Community

Living in Toronto has allowed for me to get to know a lot of really great people, not only in the community I work in but also in my building. Last night when I got home from my weekend back in Barrie I dumped my bags and headed to the apartment right next door for my neighbors son's tenth birthday.

I first met this family back in the summer, they are from Africa and are very African. Any time you go over to say hi or to visit they pretty well force you to eat and drink and sit and stay for a couple hours like you have nothing else to do. Over the past 8 months of living next door to them I have spend a few evenings with them, a couple birthdays and many hugs in passing in the hallways with their 5 kids!

Last night was different though, last night they formally invited me along with the others I life with to come over at 5:30 for a birthday dinner....I was an hour late but did not miss a thing as time doesn't really mean a lot to them. They are very cultural and cook real African food which was quiet the experience. They also for the first time since I have been there also invited extended family over. So picture this, here we were, a family of 7, extended family 12, Germans 5 and me a Canadian crammed into one small apartment. We sang, prayed a blessing over the food and dug into dinner {what ever it was}. I spend some time with the father of the family talking and He expressed so much gratitude for the community that we could be today. That His family could be present but that His extended family in Christ could also be there and be like family to him. He called us His colorful family :)

African food can be interesting and we don't always know what we are eating or how to eat it but if we do it wrong they are quick to show us how to do it proper as well as piling more and more food on to our plates. Honestly the food is never ended when we go there.

It is really cool being able to build relationships that I have with this family especially with their middle daughter  Ajak, we are buddies :) It's fun being included in their family at times since they are so friendly, they continually give me trouble for not coming over more often but it is really cool to just see how God works in simple ways like this!