What a week!

Well it's been over a week since I have posted about anything that has been going on in my life. What a week it has been! Easter weekend was full of church services, one on Thursday, Friday & Saturday and two on Sunday. I was a server at Easter vigil on Saturday night which meant I also had to be at a 2 hour rehearsal for it on Friday afternoon. We had two Easter dinners. Sarah and I had decided we weren't going to cook a big dinner but rather go out to a nice Japanese restaurant with another friend of hers so we made reservations for Friday night but then her brother came for a visit so we did a big Easter dinner anyways on Saturday night. It was lots of fun, a nice group of people enjoying a meal together before I had to head off to the seminary for the 3 hour Easter vigil and party following. Sunday night the tension that has been existing upstairs for months exploded and on Monday evening Sarah evicted the couple who was sharing the upstairs with her. So the tension level went even higher!
In the midst of all of this I am finishing up papers, presentations and other assignments and beginning to think about moving back to Vancouver and then to Ontario and how I will get all my stuff to all these places!
I head to BC for 4 days a week from tomorrow for a conference so I have to have all papers done before that. Then I'm back in Saskatoon for about a week before I pack up my little civic and hit the road. SO much to do, so little time!

Christ is risen, Alleluia

For us, the faithful, Christ has begun a bright new day, eternal and extinguishable. God is the author of this wonder. From impossible beginnings God has produced wonderful results.
Anonymous hymn - Second Century

Holy Saturday

For this is the time of Holy Saturday
Christ comes to inhabit our tombs
And when the hour has come
He will roll away the stone for us.
Taize Prayer

Good Friday

The Church is the cross on which Christ was crucified. One could not separate Christ from his cross, and one must live in a permanent dissatisfaction with the church.
Romano Guardini

Reflecting

Well I'm starting to reflect on my time here in Saskatoon. I can't say it's been a wonderful year but it has been a good experience. I have many pictures and special words on my wall. The one above my computer means a lot to me and is a daily reminder for me. So I decided (with permission) to share these words with you. They were written by my friend Jason the day after I left Vancouver in August.

this road

like dorthys

goes to emerald palaces

that lose their luster

that are ruled by little

men behind their collars.

do not pay attention to

the emerald palace

shun its false luster.

life is not in the journey,

that is a lie,

life is in the companions.

keep one eye on the road,

an ear open for God

and the rest of your sense

looking for your own

straw man and tin man.

why else travel?

~ Jason Derr

I'm going to.......Pass Lake Ontario!

Well I can now finally tell people where I'm going on internship. I will be in Pass Lake Ontario for my internship this fall. I'm really excited about this site. I have heard many wonderful things about it and it's in part of a country I've never even been to never mind lived in!
Where is Pass Lake Kristen?
As you can see it's just outside of Thunder Bay, about 40 minutes in fact in Northwestern Ontario. It is about 8 hours east of Winnipeg.
Click here to see where it is in the province and in relation to other cities in the country.









I believe this will be a 12 month internship so I will be there until August 2008 when I will return to Saskatoon for one more semester to finish up my MDiv and God willing be ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.
I'm really excited about this site. I've heard amazing things about the landscape as well as the supervisor and the congregation.
It's hard to stay focused on the last two weeks of classes and the 8 assignments I have left but I will get there somehow!

Internship News

Well I know where I'll be on internship next year. Unfortunatley you'll have to wait until Monday or Tuesday. The internship director wants us to wait until he has had a chance to let supervisors know who their intern will be so I can only tell my spouse, grrrr! Let's just say I'm very happy and excited and I can't wait to tell people.

Readng Week trip pics

This is the view from the place we stayed at on the Sunshine Coast.

















Kat & Jason checking out the view from the pier by Molly's Reach (think Beachcombers).











The three of us.

LTS Winter Retreat

The centre of our worship circle












Out for a walk - or a snowball fight!
















