Urban Promise

August 2010

Wow.  The summer has already come and gone, as has my first season here at UrbanPromise!  Myself as well as two new interns Harriet Anderson and Johann Windt joined in with UP’s seasoned interns Vivian and Peter for a summer of fun and fond memories.

In July we hit the ground running as camp started and we were all faced with new tasks and challenges.  As none of us had lived through a summer here at UP none of us were quite sure what to expect, but I dare say the summer was a success.  The interns each taught Bible Class and did a great job!  I had the opportunity to sit in on a few of their classes and was impressed with their ability to relay the message in such a clear way.  The creativity they used to present various stories was astounding (and somewhat humorous at times!).

Together with Sarah, the Ministry Director and Hilena, the House Manager we ventured to Nairn falls for a time of relaxation and rejuvenation.  As some went to climb Garabaldi, others of us stayed back to enjoy the beach, little did we know the trek to the beach would result in a myriad of stories regarding trekking up one side of a mountain and literally sliding in a very ungraceful manner down the other side!  Needless to say we shared many laughs and came away with some great memories.  Memories peppered with dutch blitz, chocolate bananas and s’mores.

It has been great to see each of the interns step out in new areas and be challenged emotionally, physically and spiritually.  It is with mixed emotions that I bid them adieu.  With sadness because they are leaving us, but with excitement, because I know that they are going on to new challenges and adventures!

Summer 2010 has been a great initiation into the UrbanPromise family and I am looking forward with anticipation for what is to come in the fall!

May 2010

April 2010

This month we started a discussion on homelessness in Vancouver.  If you were leading this discussion where would you start?  Would you start by talking about the lack of affordable housing in Vancouver?  Or would you start by talking about the issues of substance abuse, mental illness, or physical disabilities that many homeless people struggle with? 

Homelessness is a complicated issue with no easy solutions.  But we have committed to thinking and talking about it.   We may not come up with solutions but we hope that we will have more compassion and understanding because of our discussion.

March 2010

Community Dinners are held every Thursday evening at UrbanPromise. Staff are invited to join the Interns and House Manager, Hilena, for dinner and lively conversation. Thursdays are Hilena's night to cook and she usually makes us yummy vegetarian dishes.

Recently she has taken an interest in raw food (check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_foodism for more information on this type of diet). This meant, at our a recent Community Dinner, she made us a raw food dinner. That’s right, no cooked food. We had Japanese Miso-Shitake Soup and Ginger Almond Nori Roll. Both of these recipes were taken from Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen by Ani Phyo. Though we all very skeptical about these dishes, we had to admit they were very good. As you can tell, Peter especially enjoyed his dinner!

February 2010

The Interns are again involved in Intern Classes twice a week.  On Tuesdays, we are studying Ephesians using a book put out by The Navigators.  We find that it is good to use a study guide because it has commentaries for the passages and challenges us to write out our answers and applications.

We continue our discussions on Thursday mornings.  Since Christmas we have talked about spiritual gifts, theology of suffering (in light of the earthquake in Haiti) and homosexuality.   Our conversations are never conclusive, always lively and based on the Bible.

Vera and Andrea had the opportunity to go to an Olympic event.  A donor from the Scotiabank branch where UP does its banking donated 2 tickets to the Women’s Hockey game.  We had fun cheering for both Russia and Slovakia and enjoying the Olympic atmosphere.

January 2010

Part of my job as Intern Director involves supporting the interns by visiting them while they are working at the various camps. Here is what I found the interns doing this past week:

At Camp Peace the kids are working on getting points so they can come on the special trips that UrbanPromise offers over Spring Break.  Peter made an astronaut poster so the kids can keep track of their points.
One day a week Camp Hope splits into two groups – the younger kids and the older kids.   The older kids’ group is known as 5 Up and Vera leads them in various activities.  The day that I stopped by the group was making homemade brooches.
fdsdfsdfsdfsdfsdfsfsdfsdfsdfsdfsdfsdfsdfsdfsdfdfgddfgdfgsdfsdfsdf Vivian was busy leading the Camp Grace kids in their Bible lesson.  This week they are learning about self-control.  Vivian was leading the kids in a discussion about what it means to have self-control.

