Sunday, August 24, 2008

The churches in St. Catherine's served a phenomenal breakfast this morning! The meal consisted of tons of mixed fruit, granola and yogurt, and quiche (however you spell it). Quiche is a dutch dish of scrambled eggs with meat and vegetables in like a pie crust - very good. So after breakfast, I, Mark, needed to burn some time before the church service held at Maranatha Christian Reformed Church. Thankfully Art Smit challenged me to a duel in chess with a tile floor as the board and about 2 foot tall pieces. I was black, he was white. The battle started slow, Art taking only a few of my pawns, but then it became fierce, our pieces flying left and right. Sad to say, we had to finish our match without a winner because it was time for church, but I think Art would've won.
The official Sea to Sea rally started at 2pm in Queenston. There we had a "meet and greet" from 2-4pm. However, it was raining, quite hard at sometimes, so we all huddled together under trees and park shelters. Just as worship was about to start at 4pm, the rain immediately stopped. What an amazing act. You could really tell that God was at work. It had been overcast and rainy all day. David Raakman led worship with Brian Walsh speaking about the "fruits of the spirit" for our message. I don't know how many people attended, but it was a lot. All the rain umbrellas made it hard to count.
For supper they fed us hamburgers, hot dogs, watermelon, and pasta salad in the park. It was great, especially since we were all hungry after having only a light lunch this afternoon at the school.
We rode buses back to the school. Just when we arrived, Dale Mowry challenged me to a chess game. So, having to prove myself, I accepted. The match was back and forth, but eventually I gained an upper hand. However, peleton was starting so we had to end early. I guess it's just not meant for me to finish a chess game. At peleton we received instructions about tomorrow's border crossing into New York on the Rainbow Bridge near Niagara Falls. Hopefully it goes smooth. If anything, at least we'll get to look at the falls once again.
Well, that's all for now. I'm going to try and get some extra sleep for tonight before our last week. It's just amazing how fast time has gone by. Seems like only yesterday we all were arriving with our bags at the University of Washington.
Eric rode on the Maid of the Mist, a boat ride that takes you into the mist at
Niagara Falls, on Sunday morning with a local family and then joined the rest of camp at the celebration service.