white christmas.....

I'm dreaming..of a white..Christmas.. just like the ones I used to know.....

This year, for the first time I experienced a literally "White Christmas" at Vancouver, BC. Hmm Before that, maybe I should describe my activities in Vancouver. I arrived here last Saturday noon (Dec 23rd). I'm hosted by Kak Stef who is the pastor of GII Vancouver. GII is the oldest Indonesian church in Canada, that day, the church was celebrating its 20th anniversary, in conjunction with their Christmas celebration. Wow! When I went to the church earlier to help them finalizing the preparations such as decorations etc. my memories suddenly clinged to our home church in Bandung.... hix..hix.. It reminded me of all the Christmas busy-ness in Indonesia, especially in the church. I missed them though. But.. that's ok. As I look to the youth here in GII Vancouver, I'm pleased to see how they are working to prepare this big event. They are very skillful and talented people and they're willing to give their best for God's glory.

So, that night, there was about 200 people attended the celebration. A large crowd for a typical Indonesian church in North America/Canada.

The youth choir




comedy


Now... the white Christmas??????? Yeach, on December 25th we went up to Cypress Mountain with several people from the church (the old and the young ones, about 20 of us). It's about 1 hr from Vancouver. From a distance, I can see the whitish mountaintops as the snow covered them. When we got in to Cypress, it was really White Christmas! So beautiful. The only thing was the windchill was blowing so intensed that it was really freezing!!! Brrrrrrrrrrr.

snowy trees

dragging the tube to the top

Well, I know everybody will ask: why not snowboarding????? We couldn't do it that day coz we have lots of children with us, and they are not allowed to play snowboarding, so in order to make them happy still, we play...."tubing!" Haha... it was fun, though. The tube was dragged to the top of the hill and released as we're sliding on the snow.... it was quite thrilling especially when they spin my tube! How bout that?

I enjoyed most of my time while visiting Vancouver. You know what? I almost thought that this is Hongkong, coz everywhere I go, like buses, skytrains, streets, malls, the people that I've seen the most are the Asian/Chinese people, and the suburbs are more like chinatowns. We were laughing when Kak Stef preached about one Scripture interpretation that some of the magis who came to worship baby Jesus could be ncek-ncek dari Tiongkok.... who knows...hahaha.

Another thing that I like most from Vancouver is the port/harbor. It's always great to see ocean/beach/waters, especially when it's calm.

the untouchable seagull

what a place.....

It's great to meet old friends. Heidi or Noni is one of my old friends. Last time we met was probably five years ago. I called it 'stupidity friends' becoz that's what it is. Grew up in the same church, same choir, same elementary, same junior/senior high, man.. that's pretty boring, isn't it? Well, sometimes it does boring.... haha. Ok. Today I left Vancouver after spending 5 days there. Now, back in Seattle again and tomorrow will be heading down to Portland, Oregon to meet my other friends. Tata....

my old friend heidi and sundoro