December 2009

Lately, in our Intern Class we have been talking about consumerism and how this has impacted the environment and exploited people. We would recommend watching the 20 minute clip at www.storyofstuff.com, Addicted to Plastic and An Inconvenient Truth. These have caused us to think about and evaluate our own spending habits.

The UrbanPromise Interns are busy finishing their Internship Program before they leave for Christmas on December 18th. Not all of it is hard work, one Sunday night Peter, Vivian and Vera and our UP House Manager, Hilena celebrated by decorating their Christmas tree.

November 2009

God answers prayers!

We have been praying for another intern to work with us here at UrbanPromise. Specifically, we have been praying for a male intern. God has answered our prayers. On Monday, November 16, Peter Chow joined our Internship Program. Welcome, Peter, we are so glad you are part of our team.

Trip to Camden and D.C.

We got to join all the UP staff on their trip to UrbanPromise Camden (in New Jersey) November 5 – 6. There we had the privilege of meeting up with the UrbanPromise staff from Camden, Wilmington (Delaware), Toronto and Honduras. It was good to spend two full days getting to know them and being being blessed by corporate worship and various speakers.

On November 7, we took the train up to Washington, DC and did a whirlwind tour of several museums and monuments.

October 2009

We have started a new academic year and with that comes a new Internship Program.  Our 2 new interns, Vera Ehret and Vivian Chu joined UrbanPromise on August 25, 2009. Here are some of the things they will be involved in:

AfterSchool Program

Vera is working at Camp Hope.  She is getting to know the kids there and will start teaching Bible on a regular basis.  Vivian is working at Camp Grace.  She is teaching Art and hopes to teach Badminton in the future. 

Intern Classes

Tuesday and Thursday mornings are spent as an intern group.  Tuesday mornings are set-aside for our Bible Study.  This fall we are studying the books of Ruth and Esther.

On Thursday mornings we tackle issues that come up while we live and minister in Vancouver.  Recently, we discussed some of the challenges that families in Vancouver face.  We also watched a great little film called Eve & the Firehorse. This is a story of a Chinese family living in Vancouver in the early 1970’s, a relevant film for us because we work with many Chinese families. We were also fortunate because  Vivian is Chinese and was able to answer many of our questions about some of the cultural things we observed in the film.

Community Life

Every Thursday evening we have a community night when UrbanPromise staff are invited to dinner at the UP house.  Afterwards, we talk, laugh, play games and watch The Office.   One highlight so far was the fun night we had making sushi for our dinner.

August 2009

During the summer, a typical day for the interns began at 7:00 am and often didn’t finish until the late afternoon.  (Have a look at the rest of the website to see all the activities they were involved with!). Then the evenings were full of fun with intern nights, hanging out with StreetLeaders, relaxing together at the intern house and, of course, prepping for the next day of camp.

Every Monday night we gathered together to pray, worship and study the Bible.  We looked at 4 Bible characters, Joshua, David, Ruth and Gideon, and were encouraged that they were ordinary people like us. God was able to do great things in and through them because they chose to obey him despite the obstacles they faced.

On the weekends, the interns went to Granville Island, hiked and swam at Buntzen Lake, watched the fireworks at Kits Beach, enjoyed eating dinners at staff/board members’ homes, and ventured across the suspension bridge at Lynn Canyon.

God blessed us with a great group of 7 young adults this summer.  They were hard working, teachable, willing to do everything and anything, caring, praying, adventurous, and courageous.  We could not have run our Summer Day Camps without them.

