Our son Nathan is on a one year internship with Urban Promise, a ministry “that exists to proclaim the love of Jesus, and to express it through the spiritual, social and educational development of children, youth and families living in government housing.”

July 2011
Hello Everyone,

I am back in Toronto and I am so glad. My new roommates are a British guy who is pretty much a stand-up comic, and a Canadian dude who just finished a year at Culinary College (he made the most amazing vegetarian pizza from scratch), so you could say I am pretty happy with them. I have completed a week of camp and its amazing. The kids are absolutely adorable, and reasonably well behaved.

I had something really awesome happen at the beginning of returning. I was out walking in the communities dropping of registration forms when I saw two kids I had worked with, Sunny (age 6) and Natalie (age 8). Natalie came and gave me a hug, then another, told me she missed me, and then hugged me again. This was pretty amazing, because on the last day of after-school program before the Christmas break she had told me that she hated me, and not to worry when I got back from Christmas break, because she would still hate me, and would continue to hate me forever. So it was nice for her to be so excited. Also, in the last few weeks of after school program, me and Sunny had a running joke. Sunny struggled a lot with reading, but through the year he improved, and I found out he was really good at math, so  I had told him how smart he was, but he didn’t believe me. So it became our little joke that I would always try and get him to say “I’m Smart” but he would always just say “I’m dumb” instead. Anyways when I saw them he excitedly told me how he had read a whole book and completed his homework all by himself. He then looked to me and said “I am smart” and that has pretty much been a highlight of my year.

Halfway through last week, Judah (the boy I worked with a lot last year) and his siblings came to summer camp for the first time. Within a half hour I had to give him a time-out, and he said the funniest thing I have ever heard any of the kids say. During the Bible lesson he asked me if he could go to the bathroom. I told him to wait a bit until the allotted bathroom time. He then smiled and said “I am going to count to ten and then pee my pants.” He got to 8 before I realized he wasn’t bluffing.

I just want to say thank you to everyone who has volunteered to come help with the community BBQ on August 17th. I am really excited to show you the kids I have been working with the past year. Too anyone who hasn’t heard about this, ask my Mom and Dad because they are the ones organizing it.

I found out recently that the mother of some of our kids who was pregnant lost her child, so please keep her in prayer. Please pray for all the leaders at our camp as we try and point all the kids at our camp towards Jesus.  Also please pray for my Canadian roommate, because this past weekend he was in a sea-doo accident that ended with him taking a sea-doo to the face. Fortunately he is fine and only needed 16 stitches in his lip.

So far the summer has been amazing. I’ll try to keep ya’ll posted. Thanks a million for your support.

Nathan Sennema