Last week the crew and I headed over to the superb mainland, that being Vancouver. We enjoyed three days of the downtown life which included food courts, random mall walking in ridiculously overpriced stores, Starbucks, and missions fest. Of course missions fest was the whole reason why we were there in the first place. I had never been to the Vancouver one, and my oh my, it is HUGE (compared to Edmonton's). Missional booths were of course the main attraction of the event. There were hundreds of them. Whether it was summers camps, colleges and universities, or local and international organizations, they were all trying to somehow get your attention. I had the pleasant opportunity of dropping by the YWAM booth. The "booth runner" or whatever you would like to call him, told me some interesting facts about the Australia and New Zealand 6 month back packing DTS programs. They seem very intriguing and I have been looking into it for a while. There were a few sessions that I went to during the day that really brought some new things to my attention. One of the sessions was organized by Ratanak Foundations. There main focus at the moment is specifically on Cambodia and the brutal circumstances that are revealed. The presenter spoke about the sex trade that goes on there with kids young as 8 years old. The man that spoke had been a private investigator for the Canadian Police Department. He had gone on a vacation to Cambodia with his family, heard about what was going on there and then decided to devote his life to bring justice to the unjust. The organization is wonderful and is bringing great hope to their nation. They have put a lot of bad people in jail and created a safe placed such as churches and youth centers for the people of Cambodia. My heart goes out to these people. I don't know what much to do about the situation. The first thing that came to mind was " I just want to go there and help stop everything." Of course that is something that could be very possible. I am just not sure where God is directing my future at this point of time, but he certainly is putting missions on my heart whether it be YWAM or another organization.

Today was our first class of "Old Testament Literature." It was so interesting to hear the historical stories of the Bible. A lot of my responses to the readings were mainly "What the heck?, I didn't know that..circumcsion? GROSS." But i certainly learned a lot of the bible stories that i SHOULD have already known when I was 8 while "listening" in Sunday school.

I am looking forward to what the class has in store for the rest of the week. I expect to come out of this class with a lot more understanding of who God is and how he used his people.

A little piece of scripture that i have been thinking about this week: Psalms 145: 8- 9The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in his steadfast love. The Lord is good to all and his mercy is over all that he has made.

May your week be filled with the Lords love and grace.

Malayne

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