2012 Tour - Day 5 - Halfway / À mi-chemin

Day 5, halfway through our tour!

We had a change of plans today.  After finding out the following facts about the beach we had planned to go to, we made a change:  Poison ivy EVERYWHERE around the beach.  No running water.  No shade.  Two pit toilets, about a mile apart.   A bacterial advisory for the beach.  And no place to clean up after 3 hours on the sunny sandy beach before we head to the cathedral for our concert.

Our new plan:  a lovely park in Kingston, with a scenic waterfront path along Lake Ontario.  The wind blowing off of the lake was refreshing on a warm sunny day.  We had sandwiches with chips & fruit for lunch, played frisbee, and went window shopping.  A few intrepid souls got into the largest lake in Canada and went swimming.  In their clothes.  Look for pictures on the blog.  There was a windmill farm across the lake from the park, and windsurfers and a para surfer blew by us.

After a lovely afternoon, we headed to St. Mary's Cathedral for a chinese food dinner before our concert. The fortune cookies had bilingual fortunes in them.  Somehow even the silliest fortunes sound beautiful in French.  It was another huge lovely church, lots of beautiful stained glass.  The men's sextet sang  "Prayer for the Children" for the first time on tour.  It was moving, and many tissues were being used.  After the concert, our hosts rewarded us with ice cream.  They have ice cream with Smarties in it here in Canada!

On the way back to the hotel, we had to give a talk about personal hygiene.  On the gold bus, Cathy Dobrzanski put the lecture to music. When you come to the homecoming concert & hear the song "I Gotta Robe" you can imagine her lyrics:  "I gotta plan, you gotta plan, all God's people gotta plan...when you start stinking, it's time to start thinking bout showers, deodorant..."
We head out to Montreal tomorrow, and French speaking Canada.  The two fluent French speakers in our group are looking forward to using French. We are looking forward to Jackie & Shannon Perry joining us tomorrow in Montreal.  And many of us are excited to finally be lodged in a host home.

Click Here for Photos from Day 5

2012 Tour - Day 4 - Niagara Falls - Then Will The Very Rocks Cry Out

Day 4 of tour


Today we left Toronto, and spent the afternoon at Niagara Falls on the Canadian side. The entire group rode the Maid of the Mist boat through both the American and Canadian falls - and if any of you have been there before, you know why they give you the souvenir poncho! The blue plastic wrap was less than form-fitting, but it kept us dry! Some of us considered keeping one for future adventures, but most were bent out of shape by the heavy "mist." The view was breathtaking, and saturated. Spontaneous choruses of song broke out while we were on the boat; we sang "Then Will the Very Rocks Cry Out," and our old chestnut, "Siyaa-Humba" (aka We Are Soaking in The Light of God).

We also had the opportunity to walk behind the falls. All agree that the yellow slickers for this attraction were far more slimming.

It was a glorious warm sunny afternoon. We discovered the amazing Tim Horton's coffee shops...better than Starbucks and a third of the price (even after the 13% Canadian tax).

We joyfully welcomed Sue Con and the twins today, and praise God that Sue immediately started taking beautiful pictures. Dan James left the tour today and walked over the Peace Bridge to the U.S. He had to pay a 50 cent toll to cross the border! Pastor Paul from Trinity church came to pick up Dan and drove him back to his car (thank you Pastor Paul!).

How remarkable that we visited just a few days after the famous circus performer, Eric Wallenda, walked over the falls on a tightrope! Our last view of Niagara was of a stunning double-rainbow in the mist, reminding us of God's promise and our purpose in our mission trip!

Click Here for Photos from Day 4

2012 Tour - Day 3 - On to Toronto

We had muffins and juice for breakfast, then headed out to Metropolitan United Church in Toronto to join them for worship.  We sang three anthems in this old beautiful church.  It houses the biggest pipe organ in Canada with 8,300 pipes.  We were wishing Steve had been with us to play some of his amazing improv.  We have noticed something, with our scientific sampling of 2 Canadian churches:  they don't have air conditioning!  Our van drivers have been making multiple trips to keep us stocked with water.

The affirmation of faith at Metropolitan today was really nice:

We are not alone, we live in God's world.
We believe in God:
who has created and is creating, who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh,
to reconcile and make new, who works in us and others by the Spirit.
We trust in God.
We are called to be the Church:
to celebrate God's presence, to live with respect in Creation,
to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil,
to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen, our judge and our hope.
In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us.
We are not alone. Thanks be to God.

We left Metropolitan and drove 20 minutes to visit Casa Loma.  Built in the early 1900's, it has cool things like an 800 foot long tunnel, beautiful gardens, and amazing rooms.  We enjoyed the BIGGEST hamburgers many of us had ever seen, and the little rain that fell did not deter those of us who like to dine outdoors.

After Casa Loma, we visited Eaton Centre.  It is the largest mall in Canada, 4 stories of retail madness.  Some of the girls bought cute new outfits to wear to our nice italian dinner at Joe Badali's Ristorante.

The hotel pool finally got some use tonight, and some of us learned what constitutes a full moon cannon ball (yes, it is as bad as you imagine).

Medical update:  more FFBS cases, sore arms (string players) and a few headaches.  The chaperones are keeping us supplied with vitamin C and hand sanitizer, so hopefully there won't be any illness going around.

Click Here for Photos from Day 3