Will and I just got back from a youth service trip in Montreal, and we have an incredible week, full of challenges, excitement, surprises, adventure and…aching feet.

We hopped on the train August 4 and had a longgg journey first to Montreal, then taking the metro to our stop, then walking up a long uphill tunnel to the MCC house. That evening we got our groceries and witnessed an arrest taking place, of a man so drunk he couldn’t stand on his own. What a way to break the youth in to Montreal.

Service Experiences
Alyssa (the other sponsor) worked with a group of 2 girls at an organization called COCLA (I don’t even know what that stands for), which provides service to the Hispanic community, focusing on immigrants. They mostly did translation from French to English (ironically, none of them felt real confident with French) and organized events for seniors.

Will worked with 3 youth at La Maison de L’Amitie (The House of Friendship), an organization that provides lodging to refugees, community events, language courses, etc. They spent the week painting there.

I worked with the other 3 youth at Multicaf, which is a cafeteria and food bank for low income families. The organization mostly has volunteers, many of which are working there as community service, as an alternative to paying for parking tickets or doing jail time for shop lifting. My group had a diverse experience, as we were moved around and given various different jobs to do; serving food, preparing food, cleaning the storage room, husking corn, sorting cans, bagging food, preparing soap bags, unloading the truck, etc. We met people from all parts of the world, different ethnic backgrounds and ages, different stories and languages. The highlight of our time there was probably sliding down the conveyor belt (where boxes are put from the truck and slid down). We thought we wouldn’t be allowed to do that, but when the boss came by, he encouraged us to do it, and told us to do it in boxes, because it’s faster. That was awesome. Among the interesting people we met were a muslim converted to Christianity (but didn’t want it to be known by anyone there), an Italian who told us (because we were willingly volunteering) “if everyone in the world were like you, there would be world peace”, a few wonderful people working off parking tickets or shoplifting fines, a man who crowed like a rooster all the time and made other animal noises, and people who just wanted to know more about Mennonites. It was a unique and growing experience for all of us.

Fun Stuff We Did
During our week, we kept ourselves busy with plenty of fun things to do. We attended a neat church Sunday morning, that is fairly modern and young, but using the building of an old cathedral. I greatly enjoyed the sermon, but there were mixed feelings among the youth as to the style of worship. Alyssa (the other sponsor), Will and I spent the afternoon seeing churches, including a huge and highly ornate church called “Mary, Reign du Monde” (Mary, Queen of the World), and the “Notre Dame” cathedral.

Tuesday night was movie night, so I took a group of girls to see “Hairspray”, which far exceeded my expectations. I thought it would be stupid, but it was actually very good, and John Travolta was quite convincing as a woman.

Wednesday night, my group was able to visit the other groups at their work places, as we first went to COCLA to pick up the first group, then together we met up with the other group at House of Friendship. Afterwards, we walked up Mont Royale, and enjoyed the spectacular view of the city lights at night.

Thursday night was our Allouettes/Body Worlds night, where Will took a group to the Allouettes football game, and Alyssa and I took a group to see the Body Worlds 2 exhibit at the Montreal Science Center. We were all glad we went, but felt unsure about the experience, as it was a little…disturbing.

Friday, we all managed to get off early from our placements, and met up with each other at Mont Royale station, and went thrift store shopping. We then went to an amazing restaurant called “Juliette et Chocolate”, where they have chocolate everything! Their hot chocolate is literally melted chocolate. We got chocolate crepes, and chocolate brownings, and hot chocolate and yum…

Even though we were all exhausted by the end of it, we all had a week fantastique!