Day 1: Maple Ridge fun
Shortly after posting my introductory blog post, the team arrived at the Vancouver International Airport. The thing that I immediately noticed was how young the kids looked. This group of kids is younger than our previous two tours, with the ages ranging from 9 to 12 (last tours were 10 to 13). As has been the case the last two years, one of the kids accidentally rammed the front of their cart into the back of my leg, resulting in me having to smile and laugh as I greeted the team through the pain. I'm so hard done by.
We then piled onto a bus that would take us to Maple Ridge Alliance Church, a 50 minute drive. The bus situation was seemingly a work of God's providence: the bus that was supposed to pick us up was the one my family and I packed with tour supplies back in Calgary. The amount of supplies that filled the bus meant that the initial airport pickup would have been cramped, as the team's luggage would take up more space. In a blessing in disguise, the original bus broke down on the way to Vancouver, meaning our supplies would come via moving truck, while we would have a new bus picking us up with lots of room for the team and their luggage.
The kids were very quiet on the bus ride, their internal body clocks clearly thrown off. The adults were the talkative ones, as we caught up with each other. Once we arrived at Maple Ridge Alliance Church, we were greeted by our billets/hosts. The Maple Ridge community has always been an integral part of Rescue's Canadian operations, so it was nice to see familiar faces.
The next day marked the first official day of the tour, but there would be no performances. It would be a game day that would give the kids a chance to get used to being in Canada. We met at the church gym, where the kids immediately began playing with the variety of balls. To my surprise, many of the kids complained of being "hot", which Sarah explained to me was another way of saying they are tired. Many of the kids would lounge around the gym, although they would spring into action when I approached, likely out of a fear of being tickled.
After some time at the gym, we took the kids to a local park beside a river. We split up into several vehicles, with many reports coming forward after that the kids were quiet on the drive. We went straight to the river where the boys quickly hopped in. Some of them were wearing their Sunday clothes, but you know how us Christians are, always submerging ourselves in rivers. After the river shenanigans, we had a hot dog lunch, one of the few western foods that the kids enjoy. A few of them went for seconds, but it was clear that they all wanted to play in the splash park. After everyone was fed, we went to the splash park. As was expected, the kids made it their goal to get the adults wet, with varying levels of success.
Once everyone had their fill of the splash park, a prolonged session of playground fun took place. It was quite humorous watching the kids, as it seemed wherever I turned there would be someone wanting me to take a photo or video. My favorite moment was interacting with an Iranian-Canadian father and his little boy. The boy seemed to only know Farsi, so when he started trying to chase some of our boys (who were much bigger and played rougher), there we three different languages all being spoken on top of each other as I tried to work with the father to avoid any potential incidents.
Once we returned to the church, there was a short period of downtime before it was time for supper. This marked the first tour meal overseen by Thawin, who is serving as the cook for the tour. We were served a meal of rice, cabbage stir-fry and chicken, which the team greatly enjoyed. After supper, the adults on the team began to prepare for the next night's performance. We realized later that the children were largely unsupervised during this time-period, but it was encouraging to know they did not get into any trouble (that we know of).
The next blog post will cover the first performance of the tour. See you there!
God Bless,
Adam Sylvester
What a blessing to have the team here! Wonderful kids and chaperones!!