This is not a Democracy, this is a Dictatorship!

Saying goodbye to my friends and family was hard. I don’t usually share emotions or show them, but going away for 5 months with little contact was going to be a struggle and it definitely hit me as I got onto the plane. It was almost like saying goodbye to your loved ones forever, as so many events would happen while I would be away.

As I arrived at the airport I met Tom and Rachael and then met Josh, Dan (also known as Scott), Chris and Andrew through security. It was a weird sensation to attempt to make your best first impressions in being as cool as you can, as these would be the individuals who I would be living 24/7 with for 5 months, sharing pretty much everything about my faith and life back at home. Most of them are from the south west so their accents I had to get used to! 9 hours later we said hello to Calgary, a city situated in the province of Alberto Canada. There we met Seb our team leader, Lauren and Mac our other leaders and Josh Erb and Kiri Erb the Soul Edge founders and directors. The next few days were going to be busy as most of it was picking up gear from MEC an outdoor warehouse, a small 3 hour hike to see the start of the Rockies and travelling 6 hours to Herbert in Saskatchewan where we would be living for the first 3 months. Herbert is a small town on highway one with a population of about 1000 people. It only has one school and gas station etc, yet it's surprising how much goes on. There are loads of churches dotted on pretty much every block and trains that make 3 loud blasts of their horn on a regular basis as they go by. 

When we arrived all the leaders sat us down and went through what was going to be happening, daily routines and what was expected of us. Josh clearly explained that although it’s all British banter with Canadian accents here, this is not a Democracy, it’s a Dictatorship. If the leaders tell us to do something it will be for a good reason of safety and efficiency, therefore rightly so we have to follow or we’ll be out pretty soon!

So our week days go something like this: 

7:30 get up, shower, breakfast and then we have our Personal Devotion time, time to read the chapters and books we’re meant to learn and any other personal things we need to do to prepare us for the day ahead. 

9:30 starts with Josh Erb doing spontaneous worship to the group. I think this is a great way to really open up and be yourself with God and not let anyone judge you by the way you worship. We then pray and Josh does his morning session with us. In the first week we have been going through the inward spiritual disciplines which are great for me as I haven’t really dived deep into this matter up until now. 

At 11 we go for a 3km run in the snow (though we don’t if the temperature drops below -20) and then hit the gym. After lunch we have our afternoon session lead by Kiri. In the 1^st week Kiri explained how we could get the most out of the Bible, giving us some great detail into the way the Bible is structured, translated and contradicted through terms such as exegesis, hermeneutics, apodictic and casuistic law. She also went into more detail about creation and in Genesis where confusion and questions may be answered.

At about 3/4ish the team splits and half goes to work on the ranch where we do anything from moving and cutting logs to riding horses and hay bale wrestling. The other half cleans the house and cooks the evening meal. In the evening depending what day, we go to cell groups, have more Bible sessions or go to the local high school basket ball matches.

Fridays we go snowboarding in Oak water, a small resort in Alberto. This is great to go and mess around on the black runs and Freestyle Park and was great to see some of the beginners pick their skills up!

Every Saturday we have an excursion, this can entail hiking as what we did the first Saturday we came, it can be survival training, snow camping or anything else they think of. Sundays is our day off and unfortunately our only time to contact home and relax due to our packed days during the week. After going to church in the morning this time is dedicated to skyping family, my girlfriend Poppy and writing this of course, my blog. So a pretty packed and well worth hectic week I have. In the following blogs I will dive into my experiences with God and explaining the national sport of Soul Edge, Alphadog.

(If you have not already seen it – there is a link to the itinerary for my course on the right of this blog)