone left on Sunday around noon, I decided to go down to the boat house and have a nap. I brought a mattress out onto the porch and fell asleep with the cool breeze on my face and the sound of the waves in my ears. Only things was... I half woke up at one point and I remember hitting my head and thinking there was a fly that kept trying to land on me. Then I just went back to sleep. When I woke up a few hours later, there were four dead flies on my mattress, right around my head. I don't know how they got there. My only guess is that I must've been killing them in my sleep... apparently working in the camp kitchen gave me good fly- swatting skills! lol

Cooking at Camp

I sortof had to laugh at myself tonight. Here I was, two weeks after camp's finished and everyone's gone back to school, and I was still cooking in the kitchen... wearing my camp kitchen apron and singing along to all the old music from the summer... at midnight!
I wasn't just cooking for fun though. I was making snacks for the retreat that's coming this weekend. It's the Heritage College in Cambridge that will be here this weekend and I'm heading up the kitchen.
Since I was a student at Heritage a couple years ago, I'm looking forward to seeing some old friends again, as well as making some new ones.
It's promising to be a great weekend!

I'm a model...haha!

You might think that I'm just joking when I say I'm a model, but I'm not. It's true that I'm not a model, by profession, but I did just do some modeling for a gardening magazine... hehe!

It was actually very exciting and a lot of fun! A good friend of mine, Cynthia Cook, owns an Herb Farm and she received a call from a gardening magazine, back in July, asking if they could come out and take some pictures. They're doing an article on edible flowers and another article on teas. So, They came out to the farm yesterday, and we did a mock tea party for them and they took what seemed like a million pictures! I'm not gonna lie, I love having my picture taken, so I had a great time!

The magazine edition with the article on edible flowers will be out in June and the article on teas will be out next September/October. I can hardly wait to see it when it's all put together!

Check out Cynthia's website for the Herb Farm!
www.forestglenherbfarm.com

Weekend at Home

Well, it's my parents anniversary on the 15th, and so part of my gift to them was to stay with my brother for the weekend, while they took off to Stratford. I think it was good for them to have the chance to get away for a weekend and see a couple plays. They just got home this afternoon and said they had a really good time.
As for me, I spent the weekend driving my brother to work and to youth group. Since Ian works in Sarnia, it was a good chance for me to get some much-needed shopping done. I got a bunch of groceries that I really needed, as well as some things for my time in Haiti... some of which, included three sun-hats, that I got on sale for only 99cents each! I was pretty excited about that deal, to say the least!!! It always amazes me how God provides for things, sometimes before I even ask or realize I need something!

Things are getting further underway for my return to Haiti. I handed in my letter to the missions committee at my church, explaining to them all that I'll be doing when I go back to Haiti, so now I need to get my prayer letter out and speak in church and all that fun stuff. Please pray that God will provide the funding that is needed for my time in Haiti. I'm trusting that He will provide for whatever He asks me to do and I'm looking forward to watching Him do that as I prepare for my current adventure!

Leftovers

I really didn't think I'd say this so soon, but I really do miss camp food! I miss having three buffet meals a day, dessert after lunch and dinner... plus the fact that since I worked in the kitchen I got to snack whenever I wanted and I also got to eat all the cookie dough and brownie batter I could possibly want in a summer. I have to admit, that although the menu was extremely repetitive for nine weeks straight, it was really good.

I haven't done any grocery shopping yet, cuz I figure there's still food in the camp fridge to be eaten up. Unfortunately, there were a LOT of leftovers from our core staff party last Friday night, and I"m still eating chicken wings and lasagna that's now five days old. I had leftover hamburgers for breakfast on saturday, lunch on sunday (cuz my church had a b-b-q), and for dinner on sunday, cuz the family that had their family reunion at camp invited me to join them for their hamburger dinner. Then I had hamburgers for breakfast again on Tuesday morning. Plus, I'd already eaten leftover hamburgers every day of the last week of camp. So, considering the amount of hamburgers I've eaten lately, the lasagna once a day doesn't sound so bad... and the chicken wings I had for supper again really weren't that bad, considering they're five days old. It's all perspective... haha

Just thought I'd share these random thoughts with you. Tomorrow, I'm making tacos. Campbell and I decided that we wanted a real meal, instead of leftovers all the time. So, tomorrow's the big day... hope is on the horizon... and boy am I ever looking forward to those tacos... my mouth is watering already!

Huronview Nurseries

Well, I finished my first day back at Huronview Nurseries. I'll be working here until I leave for Haiti, probably around the middle of October. I was glad the weather was nice today. I'd heard that it might rain, but fortunately for me, the rain held off and it turned out to be a beautiful day, at a very comfortable temperature. I'm really enjoying living out at camp in the off season. It's nice to be continuously surrounded by so much wildlife.
Well, that's it for now.
Hopefully, the weather at work will be just as nice tomorrow as it was today...! 

Summer's Over!

This has definitely been the best summer I've had in years! I've made some really great memories and some even greater friends. Although the schedule has kept me insanely busy and I've barely even had time to sleep, I've absolutely loved cooking out at Forest Cliff Camp.
I thought I'd post a few pictures so you can get somewhat of an idea the things that go on in the kitchen and see some of the people that I've had the opportunity to work with this summer. The first picture is of me icing the cinnamon buns, that we have for breakfast every Wednesday morning and then the next picture is of me and the week seven guys, getting the roast beef ready to go in the oven.
I kindof like this picture of me with my 'mom hat' on, because it became a really souvenir of week seven, when the guys that were in the kitchen all changed their camp names, and then changed my camp name from 'Carrots' to 'Mom'. It was really a great week with lots of very memorable times! In this particular picture, I'm making the gravy for the roast beef dinner.
Of course, I can't forget my kitchen crew girls. The kitchen crew are such a big part of what goes on in the kitchen, because they serve all the food to the staff and campers, and then they even do all the dishes. If it wasn't for the kitchen crew, us cooks would NEVER leave the kitchen! This picture was taken at the luou on Thursday night of week seven. It was an all-girl kitchen crew that week, and boy was it ever a lot of fun!

Things have definitely wound down around here. I'm still living at camp, even though the summer program is officially over. I've moved all my things into what is considered the 'Nurse's Station', during the summer. It's nice to be living in an insulated building again. The trailer's been kindof cold lately and those racoons can be really loud at night. I've finally received confirmation that I will be returning to Haiti to teach English as a second language, with Haiti ARISE. I'll most likely be headed back down in the middle of October. I'm really looking forward to spending the rest of the school year down there and having the opportunity to really get to know the people there. Please continue to pray for me as I prepare for this trip. Please pray that God will provide all that I need financially, and also that I will be emotionally and spiritually ready for all that lies ahead. Thank you all, once again, for all your prayers and support. Now that camp's over, I should be able to keep this blog more updated, so keep checking in!