Toronto- Canada's Biggest City

lived in Toronto for a couple years during my under grad so it was great to be back and to connect more with what's going on in the city. I love how cross-cultural Toronto is, it actually has one of the highest populations of foreign born people in the world. I still remember the culture shock when I moved there, where I lived most people's first language wasn't English and I think that's the case in most of Toronto. I still remember studying by a ravine with my boyfriend at the time observing that not one person who walked/biked/roller-bladed by us spoke English... And I thought French was hard enough to keep up with! I really love and appreciate the cultural diversity in Toronto.

I had a really busy week and met tons of amazing people while I was there.

Matthew Gibbins (IVCF/Urbana 2009)- What a heart this man has. I spent a couple days with him and got to meet his wife as well who was also a delight. He introduced me many people. He's great at connecting people for Kingdom stuff with such a heart to see change in this emerging generation. It was a real joy to spend time getting to know him.

MoveIn: Matthew introduced me to the founder of MoveIn (www.movein.to). This new movement is amazing. The whole idea of marrying prayer with mission and community living is brilliant and changing our world, I think. They're having a conference in Toronto May 8-9.

Ruth Copland (IVCF national prayer director): Chris (our 24-7 team leader), Matthew, Ruth and I had a great lunch to discuss prayer on campuses and Urbana.

Lausanne Movement: Chris and I also met with the Canadian board of the Lausanne Movement, all about “the whole church taking the whole gospel to the whole world” (www.lausanne.org). They're planning Cape Town 2010- The third Lausanne congress on world evangelization. Really great organization... we shared our 24-7 vision and dream for Canada and asked them if we could help serve them in anyway.

Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC): I spent almost a full day at the EFC office in Toronto meeting with a number of great people. (www.evangelicalfellowship.ca)

On Wednesday I got to be part of an hour and half conference call with prayer leaders from across our nation. It was amazing to hear what's going on across Canada and the common call to cities. It was the first call they've done like this in a while but everyone felt like we need to continue this kind of communication to better pray for each other and hear God's heart for our nation. Amazing!

Before I came home I met with a couple girls about doing a prayer room at the MoveIn conference in May. There is 12 days of prayer in the works but 3 of them will actually be onsite happening 24-7. I believe so strongly in their vision and what they want to accomplish, it's a real joy to be able to support and work with them in this fast growing, incredible initiative.