Here It Goes Again

So here I go, trying to get back in the swing of things. I think this time it will stick. I hope it will. I guess I could call this my intern blog, but I'm going to talk about more than the internship. I'm going to talk about things I see. I'm going to talk about culture. I'm going to talk about people. I'm going to talk about photographs. I'm going to talk about life.

To some of you when I say internship you say, "Wha?" So I guess I'll explain what I'm talking about. This year I am interning with the Toronto City Mission. I love the organization, I love the people in the organization, and I love what they do and what they stand for. This organization is about making a difference, a tangible difference in peoples lives. TCM work in 4 communities around Toronto, and they all have one thing in common. People who are hurting. People who are in need. All the communities are comprised of people with low incomes, on welfare, or newly moved to Canada. We get to know these people, we talk with these people, we share life with these people, and we give them options. We run programs to suit our skills and the communities needs. A slogan that I've seen that I really like and believe in is, "Helping to end the cycle of poverty," I start tomorrow.

Today I have something else to talk about. Freedomize. I went today, to this church that I've heard about a few times, it's called Freedomize and usually they meet in St.Andrew's Church beside Roy Thompson Hall, today they met in the chapel at Knox College on the U of T campus. They kicked things off today with a hip hop artist by the name of The Runaway, then there was some really cool worship that was a mix of new and original stuff, and hymns, that was followed by a gospel choir from the First Baptist Church.

There was such an interesting blend of culture there, 20-30 somethings, meeting for church, in a very traditional space, in a less than traditional way... It was cool, and it was real. The message today was about guarding your heart (Proverbs 4:23) and the pastor talked about at least two specific areas we need to guard our hearts against; Self idolatry, and keeping score. There could easily have been more points, but something happened in my mind and i started thinking about other things, important things linked to what he was talking about... but other things all the same. I started thinking about this thing called Pass a Penny, a kind of initiative that a friend of mine and I started up. I started thinking about why, and what, and all those other important things. That's not what this post is about though. If you're interested in Pass a Penny you can check us out on Facebook. Thanks for reading the first post in what will hopefully become The Daily Joel once again.