Yesterday we went to Toronto and up the CN tower which they claim to be the highest tower in the world. In the afternoon we visited Spence(r) gorge - an area of 64 waterfalls.

Today I leave Canada and fly back to Manchester. I have really enjoyed and benefited from my time here. I have learnt from worldwide pastors, discovered about the many traditions and backgrounds of the Mennonite church, had some really good and helpful theological discussions, and learnt what it means to be a peace church and Anabaptist. I particularly have benefited from staying with Joni and Steve and have enjoyed some really good conversations and reflection on what it means to be a pastor in our contexts.

It has been a full on programme and I can hardly believe we are finished. I am looking forward to seeing Rachel and the boys soon.

End of Impact at Niagra

Yesterdays service went well at Hamilton Mennonite church. The congregation were very afirming of my "sermon slot" and seemed to be in to what we were doing. The night before we had our public Impact service which was good. I was asked to speak of what Impact has meant to me. The Canadians were a good audience to my slot.

Today was our last day of Impact and it was sad to say goodbye to people - kinda like the end of camp. We had the afternoon in Niagra falls. Awesome! We went behind the falls in yellow capes. More pictures on facebook.

Timmys

Behold our most visited place of worship: Tim Hortons! "Timmys" is held to be the pinnacle of good coffee amongst Mennonites. Tim Hortons does coffees, tea, Tim Bits (Mini doughnuts of many varieties), various larger doughnuts, pastries etc all in a fast food format. Tim Hortons are everywhere and we have now visited a good number of them.

http://www.timhortons.com/en/menu/snacks.html and http://www.timhortons.com/en/menu/index.html

Bus conversations

We have just arrived back from a fantastic few days away. In this last week the group has really gelled together well despite my uncertainty on day one as to whether this would happen. It has gelled so well that leaving the group last night was quite tough for us all, but we meet again tomorrow evening. We had two six hour bus journeys together and had some really good conversations. Two characteristics which I warm to from the mennonite church is their position as a peace church and their openness theologically. It was good to discuss some theological thoughts on the bus for instance: I discovered that some of my own thinking in certain areas was not actually just down to my own thinking but shared by highly respected theologians. Kinda good to have got to their academic thinking without knowing it! We visited Montreale and a church much more similar to LBC which was good to see a different type of Mennonite church. Montreale was a nice city, French speaking and not that disimmilar to Paris. It has been interesting understanding how these different European settlements happened and how now everyone starts conversations with their own mixed inherritance backgrounds - something that we have little of in the UK, although I suspect that is likely to change in our multicultuaral context.

The Capital - Ottawa

Yesterday we visited the Capital, Ottawa. It's much colder now and yesterday we had snow. We visited the Canadian Parliament and peace tower and sat in on the house of Commons. Last night we stayed near the capitals palace in a very wealthy neighbourhood. Host here works for the dept of foreign affairs in the government. One thing I have found tough is the extent of wealth in the Mennonite church here. The church buildings are perfect with no expense spared. That makes me feel slightly uncomfortable whenever I visit a church here. They are however very generous people. Particularly when it comes to food. Will need to diet big time on return! Leaving this morning for Montreal.

Amish

Sitting in Williams coffee pub having just visited an Amish community. It's like stepping back in time. Horses and traps as their transport. In their homes they refuse to have electricity or anything that links to the outside world.

We had a meal in an Amish home. We couldn't take their photo as this would be creating a graven image and insulting to them, but you can find out more about them here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish. Interesting experience. I admire their desire for simple living if not a bit surreal. Something you'd expect to exist only in a period drama.

Hockey

Yesterday was good. The group had really gelled and we had some good discussions on culture: How a set Christian Culture was imposed on nations particularly Africa and how we expect Culture today to respond to our Christian culture. An interesting discussion especially with African Christians present.

Worship was good last night - with a real African rhythm.

Hockey (Ice Hockey) is the thing over here. Children start playing it as soon as they can walk. We went to a Hockey game to partake in the culture. My feet stayed firmly on the side!

Today we are off East and are away for a few days so blogs will stop until Saturday when I guess there will be loads to report.