Kaléo Program Missions Trips - Cross-cultural Serving

A large part of the vision behind the Kaleo Program is providing opportunities for applying and responding to the academics that the students are working on. It is so important for a leader to get hands on experience and put to practice the things they are learning. One thing our students have been learning is that leaders in Gods kingdom are people who serve. The missions trips that happen during the year here at Qwanoes are an amazing opportunity to do just that.

The students have two options for trips to serve on, one being to Vancouver's East Side and the other to San Quintin, Mexico. Both of these trips partner with organizations that are already doing amazing things on the mission field. Although the Vancouver trip is still within Canada, it is still cross cultural in many aspects as it is a very different culture than most of us are used to. While serving the students get practical opportunities to lead using their skill and also to serve in areas that are outside of their comfort zone.

First Ian Friessen one of the members on the Vancouver team will share a bit about their trip.

For the past two weeks I was privileged to serve alongside my fellow brothers and sisters in a unique and challenging setting in East Vancouver. Our time in East Vancouver was split between two pre-existing ministries, New Beginnings Baptist Church and Potter’s Place Mission. Both of these ministries are churches where God’s family unites together to glorify God. While we were at each place we had the opportunity to practically serve the people who ran the ministries and serve the unbelieving population and also, in return, be served by them. 

At New Beginnings Baptist Church we did a number of hands on jobs. These included: assisting the ministry of the church itself by primarily doing cleaning and construction projects as well as community outreach programs. At times some of the in-church jobs could feel very impersonal and disconnected compared to serving in the community but God is faithful and used each act of service to bring Himself glory and to encourage His church. 

While at Potter’s Place Mission, located on E. Hastings, we mostly served the homeless. There were two services in a day that featured musical worship for 30 minutes, followed by the gospel being preached alongside testimonies of God’s grace in people’s lives. The service finished off with warm food served to all guests. In the afternoons we found ourselves doing the work of the ministry. Through outreach and evangelism we poured into the street people by sharing spiritual food, alongside physical food, and praying for those we meet. We also supported PPM through various work projects within their building.  The purpose of all activities and acts of service here was to share verbally, in addition to physically, the love of God, the gospel, and to pray for people.

The Vancouver Team leading a service at Potters Place.

Pastor Deborah and Pastor Michael from Potters with the Vancouver Team

Colin and Ashley the leaders of the Vancouver Trip

Helping to paint at Potters Place

More Painting!

The Vancouver team with Pastor Joel from New Beginnings

One way that I saw God working in Vancouver was through the testimony of changed lives. There were a handful of attendees at Potter’s Place that have no material possession, very little worldly hope, and broken relationships here on earth. However, God’s grace alone was evident in that they were so rich in eternal possession, have a hope independent of this world, and have a restored relationship with the creator of this vast universe. In addition, God is also more than capable of transforming our earthly situation. I saw this very clearly through the testimony of a man who had been alcoholic, addicted to drugs, and homeless. Despite his earthly situation that was filled with pain, hopelessness and suffering, God, in His love, changed his heart and additionally blessed him with an earthly situation that is far from his old life. 

- Ian Friessen

Next I would love to share with about the Mexico Trip, I was a Leader on this trip alongside Lyann Ramsay. We partnered with an organization called Northern Light Ministries that is running an amazing ministry in San Quintin Mexico. 

The Mexico team pictured with some of the NLM Missionaries as well as some friends we made from the community.

Dwight giving us the game plan, he is the Missionary we worked the closest with during our time in Mexico

We had the opportunity to take part in some great building projects during our trip, we even got to break ground on a new property that they are building a Church on. This was incredible as our group was able to be involved in the first mission work done in this community called Benito Garcia. Our team also got to lead an event for kids in the community which went really well. It started with only 3 or so kids present, and by the time we had finished it numbered over 30 kids!

Sylvie connecting with one of the amazing people we met during our time in Benito Garcia

The kids were such a joy to play with, full of smiles and laughter.

Running a kids event in Benito Garcia

Our biggest project while in Mexico was building two classrooms for a Church in the community of El Rosario. In a matter of 4 days we got to see this building rise up from just a foundation and into a functioning classroom. Some people on our team had construction experience, but most of us had only ever done a project or two. Despite this it was great to see everyone getting involved and patiently teaching each other how to complete the task at hand. It was awesome to take a moment and step back watching the flurry of activity as everyone was working on their separate tasks.

The finished classrooms!

The Church we helped build the classrooms for were so hospitable and taught us so much about love!