Christopher Lake












Gathered for communion and dinner

11 Days!

I can't believe it's been 11 days since I blogged. Nothing much new has happened since I last blogged. I still don't know where I'm going on internship. I should find out today when I'll find out. Last weekend we had a school retreat that was great. We went up to north of Prince Albert, did you know that there are actually "forests" in Saskatchewan? We've hit the time of the year when spring is trying to poke through but winter keeps coming back for short bursts. The weekend was beautiful and a lot of the snow melted but then yesterday it snowed again and this mornign I woke up to snowfall again.
Preaching went well last week and I got lots of good feedback. Today I'm preaching again on the Palm Sunday text. School is flying by, so many papers, so little time! I will post some pictures from the retreat. Blessings to you all on your lenten journey!

March in Saskatoon

Well I haven't posted a real post since I was in Vancouver and so I thought I should post something. I had a fantastic time in Vancouver. Visited with lots of friends and had a wonderful time on the Sunshine Coast with Jason and Kat. Headed back to Saskatoon late Friday night, arriving at about 1AM Saturday morning. One of my suitcases arrived while my other one followed about 10 hours later, grrr. Saturday morning I unpacked, did laundry and repacked and headed out Saturday afternoon for Moose Jaw. The weather had warmed up and was actually above 0 and sunny. I drove down to Moose Jaw for a couple of day's to see my friend Elaine's covenanting service at the church where she is doing her internship. We had a lovely visit and I drove back Monday. Came back with a cold I've been fighting all week.
Back to school, 5 more weeks of classes. I really keep trying to have a positive attitude about this place and every time I do something else crappy happens, oh well, 5 weeks and I'm done with this place for a while. SO tired of the complaining, the cliquishness and the attitude of people at school. I have a ton to do in the next 5 weeks so I know they'll fly by. I'm preaching on Wednesday at Sherbrooke Community Centre ( a residential facility like no other!). Next weekend is our school retreat and so we head up to northern Saskatchewan which I'm looking forward to I haven't been north of Saskatoon and apparently it's totally different (still flat but different).
Enjoying spending time with the few friends I do have here and getting to know them better and having fun with them. I should know about internship placement in the next two weeks, so excited! The adventure continues!

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Good News!

Well I'm back in Vancouver, enoying a very rainy reading week. It's been wonderful to be here and I'm enjoying visiting with family and friends. I head off in a few minutes for a overnight getaway to the Sunshine Coast with my friend Kat. Where we'll celebrate my getting into CPE in Vancouver for the summer, wahoo! I went to a meeting with the Vancouver supervisor this morning after having a phone interview last week. While waiting for the supervisor the secretary said "so you'll be joining us this summer" and I said "well I hope to" and she pulled my file and showed me a copy of the letter she had sent late last week offering me a place in the program. It must have arrived in Saskatoon the day I left or today. So I will be doing my CPE (clinical pastoral education) at St. Paul's hospital in Vancouver this summer. I'm so excited. So nice to know I'll be in Vancouver for one more summer, I love Vancouver in the summer. Also so nice to know that I where I'll be after May 1. I'll take some pictures while I'm away and post when I get back. Right now I'm sitting in downtown Vancouver at a Blenz (coffee shop) drinking a roiboos chai and using free wireless, watching the rain fall. I'm such a west coast girl!

What a day!

Well it has been quite a day. I met this morning with my faculty advisor for our annual check in and he is also the internship director. He said that as long as I'm willing to go anywhere for CPE there is always a spot available somewhere in Western Canada if I don't get into Calgary or Vancouver. Then this afternoon I had my teleconference with Vancouver. I was told then that they had received 34 applications for the six, maybe seven spots they have available this summer. I had a really good interview and at the end the supervisor asked me to send him my availability for meeting with him next week and so we have arranged a meeting for Monday morning - good sign! Then just after finalizing that meeting by email I received an email from the CPE site in Calgary asking for a teleconference interview on Thursday. I'm really excited now! I am anxious to know where I'll be this summer but I am feeling more confident that I will get into CPE somewhere and that is a huge relief. It's been quite the roller coaster of a day!

