... on the road again, for the third time, for the second time

So, I have decided that I should explain what exactly was up with the car so that those who are mechanically inclined don't totally freak out with us continuing to drive a car who's engine overheated. Because normally when an engine overheats, its dead. That is what happened to the van on the way up; it overheated and the engine cracked. This time however, the engine was not in that bad shape. The scenario was this: for some reason or other, the electrical system on the car blinked just long enough that the control for the fan blew out. Fans stop working, engine heat rockets up, Hannah sees the gauge go up, everybody pulls over. The end. The nice mechanics who pulled over to help us suggested that by leaving the hood open a little, the air flowing through would keep the engine cool, which it did. Which the people in the car didn't realize, leading to a long stretch of us following Bill at 35 on the shoulder of the road. We still made it to Manitoba in good time (once that slow-driving thing was remedied... though it wasn't just the fault of the people in the car. We were being cautious in general).

So, the drive yesterday. We had about an extra hour of time to make up - which we didn't - and two cars to fix. Did I mention that the brakes on the van needed work?? ;o) We were blessed that on the drive down to Winnipeg we were able to stop at a random auto-wreckers in Minnedosa and fix up the car and then found a GM dealer in Portage la Prairie who not only got us in to fix the van as soon as we got there, but also had it fixed up in 25 minutes. Well taken care of, we are. Thus were we able to continue on in our otherwise uneventful journey. Yes, the breakdown has really been the most standout part of the trip back thus far, and we have managed not to kill each other yet. Yet. We haven't been able to switch people up in vehicles, so that means that we have spent the last three days in a small, enclosed, slightly claustrophobic space with the same people. The car has been doing pretty well, amusing themselves with little games and Sarah's insane ability to rack up the Clumsiness Points. Last night we in the van were finally able to hit on one activity we could all agree on: comedy. With two laptops, something like five mp3 players/iPods and a number of CD's, there was plenty of Bill Enghart, Steven Wright and Jim Carrey to go around. For hours. It was awesome! Hopefully that positive energy carries over today...
So we did finally make it to Thunder Bay. At one in the morning. But it wasn't that bad sleeping on that church floor, and we are raring to get to Bruce Mines.

As I'm typing this, we are held up in a huge traffic line waiting for construction.

Its good to be back in Ontario.

- Mike
Dei Gratia

... the breakdown, part 2

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is correct. In sadistic symmetry, our beloved Mailun has broken down. Not just in a regular breakdown, however; the engine overheated much in the same fashion the van did on the way up. Not all is bad, however. Hannah, our brilliant driver at the time, was watching her gauges and caught the temperature red-lining within instants. Thus was disaster averted. Also luckily - or more accurately, thanks to God - a pair of mechanics stopped to help and assess the situation. So, with the situation safe and under control, we have bravely limped our way into Manitoba! Not quite to the location we were hoping to reach, but not that far off distance wise. It was a long day of driving today, and will be another long haul tomorrow from our current location in Russell, Manitoba to Thunderbay, Ontario - yet we will make it.
Keep praying for our safety and that we will make it home in good time with no more car issues. To those praying for us; your support is felt and appreciated by the entire team!

- Mike
Dei Gratia

... going, going

GONE.

So, after three months here in Fort MAc, we are headed back to Ontario! That's right, we have commenced our fantastical five day journey back home.
Leaving was... well, difficult. There are a lot of really cool people in Fort McMurray that we have built relationships with and area going to miss greatly. People like Kayla, Genevieve, all the kids, Brandon, Brandon, Brandon (we met a LOT of Brandons...), and Daniel and Danielle. We will miss them all. Thursday and Friday were our goodbye days, first having a thank-you dinner with the people who sponsored us and then a huge party with the kids and all our friends. It was amazing, tearful and poignant. I don't think we will ever lose that little bit of Fort Mac left with us.
Our driving so far has been uneventful; no car breakdowns, no uber traffic. The U-haul proved to be a little more challenging to ring than we first thought, but we are getting along well with it. We have already crossed over into Saskatchewan and are ready to haul over to Manitoba.
So, tha;s all for now. Keep praying for us, and we'll be home soon!
- Mike
Dei Gratia

... over

Exhausted. That is a pretty fair way to sum up the state of the team right now. Exhausted and yet... excited. Happy. Pick an adjective.

interPLAY is over, and it was pretty darn fantastic. We ran our own little stage - the "Kaos Kreative Cafe" - and it was the talk of he weekend. And when I say talk I mean our small, little area was packed with people. It was really cool. We had a lot of really high-quality acts performing so that there was no down time. And the acts covered a really wide variety of genres of music. We had some country acts, straight up acoustic guitar, rock bands, a worship band, a really cool DJ... to much fun to handle. Some of the team members also got involved in some of the acts as well to show off teir talents. Made me wish I had brought my clarinet...

We also preformed the Lifehouse skit five times this weekend, bringing the total number of time prefomed up to ten. It was really cool though because each time we did it at the Cafe (twice each night) the place was packed with people. We had some really positive feedback about it and it looked as if it really touched some of the people we have really been praying for.

Overall, even though it was a lot of hard work to set it up and decorate and do all the little detail things, it was a totally awsome and fun weekend. A good way to spend our last one here. Yes people, that is correct. In just over four days we will be heading home.

In fact, some of our team is already headed out. Yesterday we said goodbye to Jenn, who was headed off to BC to start a west-coast journey that is taking her down to California. And today Jay headed back home to Ontario so that he could make it back in time to start work at another camp. So now the team is down to twelve and we will miss our team-mates greatly.

