01.25.14.

I normally don't blog about single events, but this one was just too good not to.

You see, normally on Friday nights, my youth group (P2C) would have a social event. In the past weeks, we've done some pretty great things, like making pizza together, having board games night, going skating. etc. But last night, we did something that was much cooler than all three of those things combined- we went to play laser tag!

It was a great way to get off campus with a large group of friends while being able to kick back and relax at the same time. I wasn't particularly stressed out this week, but it was nice to have a bit of fun nonetheless.

I took some pictures while I was out last night, so here they are!

Picture #1: The picture below is of the scores of all the players who were in the game last night. I know the font is tiny and the photo quality isn't great, but I was on the green team for this particular round, and my name (in the game) was Stealth. I placed 10th overall out of 22 players. I'd say that was a pretty good accomplishment!

Picture #2: This is a picture of my personal scoresheet from the first round I played. In this round, I was on the red team. My team beat the blue team (yay!) and I placed 8th out of 19 players. Being in the top 10 is always good!

Picture #3: This is my personalized scoresheet from the second round of the game. There were more players in this round, so they split us up into three teams. I was on the green team (same round as picture 1), and placed 10th out of 22 players. Hurray for making the top 10 once again! :)

Picture #4: This is definitely my favourite picture from the night, which is why I made it so big. These were all the friends I went to laser tag with! A lot of them I met for the first time last night, because people were allowed to invite their friends, and so there were a lot of girls who live on the floor above me whom I don't know very well.

Directly to the left of me is my friend (from P2C) Michaella, the one who organized the event. She's a very aggressive player when it comes to laser tag, but I had a lot of fun trying to shoot her back every time she got me! Second from the left in the back row is my good friend Rebecca, also from P2C. We share a lot of special moments together, and we'll be sharing many more as we both head to Peru for a missions trip this May! I'm so excited to see what God has in store for us and His ministry! :)

I think that's a long enough post for tonight. I had so much fun with all of my friends last night, and I hope you had fun reading about my adventure too!

Toodles!~

01.12.14.

It's a very exciting week.

Actually, that's an understatement.

More like, it's been the best week I've had in a long long time.
It was very fulfilling, and God-filled too.

1) I asked for rest and that's what I got. I slept well the entire school week, and went to class feeling energized pretty much every day. I went to all my classes, didn't fall asleep in any of them, and learnt something out of each one.

2) A missionary from Peru came to visit P2C this week. Having Thursday and Friday afternoons off, I got to go on a prayer walk and to go evangelizing with this missionary. We developed a really good friendship, learnt a lot from each other, and were able to see the needs of the campus. God laid on both of us a heart for the different faculties and their struggles in relation to making God known, and we prayed a lot. It was such an amazing experience to share with a missionary, despite having language barriers (she speaks Spanish). It's stunning how much non-verbal communication  means. I also got to improve my Spanish at the same time!

3) On the missionary's final night, we had dinner at my P2C counsellor's house, so that we could share a Peruvian dinner together and pray for the needs of that country. The missionary told us of the brokenness of the university students in Peru, and how they were looking for satisfaction and fulfillment in all the wrong places (academics, graduating, boyfriends, etc.) She told us about a missions trip that was happening in Peru this coming May (like 4 months from now) and how as a P2C group, all of us were invited and eligible to go. The needs of Peru really touched me, and it was then, at dinner, that I decided I wanted to go on this missions trip in May. Of course, there was still an application process to go through, as well as getting permission from my parents and such.

4) Friday night was P2C's social night since our actual fellowship time got moved to Sunday nights now, so in light of that and the fact that it was the missionary's last night in Kingston, we took everyone skating! It was such a cool experience to see many of the international students in our group step foot on the ice for the first time. Seeing their faces light up as they began to understand how the sport worked was joyful, and everyone just had an all-around wonderful time!

