New friends

It seems every time I write this blog I've been in meetings, but yesterday just happened to be a meeting day with Norma and Genevieve about the youth street survival guide. It went well and that ball is rolling. Yesterday morning was sweet because Sarah and I were in the soup kitchen which was a lot of fun and it was the same people I worked with last week. They're pretty sweet, from the alliance church. There's this cute little girl named Suzanne and her brothers Devon and Dillon were there too. I actually got to talk to all of them and make garlic bread and it was a lot of fun. I didn't have too much interaction with the people using the facility though, which is unfortunate but I still got to talk to some people and that was also very cool. Monday I met a girl who came with her school named Anke who's from South Africa. They visit every two years, she lived there until she was almost 5 years old then they moved here and she likes that too. Things are starting to pick up and we're sending more people out into the community in two's and really interacting with people. I'm excited to see how it turns out. :o)

-Seana

I got asked by a little fellow named Chase to go and play Chess. I told him that he’d have to explain the rules to me, and he agreed to these terms with a rather astounding eagerness. While he did seem to know what he was doing, the rules Chase abided by were far different from any I’d heard of before. However, being something of a Chess newbie, I didn’t make much of this. That was until my new friend Chase, began revealing key pieces of information as soon as they became relevant… and he was in a position to collect. Always quick on the uptake, I began drilling him with questions about his set of rules, haha. When I pointed out an inconsistency in what he was doing and what he was telling me I could do, he grinned impishly and said, “I thought you said you’d never played before…” I hastened to inform him that this fact in no way impaired my judgment and I was going to keep my eye on him to make sure he wasn’t trying to pull any metaphorical wool over my eyes.

It wasn’t long into the game before we were joined by a girl named Natalie, who attempted ever-so-valiantly to come to my rescue. The pair of us united mental forces and put up a strong defense (which, in this case, was a good offence) against Chase’s dark army. The whole series of chess games consisted predominantly of sending out the Queen (who, according to my good friend Chase, could pretty much go wherever she wanted – ignoring every obstacle, penetrating any and all lines of defense). Needless to say, victory was given to whoever rallied their omnipresent forces and appeared somewhat magically beside the opponent’s King. The rules of play were alien, and I still have the sneaking suspicion that Chase threw rules on the table at whim. But victory and defeat were each accompanied by good-humoured laughter by all parties… and, in that way, we were all continual winners.

- Melody