- Mike
Dei Gratia

interMADNESS

Yesterday was slow in the morning but picked up when lots of the regulars came in. Schylar is going to sing in interplay and has been practicing her heart out and sounds amazing! She's really nervous though and had a bit of a break down but we assured her she'd do awesomely! I have been so impressed by her courage and she's really an inspiration to me. I taught her how to make hemp bracelets and she's been making them non-stop and is really proud of them. She learns really quickly and has been excited to learn new things the whole time she's been here. She's also excited to help clean, which for a 12 year old I would say is a bit of a shocker but not for her. She likes helping and being with people. I helped Kayla with her newsletter about the Dugout and it looks good :o) I'd say we make a pretty good team. There have been lots of improvements in attitudes of kids here and many are showing more respect. We've been broken into 7 times since we've been here, but the kids here have the same fun they always have and think that it's dumb for people to wreck this place! I agree whole-heartedly and am mostly just excited that their spirits haven't been broken. I am not looking forward to saying goodbye to these kids.
Last Thursday was also cool. Jen and I got to take a man, David, to detox - what an experience! He was really open to hearing what we had to say and actually started the conversation by asking us if we could get him to detox. Pretty stinkin' cool! It renewed my hope and was just cool to see where it was and all that.
The days are getting busier!

- Seana

Ok, so am I allowed to say that yesterday was ridiculous? Because it was. Yesterday was a hugely busy day. We finally started work on our various interPLAY stage needs: Rona kindly donated a tonne of stuff to us to put together the backdrop and fencing stuff for the Cafe, so Jay and I spent the morning with Rick and Sarah Kirschner at Rona shopping for spray paint and regular paint. Then in the afternoon I helped to prime the boards we are using for our backdrop. It was fun, if a lot of work.
The major, major work is today though. Meetings with the mayor, meetings about interPLAY, helping Alan and Vicky - two of the Kaos workers - move, painting the design... on top of our regular work. But more about that tomorrow.
I can't believe that our time here is almost done. Some of the kids here we are really going to miss, as well as many of the other fantastic people we have met here. I can only hope that whatever impact we have made now continues to carry on even after we have left.

- Mike
Dei Gratia

Rainy Days

It has been raining like mad here for the last couple of days. It has been really cool because there have been some awesome sun-showers, but unfortunately the rain has had some downsides as well. Take for example the graffiti cleanup we were supposed to have on Saturday. Rained out. Not cool. So we have been rescheduled for Monday. As in, the day after our weekend of interPLAY craziness. As in, we will all be dead tired on Tuesday. But it should really be awesome. Melody and Hannah are currently working on the backdrop for the Kaos Kreative Cafe (don't worry, we were concerned about the name as well...lol) which should be really cool because we are doing a huge graffiti-like paint job for it. Somewhat ironic considering we are cleaning up graffiti, but this is on hige pieces of plywood and it should all be fairly decent.

It is actually going to be really cool... intePLAY that is. We actually have a lot of people and you getting involved in it from outside of the team. Actually, we are seeing a lot of youth getting involved in our activities in general. We have youth going to the Salvation Army food wagon with us, and to the soup kitchen/bbq at Fellowship Baptist as well. It is really neat to see these guys, who usually don't do a whole lot, getting active in the community. This, I think, is probably one of the more important things we are doing: connecting youth to activities and volunteer opportunities they may not have known existed.

That's it for me, for now.
- Mike

ps. The King's Kids site is now up!!!

the capital E

Hey! what's up everybody? I know I haven't done a blog in quite awhile so here it is! I've been running into a lot of problems with the 3rd part of the Kaos Repo Co Documentary lately which has been a little frustrating but I'm sure the video will be completed in just a little while! I've also began working with a Canon GL2 Camcorder so the video will look quite a bit better than the first couple of parts. I've also ordered a new macbook for college that will help me with a little bit with working-on-the-go. I've been helping Kaos Radio with some on-air stuff, just covering the afternoon DJ if he needs to take a day off. Other than that there's not too much else going on. Thanks to everyone for your prayers for the team and I hope you all are having an amazing summer!

~Lukas Stevens~

Hey everybody! Promises, promises, I know. Things here have have been really crazy as we near the edn of our trip which is in *shock!* two weeks!!! Time has just flown by! But enough about how busy we are gearing up for our second graffiti cleanup tomorrow or interPLAY which is in a week; lets talk about... Edmonton!!! Specifically the West Edmonton Mall which we spent three - yes THREE - of our four days at. While the mall is huge and has some really awesome things in it, three days had even the most shop-a-holic girls worn out. That being said, we didn't spend three full days in the mall, we also hit up some other sweet spots as well. Like on Saturday, when a group of us went to Whyte Avenue to go to a farmers market and just wander around. Whyte Ave. was cool because it had a very old-school, artsy feel to it - a feeling heightened by the eclectic nature of the shops. While the girls were out shopping, Jay and I (Lukas and Bill opted into an early start at the mall for some reason... lol) were completely distracted by the amount of good, artistic graffiti covering the area. And so we set out on a graffiti walk. We found many cool pieces of art, but the walk was capped when we found an entire wall done up in a giant graffiti mural by about 12 different artists. It was way cool! The girls had a fun time shopping and even managed to get me to buy some things and all in all it was a fairly restful weekend.

- Mike