Craig Vanderveen

---Original message from Justin Cooper---
We are saddened by the tragic news of the death of Craig Vanderveen on Thursday evening, June 28. While visiting his family in Manitoba, he and his cousin were killed in a car accident while traveling to Winnipeg to see their grandfather. Further details of the funeral and any contact information will be provided when it becomes available. In the meantime, please pray for the Lord's grace and comfort for family and friends, particularly those in the Redeemer community who knew and worked with Craig.With resurrection hope,President Cooper

Please pray for both these families, friends, and the communities that both Craig and his cousin were part of. Until we get to meet again.

June in review

Months are flying by...

Half of my time in Thunder Bay is gone now. And it is going faster than I can even imagine, right now I am very tired. Meanwhile I stopped writing this blog, went to bed, slept for 11 hours, did laundry, and have started processing a lot of things that have been going on in my life in the last week and a bit. My last week was a harder week than before, I was very tired, when the week started, and many emotions and challenges from the youth and Youthworks experience just added to this. Hearing that Craig died, is something that seems non-realistic, realizing that tomorrow the youth are going to come again, is also crazy. So, this week has been a whirlwind of events.

However, I have had the chance to have some amazing conversations with some of the youth, to spend time with them, work with them, and grow and be challenged with them. We were able to find a few new ministry opportunities, and it looks like the coming week, we get a new start, in which we will be able to see where God is taking us as a team.

Recent highlights include;

Having a very challenging, but awesome group with Justin bowling 216 (see picture)

Hiking through Sleeping Giant Provincial Park

Putting up Sheet Rock at O'Conner Baptist church

After the week with the Lutherans

Well, my first real week of YouthWorks is done. After 1 week in Denver, 2 weeks of prep the last week was our first one running a mission trip. It was an amazing and humbling experience, all of our groups were Lutheran and most of the churches were quite familiar with each other we had two groups from Grand Forks, ND and one group from Bemidji, MN. The youth were all between 12-14, so basically this week the trip was for junior high youth. The week was absolutely amazing. We as a staff still had some small details to work out, especially around dinner times. But, even though not everything went perfect the week was amazing. Part of the reason for that was that the adult leaders we had were very willing to help, and backed us up when needed. The youth was amazing, by wednesday they were coming back with stories about how they were part of changing the communities they were serving in and, the stories we heard on Thursday, were similar: amazing! The footwashing service was emotional, and was an amazing time of reflection of our first week as a staff, and the youth's work this week serving God and the community. For more stories throughout the summer check our very very new blog... http://www.t-bay007.blogspot.com/.

Yesterday, after all the kids left, we had to do our friday duties, which included shopping. Our 30 minute trip ended up taking us 180 minutes (that's 3 hours). So, after, no printer, dropping of Cheryl at the airport, picking up laundry, buying groceries at both the Canadian wholesale and superstore, going over our debit card balance, desperate calls, writing cheques, packing in a mini van, and a malibu full of groceries and laundry. We came back and decided we wanted pizza.

Today, we wanted to go out so we went to Mount McKay. It was quite the thrilling adventure, with an amzing view of lake superior and all of God's creation. Steve nearly fell of the cliff. And it was just an awesome time of bonding. All in all, my saturday so far has been quite relaxing, I am just very tired now.

From Mount McKay with the Sleeping Giant in the background.
Me on top of Mount McKay with the Thunder Bay (bay) of lake superior and many trees in the background

Well, we are still in Thunder Bay

We are still rockin' it in Thunder Bay. Well it is Thursday now, and Sunday our first youth are coming. So, basically things really need to come together now, and I'll tell you something they are coming together. However, since I started typing this blog about 2 hours ago, someone has cancelled on me for monday, but that is part of my job, and I think I can figure it out for Monday. So to give you a bit more detail my job in the last 2 weeks. This is what I have been doing.

A lot of business like...
*Trying to schedule about 20 meetings with ministry contacts
*Having about 15 actual meetings with those contacts
*Trying to schedule all that stuff into a neat looking week
*Making, editing, and creating Directions, "crew books", notes, and much more to make other people understand all the ramblings that go on in my brain

On the less business said of my body and brain, I have been having lots of fun
*Having Root Beer Floats, or other Ice-cream creations
*Goofing of with my awesome staff
*Having many SB's DQ's TH's MCD's KFC's or other delicious snacks with awesome people
*Loving Jesus, and realizing that he did a much better job at a lot of things than even those things I think I am really good at.

Then between business and fun, God has been changing my life
*The weekend was really hard for me, I was feeling a bit down, and wondered why the keck I was in Thunder Bay of all places
*I also had one of those occasional desires that (unfortunately) pops up in my brain to decide how the rest of my life is going to look
*Meeting with a guy named Pastor Sky was a pretty good remedy to those kind of thoughts, hearing his story of trusting God, even when God brought him to T-Bay, where he now has an amazing vision to set up this youth centre and career area, for disadvantaged youth

And all of this just happened in a bit more than a week, seeing that God has about 8 more in store for me with YouthWorks! this summer, it will be quite the adventure.