A big theme of what God taught us while in Mexico was how amazing the people we encountered were able to give their love to us. They poured themselves out for us, we had only just meet these people and didn't even speak the same language, yet despite all this they shared with us so much even though they had so little. Although we did come and build a classroom, we definitely felt like we received from the people more than we had given. We were blown away by the relationships we were able to form with the people of Mexico. Every single person on the team felt like they were leaving a friend when it came time for our trip to end. Despite all the external differences we had, they connected with us over the greatest thing we had in common, our faith in Christ.

Some from our team leading worship at the local Church in Papalote. 

During our trip there was a several events that were run entirely off the planning of our students. We led family events, youth events, children events, brought meals to a local school, did a language survey and many other various tasks in and around the bible school were we stayed. No two days were the same in Mexico, each day had entirely new things in store for us. It was so amazing to see God work in and around our team as we did our best to serve in every moment. 

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Both teams experienced life changing memories through our time in service. In the days after returning we were able to share Gods work with each other and also the staff here at Qwanoes. 

Ian wrote some words that I think apply so greatly to what both of our teams experienced, "Over the two weeks it was a joy to see how God can unite His church in mighty ways. Speaking primarily about our team I would say that we all felt like God’s body; each member crucial and important, each member serving God through their various roles, and each member encouraging others. It was cool to see God’s children humbly serving each other and in the people we had come to minister too. When our human plans were foiled by God’s more sovereign plan, it was awesome to be a part of a team that would prayerfully submit to God’s will when we did not understand the situation. Looking back at the trip I know that God brought us together to accomplish His divine will in our lives and the lives of those we encountered."

Thank so so much to all of you that made the trips possible. We could not have done what we did without your support and prayer. We are on the home stretch now in the program to graduation and I can't believe how much growth God is doing in this group of leaders. They currently just started their next class called Introduction to Christian Theology, check in later this week for more stories!

Until next time, 

Levi

Out on Missions trips!

Hey everyone! Both the Vancouver and Mexico team arrived safely at their destinations and are now diving right into service! So thankful to have internet for this quick update to you from Mexico, know that we are all safe and doing so well. Keep both teams in your prayers, and everything God is going to be doing in our lives and in the lives of those we love in his name!





The next blog post won't be up till we return after february 26, we will have many stories to share with you!

Until next time,

Levi

Exploring Missions - Gaining New Perspectives

Hello everyone!
As promised here is a post sharing about what our time was like at Missionsfest Vancouver and the students most recent course.

Every year we take our students to this amazing conference that has been running in Vancouver for over 30 years. It is a hotspot for discovering about every kind of mission organization from around the world, while also learning about missions from experts through in-depth sessions. We got up early thursday morning taking a ferry to the mainland and kicked off our weekend with an afternoon exploring the famous Stanley Park seawall on tandem bikes!

Ready to explore!

Who would have thought riding tandem bikes could be such a blast!

Can you believe the amazing weather! Many of the students from out east could not get over the fact we were on a beach in January on a sunny day, and we were still in Canada!

The next morning we also spent some time at Granville island before heading to the conference centre. It was great for the students to experience a little bit of the City of Vancouver as most have never been here before. Then after eating lunch we headed to the conference centre and enjoyed two full days of everything to do with Missions. For this post I asked Riley McRae to share with you all about what he thought of Missionsfest.

"Mission’s fest was full of God and full of fun.  Missionaries were everywhere giving talks about what God had taught them and about their experiences in the mission field.  There were seminars on just about everything, some were talking about their experience in the field, while others talked more about other reaching out to other religions. Many people here were very influential and they spoke to each and every one of us on personal levels. Some cut us to the core and others left us thinking about life and how we could serve God more. I personally learned and was challenged by so much, I came back with new perspectives and challenges of I my faith. I want to be able to back up my faith with facts that stand to the world and not just to me. What does this mean? This means by knowing the ‘why’ of what I believe and getting hard evidence that prove that Jesus is the Messiah, that prove that the Bible is real, that prove that God exists. It was also cool to see so many people ready to take their faith seriously and be ready to go on an adventure for God. No money? no problem, we have a God that has a plethora of money and gold ready to be disposed of for His glory. Overall missions fest was a great experience and definitely would go again."  - Riley McRae 2014 Student

Our students leading the sunday morning worship at Ruth Morton Baptist

 While in Vancouver, Ruth Morton Baptist Church graciously let us stay in their sleep in their building. It also provided an opportunity for some of our students to help in the leading worship in the sunday morning service and also the children service. 

Riley and Kelsey helping to lead worship for the youth service on sunday morning.

Sunday afternoon we headed back to camp getting ready for the weeks class called Perspectives in Missions. Steph Huisman pictured bellow in the top right is going to share with us what she thought about the course.

