Toronto - Day 2 (Monday)

Our first real day, we all went to our sties and were introduced to our tasks for the week. But, let's hear from the people actually doing it.

Canada, eh?

Lol Canada. We’re in Canada. So that’s cool, eh? Anyway, today my crew went to a great place called St. Judes Academy of the Arts. Pretty cool, eh? It’s pretty cool, because one of the career choices I have for myself is to become a special education teacher. I really enjoyed interacting with the clients there, eh? They all have such loving and caring personalities. You could walk in and immediately be greeted with a hug. I’ve been asking God lately to help me to start to see what I want to do with the rest of my life (I know crazy, eh? I’m a sophomore…). I think God has put me in this position to get a little taste of what this career could look like. Hopefully the rest of the week will go well, eh? Crossing my fingers, eh?

Bye Friend,

-Grace Balasko, eh?

(According to Troy, the expert on Canada, “eh” means you’ve finished what you’re going to say)

Okay… so today my group went to a nursing home. I played scrabble with an elderly man and he kept falling asleep but would wake up when it was his turn. The first word he had said to me was BANANAS he had noticed that that was a word he could put on the scrabble board. Than after the game he went to bed because he was quite tired. So than 2 other people and I interview some of the residents to hear their life stories and to also see if they would answer in “yes” or “no”. One of the questions was “what do you not like?” and the lady I was interviewing said that she didn’t like nasty people. After we interviewed we went to lunch we ate for about an hour. Then we played bingo with an old machine. After that we went up to the 2^nd floor and had a dance party with most of the elderly people that weren’t asleep or were able to be out of their rooms. So far I really enjoy Canada, I hope the rest of the week will be just as fun if not better.

Adios,

-Braedy Laymon

Today, I had the privilege of going to Ina Grafton Gage Home where I found out that most people living in the home had dementia.  Even though this proved to be a challenge in communication, most seniors still attempted to have a conversation with us and opened up.  One person that intrigued me the most was an old lady named Helen.  At one point, she even told me about her husband coming home every day and cooking for their family after cooking as a chef for his job.  These little conversations are just so amazing because everyone can see God working in the middle and letting us be able to listen to everybody’s story.  Over the course of the day I met with several other people who have come from Barbados, Jamaica, and even England.  Their stories also included them finding their way from all over the world to the city of Toronto where I was able to hear from them today.

Sincerely,

-Evan Hodes