DRIME time!

Time for more stories!! Last night was a fantastic time; we participated in "Battle of the Sexes" for our Mandatory Fun/Team Building evening. It was a random set of events that tested different skills both genders were more accustomed to including obstacle courses, tests of fitness, organization, cooperation, communication, bravery and gluttony. After a very close score, the women won overall!! Woohoo! Our prize is a social next Friday night planned by the men catered and targeted entirely to the female gender. Although there've been some suggestions made that we will be watching "Braveheart" (apparently for the William Wallace factor), I'm confident the men will plan a fun evening for us.
To explain the picture shown in the last entry and tell a story I know you've been curious about...I shall proceed in telling you about last Saturday's happenings. The director of DRIME (Disciples Ready in Mobile Evangelism) Tanya Price joined us for the day to train us in the art of "driming". DRIME is an organization that "exists to reach people for Christ through choreographed street drama, empower others for ministry through drama and evangelism training, and produce passionate, discipled leaders through purposed community"(drime.com). If you search drime on youtube.com, you can see examples of these dramas that we learned (our groups specifically learned the ones entitled "please", "ragman", and thief"), there's also the ministry video on there which gives a clear outline of who they are and some great examples of their work(http://youtube.com/watch?v=VR615vEtHe8). So, basically...it's a choreographed drama set to a song that tells a story from the Bible, or just on the truths of the Bible. The specific drama that I participated in was based on the Bible verse John 10:10, which says, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." and was set to the song "Idioteque" by Radiohead. In our drama I was one of three girls (symbolizing steal, kill, and destroy...I played the one being "destroyed"..it was dark/morbid, yet powerful.). The drama began with Jesus (in the professional drimes, and the ones on youtube.com, Jesus always wears a white tshirt to be distinguished from the others...everyone else is in all black.) creating each one of us in his image and then Satan slowly making his way into our lives. Soon we were under his command and participating in self-destructive behaviours. After a rigorous path of destruction it parellels us breaking the shackels of Satan's control with Christ's crucifixion and resurrection...symbolizing that he died so that we can be set free from the hold of our sin. It's hard to explain exactly how the drama played out, but it was very powerful and I found myself overwhelmed while watching another group perform. It was a very different way yet very relevant way of illustrating God's impact on our lives. Like they say in the ministry video, everyone can relate to music and drama. The day was very intense/draining, both physically and emotionally. But we all came away very empowered and excited to use this new tool.
On an entirely separate note, one of the big lessons that I've learned over the past few weeks here and I'm confident will continue to learn is effective time management. The upcoming time commitments of project and work ( I start my job on Monday! yay!) have forced me to map out a weekly schedule so that I can a) get the most out of my "project" experience through participating in ministry activities, building relationships and completing assigned homework and b) stay in contact with people from home through phone, email and blog. In doing this, I've set aside time on Tuesdays, Thursdays and once on the weekends for blogging(...just so you know when to expect them!). I think this is best in keeping everyone up to date on my happenings but also allowing me time to experience happenings. As well, I've set aside a specific time to reply to emails, so please forgive me if I don't respond in a timely manner! ..Just thought I'd let you all in "the know" of things!

wild week

Wow...I can't believe it's been a WEEK since I last blogged...the past 7 days has flown by! Time here seems very strange...part of me feels like I've been here for months because so much has happened since we arrived, but other parts feel like time is flying by and before I know it home time will be here! Strange, really.
This past week has been quite the adventure, like most weeks here! Sunday I went to church with Gilberto, Joanna and Denise. We attended Faith Tabernacle; we like to call this day "A Series of Unfortunate Events"...similar to the blockbuster favourite you know and love. To set the stage..it was raining, like it is most days in Halifax...but on this day Joanna and I had done our hair without knowing that it was raining outside (all of the females reading know what I'm talking about...straightened hair + rain = a half hour that you could've spent doing something more productive!) ....UE(unfortunate event)#1: on the way to church we got stuck in traffic due to the Bluenose Marathon, which went through Halifax this past weekend (you might have seen it on the news). As we drove around trying to find an alternate route we discovered that the marathon literally cut right through the part of the city that we needed to cross and there was no way around it. Eventually, we were allowed through..although it put us 20 minutes late for church. (funny quote: "This marathon is holding up the economy of the city!" - Gilberto). UE#2: Finally, once arriving we discover that the road that Faith Tabernacle is on was undergoing construction which meant that we had to park on a side street and walk in...in the rain. UE#3: I accidentally stepped on the back of Joanna's sandal and it broke! ...it was easily repaired, but counted as one more addition to the UEs of the day. This concludes the unfortunate events of that day, church was delightful - I think I might go there again next Sunday...I'd like to see what it's like to show up on time and talk to some of the people. I appreciated the diversity of the church, both in age and culture; there were a healthy amount of people from every age range, from babies to seniors, as well as ethnicities.
Well, I'm going to have to cut this short, I'm headed out the door...more stories to come! Tonight is "Battle of the Sexes" during Mandatory Fun time, so I'm sure that there'll be some good stories to share from that!
Happy Friday!

P.S. This picture has nothing to do with the story mentioned...but it leaves you guessing what the next one will be about!!