The Waiting Game

I'm in this point in my program where it's all about waiting. I have submitted my CPE applications to both Vancouver and Calgary, have contacted them to ensure they received all the pieces (they did) and now am waiting. I have an interview with Vancouver tomorrow over a teleconference. Calgary is still accepting applications apparently even though their deadline was February 15. That works well for me because I'll hopefully hear back from Vancouver before Calgary and Vancouver is my first choice. I have to get into a summer CPE program in order to be able to do internship next year. I have another internship meeting on Thursday to find out the final list of sites and submit my first, second and third choices which the internship director will look at, consult with the sites and the faculty and make the big match which will be announced the third week of March. So right now I have no idea what my life will look like after May 1 when I finish the internship retreat (if I get into CPE that is, here's hoping!). If for some reason I don't get into CPE in Calgary or Vancouver then my life has to take a completely different turn and I have to try to get into a year long CPE program somewhere, find a part time job and do internship the year after next. I really really really don't want that to happen!
School continues to motor along. This semester is flying by. I fly home for reading week on Friday for a week away from snow, yay! I'm looking forward to spending time with family and friends, sharing stories and pictures from my Peru trip and catching up on their lives. And of course I'm going on the traditional reading week trip. Monday and Tuesday of next week Kat and I will head up the sunshine coast for two days and one night of relaxation. I can't wait!
I'm starting to wonder if the snow will ever leave Saskatoon. I'm not sure I remember what it looks like without snow. We got about another 10-15 centimetres on Friday just to reassure everyone that winter was still around. Of course the 3 feet of snow we already had was doing a good enough job of that!
Oh well, two months from now I'll be packing up my suite and heading off to wherever I go next on this wild adventure!

Back in 'toon town

Well life continues here in Saskatoon. It's so cold here! Friday I woke up to a windchill warning, -42 with the windchill, lovely! School continues to happen. I've submitted my CPE application to Calgary and Vancouver and have submitted my internship application to the director of internship. Now it's just a waiting game. CPE (clinical pastoral education) is a chaplaincy program that is full time May - July this summer. Internship will start sometime between August 1 and September 1 and go for 9-12 months. I'm hoping to get into CPE in Vancouver but I have to get in somewhere because I have to have it before I can go on internship. So right now it's a big waiting game, a bit stressful for a control freak like me! Time is starting to fly by. Three weeks from this weekend I'll be back in Vancouver for reading week, I can't wait to see green again. The winter is really starting to get to me here.
Last night I went to the Barenaked Ladies concert, it was awesome. They have so much fun on stage you can't help but to enjoy the concert. Their music is so awesome as well.
I'm really getting frustrated with the atmosphere at school. The first couple of weeks it seemed to have improved from the end of last semester but the dark cloud over the seminary has returned and everyone is sucked into being angry and nasty to each other. I'm just tired of dealing with those kind of attitudes. I also don't appreciate being the brunt of people's grumpiness because I happen to be there. Oh well, I have lots of fun with my friends and have found a few friends outside of the seminary community that help me keep my sanity.

More pictures - not Peru this time though

Thought you might like to see a picture of me at the seminary. This is Sebastian and I at his first birthday party last weekend. We hang out every Wednesday morning while his parents are in class. It was taken by one of the other seminary kids at the party which would be why it's a little low! Happy Monday everyone!

More Peru Pics

I've posted a few more Peru pics here. The first one is my all time favourite. Enjoy and leave comments here!

Peru Pictures 2

This is a shot taken by another person on the trip of the group below looking at themselves in the screen of my camera.

Peru Pictures

Ok this is the third try posting pictures. Here are three more pictures from my trip. The people of Peru are beautiful especially the children so you'll see that I have lots of pictures of children. The pictures here are the three female students on the trip on our girls night out, the little sister of the boys in the three below holding a ducking she had chased around the yard to catch and some friends Dawn made outside of a restaurant in a small town.