IVEP End-Year Conference

the bus which took us to Canada 🙂

In the bus in the way to Canada. i sat with a long-time-no-see friend, IVEPer friend from Indonesia too 🙂

Across the border. It didn’t take us a long time to get through the border 😉

Free time on Monday night, I walked around with Tigist from Ethiopia and found a spot to take picture. My first night in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada 🙂

We stayed in a dormitory of this university only on Monday night because on the next night we’ll stay at host families 🙂

Kansas’ IVEPers. Jose (Bolivia), Viliya(Indonesia), and Matias (Dominican Republic). I’ll miss them 🙂

We’re in the bus to go to the church where we will have our sessions. I sat with Noutnally from Laos 🙂

I got my IVEP certificate and my yearbook today 🙂

Posing with Chris Landes (director of Global Service Learning MCC) and Andrea Greiser (US IVEP / YAMEN coordinator). Maybe it’s my last picture with Andrea because she is leaving to paraguay tomorrow to promote the program in the Mennonite World Conference.

I and Maria Thun (Germany) stay in Lewis and Lois Brubacher’s house tonight until Thursday night. We took a walk to downtown Waterloo after supper 🙂

WEDNESDAY, JULY 8

Today was pretty good. We had only two sessions, two goodbyes for Andrea and Tigist. and a lot of walk! After a session and having lunch, I and some friends took a walk to a MCC thrift shop around downtown. I didn’t expect that it would be that “far”.

Downtown Waterloo.

It’s interesting that people here hang a pot of flowers on each pole on the street. It’s pretty. i saw a lot of flowers on the street here, so colourful 🙂

How interesting the way they planted the flowers on the sidewalk. They put it on the row.

Fabio from Brazil, a good and fun friend. He likes photography and he has a very good camera too, just like someone i dearly know in Newton…Ms.Kristin 🙂 

taking last picture with Tigist Gelagle (Ethiopia) before she flew to paraguay today 🙂

last picture of Andrea and Indonesian IVEPers before she flew to paraguay today.

Me and Su Ha. We both think that we look fat in this picture 😛 hee…hee…hee…..

We went to a small town called St.Jacobs to visit Mennonite History Center.

Inside the Visitor center.

Indonesia has 72.624 Mennonite People in 2007. I am included 🙂

Me, Kay and Nout (Laos) were in front of the visitor Center. It was so sunny but actually the temperature were not so hot.

Pretty flowers along the road in St.Jacobs. It’s a small town but nice. We went walking on a trail too. Actually I did a lot of walking that day (not only the trail). We were tired 😛

After all the walking, we went for supper in Elmira Town, another small town where one of my IVEPer friend lived for her assignment.

The way to our supper, flat fields, reminding me of flat Kansas 🙂

We had supper at the church. I am impressed with Mennonite People here. They volunteered to provide us meals 🙂 and also place to stay (all host families are volunteer).

THURSDAY, JULY 9

We had our two last sessions this day and we had our International Worship that night. This time we had more free time so we could explore the city more. We were more relax so we could enjoy our time together. it was better than the Mid-Year Conference.

Me and my host (Lewis &Lois Brubacker) in their backyard 🙂 so sunny in the morning

colourful flowers in their backyard 🙂

Waterloo Kitchener United Mennonite Church, the church where we had our end year conference 🙂

There are a lot of berry trees here in Waterloo and also in Toronto. They are on the sidewalks so you can just pick them and eat them. My friends did that a lot, unfortunately berries are not my favourite fruit 😛 so i just tried one berry, that’s all.

There are a lot of flowers in the city. They also hang them on the lamp pole along the roads.