Hello my lovely friends and family. 

I've been here in Dunham, Quebec doing my DTS with YWAM for about a month now, and I thought that it was time to give you an update on my all my doings.  I don't really know where to start, because there is so much to say, so I think I will use some pictures to give you an idea of my life here...after all, a picture speaks a thousand words, eh?

This is the house that we live in.  It used to be a catholic girls' boarding school before it was purchased by YWAM in the 70's to house 1,600 volunteers working at the Montreal olympic games.  It's about an hour drive from Montreal, which is nice.  The house is so charming.  There are endless rooms with strange things in them...objects and furniture left by past YWAM-ers.  It's falling apart in a lot of ways, but we all love it.  It's very homey and comforting.

Here's a picture of my room..when it was still pretty clean.  haha.  I have 5 roomates: two Swiss girls, one Swiss/Canadian girl, and two girls from USA.  That's my bed on the far end by the window.

the view from the window by my bed.

the creepy staircase that leads to our room.  I'm sorry this is sideways. 

more of the room.  That's one of my roomates, Brittany from Santa Cruz, California.

Here's where we eat.  We eat a lot of food here...a lot of delicious food.

The first night of our DTS, they had a welcoming dinner for us (there are 16 students by the way) where friends of YWAM from the community were invited.  The theme was mexican food.  ha!  it was...okay. 

One night we had an eighties bowling party.  We all dressed up and went to the Cowansville (town nearby) bowling alley.  The locals were a little disturbed by our antics, but we had fun.  from left to right in the picture is Pat Benatar...i mean...Marlous from Holland, Michaela from Ontario, Natalie from Minnesota, et moi.

haha one of our fearless leaders.  Rebecca is one of the DTS school leaders, co-leading with her husband Gabe.  I like how she looks ridiculously crazy in both these pictures because she's usually really quiet and sweet.

here's Jordan who is from Ontario, and Gabe the other school leader.

I don't know how to rotate this picture, but that's Noemie and Abby, two more leaders.

This is our classroom.  We have lecture time every morning after home cleaning/intercession/worship (one or more of the above haha) for about 3 hours...with breaks.  Every week we have a new speaker and topic.  So far our topics have been the cross, relationships, and creativity&identity.  It seems pretty basic, but there is so much information to process every week!  I love it, though, and I'm learning a lot.

the verse for our school.

the woods by the house.  so lovely!

the sign for the nearby coffee roastery.

Me and Natalie.  This is when we went to a church in Montreal.  It reminded me a lot of old Church in the City days (especially when a woman randomly got up in the middle of worship and started dancing with a ginormous red flag)...except in french.  Really wonderful church.

What else can I say?  We make a lot of music here...

and a lot of art

oh!  I almost forgot.  I found out where I will be going on outreach...

Benin, which is in Africa.  And afterwards my team will be going to Europe (probably Paris and Geneva).  very very exciting!!!!

Thank you to everyone that has supported me in any and every way!  I know I wouldn't be able to have this experience without all of you. 

Here are some things to pray for me, if you think of it...1)that I would become even more intimate with Jesus. pray that I am open to receive whatever change He has for me.  2)that our outreach teams would be unified during the classroom phase time so that during the outreach, we will work well together.  3)for the dynamics of the household in general during this time. I think the "honeymoon phase" of community living is over, and people are beginning to rub against one another a little bit. Pray that we grow close like a family and continue to choose to love one another.

That's all that I can think of right now, but I will update you with more prayer needs as they come.

Thank you so much for reading this!  I love you all!

-Christina

p.s. all these photos are via my friends Brittany, Amber, Lori, and Celine, because my camera is broken :(  thank you girls i love you!