In between travelling to India, the Netherlands, and Malawi, we lived-traveled in Canada. Our "residence" in Canada was near Seeley's Bay, Ontario, or about half an hours drive from Kingston. We lived in a parsonage next to a church, which the pastor did not need because he had his own house. We are very grateful because the members of this church let us live there rent free for a long time. The house suited us well, but the mold spores that multiplied in our moist basement affected the allergies of our whole family, particularly my dad and brother Jonathan. Our house had a pretty neat setting. We were in the middle of the country surrounded by forests and farms. A small, little country road ran in front of our house, although it would have put most Malawian highways to shame (80% of the marked highways on Malawian maps are small, dirt roads with huge potholes, and are liable to flood in the rainy season). From the road, our house was on the right, a typical Canadian house; with three bedrooms and a large basement. Separating our house from the church was a lawn, and then a parking lot, the church itself rising on the left. It was a tall, two story building, with a steeple, and a bell that automatically tolled every day at noon.We considered having church here a treat, because normally we traveled to a different church each Sunday to raise support. We met a lot of nice folks on these trips, but we didn't know anyone there, so we preferred attending Pine Grove Community Church. One of my best memories of this church was my youth group, which met every Tuesday. One of the really awesome things I did at this church was having Nerf fights with the rest of the teens, in which we played "Zombies." The rules of this game are that half of the players are armed with blasters, and the other half are "Zombies," which carry no arms. The object of the zombie team is to tag the players with guns without being hit. If a zombie tags a "gunner" without being hit, then that gunner becomes a zombie. If a zombie is hit, it has to wait out an allotted amount of time before re-entering the game. We played it in complete darkness, save for those red EXIT signs that all public buildings are required to have. We fought on both levels of the church, the zombies trying to ambush the people with the guns, or storm them. Me and Johnny also went laser-tagging several times, which is equally awesome. We still continue to have Nerf fights with our friends here, having brought several blasters with us from Canada.
The three sides surrounding our house were woods. Me and Johnny and our friends spent long hours in those forests exploring the paths, or making our own. Just as we thought we were running out of woods to explore, we'd find a new one. Us and our friend Jeremy occupied ourselves for days after our snow forts began with building a treefort in the woods. We used short planks from several paintball field barriers that Jeremy's brother hadn't used for years. these weren't much longer than six feet, so our options were limited. Still, we managed to build a large fort that impressed by parents when they saw it. We also built awesome snow-forts while we were there, but that deserves another post. As our stay in Canada drew to a close, we all felt a bit sad to leave the place where we had finally settled in, however, I we are now happy to be in Malawi. In the summer of 2014, we packed or stored or belongings, and then left on our next adventure. We wouldn't head to Malawi immediately though, because we still had two awesome family camps to visit. Like our snow forts, these also deserve a separate post. In August that year, we flew from one adventure to another, en-route to Malawi, with a stop in the Netherlands. Our two years in Canada were an unforgettable experience, so click on the links below to learn more about it:
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| One of our awesome snow forts. This one had a chimney, with a fireplace at the bottom that we actually used. A post on this is coming soon. |
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| Pine Grove Community Church, lots of happy memories here. |
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