"Perspectives in Missions was an awesome course! Tim Stabell’s teaching style was laid-back and easy to listen to. All the information was really applicable since we’re leaving for our mission trips in a few days. After this course I feel better prepared to go to Mexico and enter another culture. On the last day, we talked about discerning God’s calling on your life which was very applicable for all the students as we’re trying to figure out what to do next year. We also talked about spiritual warfare which was really interesting. It’s not a topic that gets talked about a lot in church settings. I realized that I didn’t know much about spiritual warfare so being able to talk about it and ask questions in an open environment was a really cool opportunity." - Steph Huisman 2014 Student

So there we have it, learning about Missions has been an absolute blast! It was great experiencing Vancouver as a community and everyone left that weekend having learned something in one of the sessions. The following week of class with Tim Stabell was also greatly appreciated by everyone as our Missions trips are coming up in less than a week! As the students finish up final assignments for the Missions course we are putting together the final details of our trips. There won't be another full blog post till the end of the month as both Vancouver and Mexico teams will be engaged fully in missions. Please keep us in your prayers and we can't wait to share stories from our time serving. 

Until Next Time,

Levi VanderKwaak

A Week at Mount Washington - Experiencing the Mountains

Hey everyone,I hope you enjoyed our last post about our adventures out at sea. Now I want to share with you the great time we had for the rest the week up on Mount Washington! 

Immediately following our fishing adventures we packed back up in the 15 passenger vans and headed up the mountain which was only 45 minutes away from where we were fishing. The snow on the drive up did not look promising, but sure enough when we rounded the last corner and the ski hill came into view, the lifts were running!

Our chalet!

During our week we got to stay in a beautiful log cabin chalet. It had two sides, with two hot tubs, bedrooms and living areas both. Our first night we took it easy playing lots of boardgames, sharing stories from Christmas break. and worshiping together late into the evening.

Playing a dice game that was a big hit during our trip!

Our first day on the hill was spent tubing, it was such a blast being able to go down in lots of different groups and spending time with everyone. Our hope was that by tubing for one day the next day more runs would be open as the groomer had more time to clean things up. We didn't know if this would happen for sure, but we were definitely hoping for it.

We went down in some pretty large groups

Come wednesday we had our first full day of skiing! The sun was out and shining and more runs had been opened just like we had hoped for. We picked up our rentals early on and hit the slopes. There was an opportunity for lessons for all levels of experience. Some people tried skiing and took a skiing lesson the first day, and the next day they tried snowboarding and took another lesson. It was a great opportunity to learn from the instructors and also other students in the group who were willing to share their experience. 

Although the conditions were not the best it felt a lot like spring skiing. The sun was out and many of us were peeling off layers in the early morning. The view from the hill was spectacular, we would ride the chairlift up to the very top of the mountain and look down seeing a carpet of clouds covering what was the rest of Vancouver Island and the mainland off to the east. 

During the week the leadership team brought morning and evening devotionals based off our Finish Line statement. Our Finish Line statement is a collection of areas this years students hope to grow in by the end of our year together. Every student had input and it captures what the vision is for our year. We are always trying to connect our experiences and what we are learning to how it makes a difference in our lives now, and more importantly going to the future. This statement captures this very well because it not only represents areas of current character growth, but also captures the vision of continuing to grow as leaders in Christ wherever and whatever future circumstances have in store.

Our finish line statement is: Stirred to be a life-long community: rooted in Christ, authentic, and actively loving. Spurring each other on towards growth in: Perspective, Intimacy, Devotion, Confidence, and Courage in all of life.

From our chalet we could see the peak of Albert Edward. the mountain we climbed at the beginning of our year!
Crazy how high and far away it seems, yet that is the mountain we climbed one step at a time. It
was a powerful image for how far we have come to this point.  

Our time on the hill provided great opportunities for relationships to continue to grow, through quick chats on the chairlift, or our evenings spent together. It was great to just hangout with each other. 

Our time on Mount Washington was such a blessing, God brought us snow to ski and board, beautiful sunny weather, time together in community, and new experiences for everyone. We skied three days in total making the most of every hour! 

I hope you enjoyed hearing about our adventures on the mountain, look out next week for an update from our time in Vancouver at Missions Fest, and what the students thought about the most recent course Perspectives in Missions with Tim Stabell. Thanks again for reading, please consider sharing this blog and the program website kaléo.ca to any young adults you think might be interested in doing the Kaleo Program next year! Your help spreading the word is greatly appreciated. Also please keep us in your prayers as missions trips are now just two weeks away! 