5) On Saturday night, I called up my parents, telling them about my desire to go on the missions trip to Peru. THEY ACTUALLY LET ME GO! I was so shocked. I was pretty sure they were going to say no, but in reality, they were actually quite supportive and encouraging. They warned me of the many things I would encounter that would be foreign to me, and how the experience may be harder than what I'm expecting. They told me to start on the application process, and I'm so ready to get on that as soon as I can!

6) God blessed me with a pet fish. I've been wanting to get a fish since I moved into residence last September (2013), but my parents were saying how it would be very time-consuming to take care of, and having to go through the hassle of going into town to get a tank, supplies, and then go back after a few weeks of the tank being cycled to get a fish was just too much. But I didn't give up and I didn't lose hope. I kept praying, wanting a pet, a companion. Eventually, after God taught me a full semester's lesson of patience, he blessed me with a fish! There was a girl selling her pet beta fish on "Free and For Sale", a FB group within Queen's university, because she wouldn't be able to care for her fish this coming summer. I took up the offer, and now have a very happy and healthy beta fish sitting on my desk beside me as I write this post! He definitely keeps me very occupied, but he's a happy little guy and I'm just filled with so much joy when I wake up to see him swimming around every morning!

And that's my amazing week! It's really been amazing seeing how much God can do in a person's life in just one week, and I can't wait to see what the upcoming weeks this semester will bring!

01.06.14.

End of first semester and beginning of a New Year.

Still letting that sink it. Wow.

I think overall, first semester's been a good one. I did well in all my courses, tests, assignments, and exams, and I'm really glad that only have I learnt a lot over the past term, but I also managed to come out of it with an average that is surprisingly even higher than the one I pulled off in high school. Yes I have somewhat easy courses and a lot of what is being taught this year is review for me, but at the same time, I still had to work for it. I also got quite involved with extracirricular activities (dance, fellowship, church, etc.) and I really do owe it to God for all these opportunities He's given me, because it these things definitely helped to keep me sane in times of stress and emotional overflows. Being a part of P2C has been such a blessing, and getting mentored by such a caring upper year really helped me spiritually. All of the outreach activities we did also opened me up to what students are capable of doing on campus, and how God really wants the students at Queen's to know Him.

When asked what the biggest lesson I've learnt at Queen's over the past semester is, I confidently respond: "The biggest lesson I've learnt is to love and appreciate my parents more." Thanks to a good friend and fellow sister in Christ, I've really been shown how much the little and big things your parents have been doing for you your entire life really matter, and how we can little things to show our thanks. Things like sending a letter or postcard home, taking them out for dinner, just generally being nice when they call; it all adds up.

Over the break, I got the chance to go to P2C+, a conference that was held in Toronto. It was such an eye-opening experience as we were taught how to reach out to others with the Good News through social media, cravings, our own testimony, and more. It was also nice to get my priorities straight going into second semester, and to figure out what I should be finding my identity in. It was a good reminder that aside from going to Queen's for school and academics and a career, the main reason we're at Queen's is to fulfill Jesus' ministry and to be a witness to those on campus. You can get your education anywhere, but the fact that God placed you at Queen's has to mean something, and perhaps He wants you to do something amazing on campus. Whether it'd be something big and extraordinary, or something small that could mean the world to one person, it doesn't matter. You just have to find His purpose for you on campus. And of course, the same goes for all my friends at other schools too. God has placed you there for a purpose and reason. Never forget that.

I'm so thankful to all the upper years on campus that were so helpful as I was searching for all the textbooks I needed for my Music History course this term. The material is very expensive if bought new, and the 5 textbooks/anthologies/CDs I need would have come to a total of over $300 if bought new, but thanks to upper years selling at cheaper prices, and some even willing to lend the books to me for the entire semester, I am now spending far less on books for this course. This is really a God-answered prayer seeing as I really didn't have the finances necessary to purchase all those books at regular price going into second semester.

And that wraps up my reflection for now. Looking forward to another great semester at Queen's! :)