Our final day was a big barbeque at Unwin Park.  We’d been running programs there all week long, so there was more than a few people aware of what we were doing.  Additionally, the park has a lot going on in it - soccer, baseball, a public outdoor pool even.  We probably had at least a hundred people if not more coming in and out, eating free food, playing games, tug-of-wars, and making crafts in our craft tent.  Many Indo Canadians were even participating, which was great to see.  I talked to a couple of families of Syrians - the one guy who lives in the neighbourhood invited his brother from Abbotsford to come out.  It looked like a great time was had by all, except the little girl who cut open her finger on the tug-of-war rope.  Poor thing.

The whole week was a tremendous effort.  Everyone contributed in many ways.  I come away from this week thinking that this shouldn’t be a summer only thing.  We need to be doing this more often.  At the same time though, I realize that there was a massive drain of energy as well.  I mean, I was gone from home every evening this week.  It meant tons of things in my family’s life were put on hold to do this.  As I mentioned before, I was physically, emotionally and spiritually drained.  How do you balance this thing called the Christian life?  How do you love on people and demonstrate in real ways God’s love without burning up your candle and leaving behind ashes?  That’s some thing I will be wrestling with for a while.

Sunday will be exciting too, to see if there are fruits of our labour that walk through the doors at 10am.  If there aren’t, I won’t be disappointed though.  I know that the Spirit works at his own pace, and there will be people who were genuinely touched by us this week, but need time to reorganize their own thoughts about Christianity and what that means to them.  If you’ve lived your life believing that Christians are hypocritical jerks who judge and hate (as we are coloured too often in popular culture), but then encounter genuine love and compassion, and receive gifts with no strings, it would take time to deal with and sort out where the lies end and truth begins.  Every touch like this that happens brings the harvest closer to us.  It’s definitely fun to watch.

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