May 2009

In May, Jay, Jenny, Sonja and Andrea had the privilege of attending a weekend workshop at Jacob’s Well, which is located in the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver. While the residents in this area are know for their drug use and mental illness, the community of Jacob’s Well sees them as neighbours and invites them to share life together.

The workshop we attended was called “Life in the Margins.” We all have people who cross our paths who make us uncomfortable, who we don’t know how to relate to, who we are afraid of, or who we simply want to ignore. As Christians we know these aren’t the responses we’re “supposed” to have but we don’t know how to change them. There’s a lot of rhetoric about “mercy ministry” and outreach to the poor around us. However, justice cannot merely be a noble idea or be relegated to a department of the church.

I appreciated that the teachers of the workshop gave us practical principles that can equip us to befriend marginalized people in any community. There was no pressure to become volunteers at Jacob’s Well but rather we were encouraged to ask God for the eyes to see those in the margins in our neighbourhoods. This is not for the purpose of doing something for them but to invite them to share life with us.

All of us were grateful that we attended this workshop. It was both encouraging and challenging.

April 2009

What’s Happening?

As you may have well suspected, the Internship Program is not all about seriousness and hard work.  We have fun, too.  In the past months, there has been a frolic in the rain, a Christmas party, some sightseeing at Vancouver’s Gastown, and a trip to the Aquarium.

March 2009

Kristin Cato, our UrbanPromise House Manager for 3 years, left to teach English in Korea at the beginning of January. She has wanted to live and work overseas for many years now. We are excited that this dream has finally become a reality. We wish you all the best, Kristin!

Hilena Zylstra was a summer intern at Camp Joy in 2006. She moved to Vancouver from southern Ontario to become our new House Manager. She has proved herself very capable of running the house in the midst of a flooding basement and the small creatures that moved into the house during the cold weeks around Christmas. She is also brings fun and laughter into the house. Welcome to UP, Hilena.

Jay Lutz joined the Academic Year Internship in January. He brings enthusiasm, spontaneity and music to our program. He has been working at Camp Grace and Camp Joy and has been using his guitar to teach the kids songs about God. Thank you, Jay for all you bring to UP.

Sonja Truckses has now finished her time with UP. She will be traveling in the western States and Canada until the end of May when she will pop into UP to say a final good-bye to us before heading back to Germany. She became friends with many of the kids and their parents at Camp Peace. She also connected with First Christian Reformed Church. We will miss her but we hope she has a great adventure while traveling.

November 2008

Intern Class

The Interns have been meeting with the Intern Director twice a week.

On Tuesdays, Jenny, Sonja, and Andrea are working through Becoming a Woman of Freedom by Cynthia Heald. It has been a good opportunity for us to be honest with God and each other about what areas in our lives that hinder us from running our race with perseverance (Hebrews 12:1). We have also been able to spend time praying for each other and for our work with UP.

Our Thursday classes are times where we can discuss topics that are relevant to working with kids and living in the city. In September, we focussed on topics that will help us understand our kids at camps better. The Directors for Camp Peace and Camp Hope talked to us about the issues (i.e., immigration, poverty, violence, low wages) in the neighbourhoods where these kids are from. We have also talked about learning disabilities, how to maintain class discipline, and how to encourage children's self-esteem.

Currently, we are discussing culture and religions in Vancouver. We hope that we will be able to visit a few different places of worship in the coming weeks.

Community Events

Every Thursday evening the interns invite friends and staff to join them for dinner. At about 8:30 pm, everyone heads downstairs to watch The Office and 30 Rock. It is a good time to for us to get to know each other socially.

We had a fun Thanksgiving Dinner at the UrbanPromise House on October 13. Andrea's family joined Kristin (House Manager), Jenny and Sonja for a big turkey that included stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, salad, and pumpkin and chocolate pies for dessert. There was even enough for everyone to take leftovers home.

This month also marked Kristin's birthday. Sonja made her a special German cake and we went to White Spot to celebrate.