tonight i had an amazing opportunity.  right here in Albany, i sat down to dinner with people from all over the world – i think that at least 10-15 different countries were represented at the Horizons International Student Welcome Dinner.  The dinner was held at our church, Pineview Community Church, as it has been for a couple of years now.

this was the first year of my involvement with the dinner, and i have to say it was a really pleasant evening.  it felt like “home” again being around so many people from other cultures.  the multicultural aspect of the Toronto area is something i have really missed here, and being part of the ESL program at Pineview has provided a little taste of that for me.  tonight i met a girl who is originally from Romania and was adopted at 8 years of age by Americans.  i met students from Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Nepal, Niger, Germany, and a few other countries that i can’t quite remember right now.

one of the cool things Horizons does is hook up international students with Americans – this helps them to feel at home while they’re here, and opens up a whole new world for both the student and their friendship partner.  i’m hoping that we can do this in the future, as i would love for Josh (and us) to be thinking more globally.

one of the most rewarding experiences i had last year was hosting a bbq for my ESL class at the end of the year in May.  many of my students were heading home to China and Korea, and we wanted to spend some time with them outside the “classroom”.  we ate hamburgers and sushi, and other Asian dishes, and watched as Josh played with a couple of little boys who came with their families. my own prayer is that as those students are going about life in their home countries now, they will remember their experience with us at Pineview and become more curious about the spiritual things we talked about.  so, tonight, i’m looking forward to a new year of ESL classes, and seeing what will happen with a new group of students!!

I play World of Warcraft. So do a whole bunch of other people. Think Billions. Anyways, I’m going to try to post this new video I saw of the expansion pack here on the site.

these days, everywhere you look in town, somebody has a sign up saying “Welcome Giants!”, so i figured we might as well get on the bandwagon.  of course, Tiki Barber will actually have to read our blog to see that we welcome him!!  anyway, that’s all for now.  maybe one of these days i’ll mosey on up to the SUNY campus and take a picture of the big inflatable Giants player.  he’s cool 😀

(to quote my friend Sherry Mc… ah for those late night moments of eloquence back at YRP)

as Bri has already posted, we’re back together, and back in Albany.  5 weeks of being apart, to be honest, stank – although Josh and I had a blast visiting friends and family and hanging out in TO, i really never want to be away from Brian for that long ever again!

Back to Albany, back to “the grind”… have i mentioned we’re getting a new front door?  this is exciting for two reasons:

1. our new door has a window, which means actual sunlight will come in our entry way!
2. there won’t be any large gaps for spiders, snow, rain, cold, heat etc to get in… can we say properly installed and airtight?! yay!!

I failed to post something that was REALLY exciting, that happened toward the start of our Canadian tour – my birthmom and her wonderful husband got baptised!  The culmination of about 5 years of praying on our part, along with the prayers and love of some wonderful people in their lives, and a fabulous church in Barrie (www.harvestbarrie.ca) happened on July 25th as i witnessed both Lorraine and Gregg getting baptised in their new church.  It’s a long story, but i’ll make it short and just say GOD IS GOOD!

The band is back together!

Josh, Krista and I had a great time in Canada (beauty, eh!) and we enjoyed seeing family and friends, albeit it was very short for me. We’re now back home and enjoying the last few days of summer vacation before I head back to the church.

We have a new website host. Over vacation, our previous hosting provider went down for 2 days. The cause? I don’t know. I never heard from them. I have a feeling that “the lights are on, but no one is home”. So we switched our website to Ipowerweb.com which is pretty familiar to me since that’s who we use to host our church website (www.pineviewcommunitychurch.com /shameless plug). Things are up and running without skipping an email, and I like that. I also like the gallery plugin they offer, and we’ll be switching to that soon along with some other site upgrades.

In other news, we heard that our friends Clint and Kelly Litster (aka Thomas) of North Bay radio fame have made an awesome move to take a national news position in Toronto. Pretty exciting stuff, but will be a major change for them! Grats on you guys, and we’ll be praying!

Josh and i have been in Ontario for just over a week now, and we’ve managed to visit lots of family and friends already. He’s made himself quite at home here at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, and their cat Cleophie is getting all of the hugs and loving attention usually reserved for Tango and Pixie.

this weekend we’ll be heading to the cottage for a few days, and taking in the fresh air for awhile.  i’m hoping to introduce Josh to swimming in Mary Lake, but i am not at all sure that he will like it!!