Until next time, 

Levi

Kaléo Program Goes Fishing - Catching Fish on the Open Ocean

We are back! Its been an adventurous couple weeks and there is finally a moment to fill you in with our latest stories. These past two weeks we went fishing, spent a week shredding the slopes of Mt. Washington, wrote 2 papers, finished 2 books, and spent 4 days in Vancouver at Missions Fest! We just got back from Vancouver on sunday and the students dove right into the course on Missions. There is a lot I could write, but first I would like to share one of our adventures from our week of skiing. I will be sharing more from skiing later this week, but for now lets talk about fishing.

Coming up to our highly anticipated week on the slopes the weather was not looking good. Mt. Washington was having a record low for snowfall this time of year, and the lifts were not even opened yet. We wanted to make sure the week was still a blast with lots of opportunities to hang out and try new things, there was snow in the schedule but no one knew for sure if that meant the lifts would be running. We had several contingency plans and we still ended up implementing the first one, deep sea charter fishing off the coast of Vancouver Island! 

On the monday of our Mt. Washington week we headed up to Comox to test our luck in the waters. Our group was split into two different groups of four, and each of these groups of four went out with different guides (For this reason I only have a limited amount of pictures from two of the boats).

Nic reeling in our next catch. Note the cable system pictured bottom right, it could take the lines down
 hundreds of feet with great accuracy. 

We had a blast! This was a first for pretty much everyone including the Kaleo Program and a majority of our group got to reel in fish. Unfortunately none of them fell into the category we could keep to cook, but we still caught tons nonetheless. There was varied reactions from people on holding the caught fish, some more humorous than others. 

Thanks for reading this week. I hope to post more stories from our week of skiing in the next couple days, in the meantime keep praying for us as we prepare for Missions Trips that are fast approaching.

Until next time,

Levi

Kicked off the new year! - Back to the books

Everyone is back at camp and we are now rolling into the second season of the Kaléo Program! Travel back for most as a little hectic with delayed flights and snow covered train tracks but we are thankful everyone is here and safe. 

Many of the students made comments about the warm weather here on the island, as most just came back from way colder places out east. The 5 degree temperatures have been welcomed by many. Unfortunately the warmer weather on the island and lack of precipitation has meant we are still in need of a good dump of snow to make our next adventure a success. Please keep us in your prayers and maybe pray for a little snow too, that would be very appreciate. 

Back in class with Josh Stigall!

For now though the students with renewed vigour got right into their first class of the semester Pauline Epistles! The class started on monday and they will be finishing their last lecture tomorrow. Josh Stigall came out to teach the course and has been actively getting the students involved in leading discussions and guiding their peers through what they have learned. They broke off into groups, each group tackling different issues and learning about the context of the letter they were studying. Their effort has been great creatively making each presentation unique and interesting. 

To kick off the new year I thought it would be fun to hear some voices from students and what they have to say about last semester, this semester and their time at home with their family!

What is something that you really missed about the program when you were gone?

When I went home for the Christmas break, I had a great time connecting with family and friends again. It was a nice break from the school work aspect as well. However, as much fun as I had at home, it is good to be back because I missed so many things about the program. I missed having roommates because no one was there to make me get up on time for breakfast. I missed having a genuine three meals a day. I missed the community and how much I have loved hanging out with all the fabulous people here. But most of all I missed the intentionality the program offers of developing relationships with each other, but most importantly with God.

- Heather Wilson

What is something that you are looking forward to in the second semester and why?

I am really looking forward to serving in the mission trip! I am so thankful for the opportunity to put to practice what I have been learning in class. I am excited to see Gods mights hand at work  in and through our lives. I pray that God would enable us to reflect his grace to the people we will encounter.

- Jon Loper

What was your favourite part of the first season?

The whole first semester was amazing. I was able to enjoy meeting a whole bunch of new friends, go on fun adventurous trips, serve in a camp setting, and learn so much about the bible. All of these combined made the whole experience my favourite part of the first season. I am very excited for it to continue as I grow in God more and more each day.

- Sarah Richards

What did you appreciate about being home with your family after the first time being gone for a semester of School?

I already appreciated my family a lot before I left, but being gone made my appreciation even greater. My little sister is what I gained a lot more appreciation for. She is the only child left at home out of six and sometimes I feel bad that she has to be alone a lot with my parents working. Now there are so many times where I wish I could be back home to keep her company. I appreciated my parents cooking and realized it actually takes a while to prepare a meal, right after a long day at work, and it always tastes so good. I appreciate the amounts of love they have for me and hugs from my mom a lot more. I knew I was not going to be home for long and that time was going to fly by, so I tried to take advantage of the time I had with them and the conversations we had. I really appreciate my family and how loving they are towards me and how much fun we all have together.

- Sharon Van Egmond

Thanks for reading this weeks blogpost! We are very appreciative of all of your support as we move into this new season of exciting growth. Please keep us in your prayers for safety as we move into the adventures that next week have in store.

Until next time,

Levi