A Word From Our Friend Danny

Hey Everyone,

The following is an email that Danny sent me and he asked me to email it to everyone, but instead I thought that I'd utilize our blog and post it up here!

Also, according to Bean (who says 'hi' to everyone) if you go to the Outtatown website (www.outtatown.com) then click on photos and site 1:guatemala. You can see pics from the group (of which Danny and Bean are both in). They'll have weekly updates and photos, so go often. I made the Outtatown site a link to this post (click on the title) and I'll also add it to our links section here.

Anyways, now on to a word from Danny

Greetings from beautiful Pinawa, Manitoba!

wow. how've you all been the past... week?? it feels a LOT LOT longer. it's been crazy. and even though i've only been with the 30 of them this week, it feels like i've known them for years; it's totally insane how fast we've bonded, especially after the canoe trip. oh! and the plane ride! that was amazing! zoooom---> man, it went so fast taking off, it was awesome. and then above the clouds! it was like another world! i can't even write complete sentences. what to say, what to say. so i stayed one night at CMU, that was fine. but i was put in a room with 2 other guys in different groups. oh well. so we got a bunch of books, even though our bags were already completely full and weighed a ton. and we got Blue Like Jazz! great read. read it. immediately. umm. so yeah, we first went off to Manitoba Pioneer Camp, located in beautiful Nortern Ontario, ironically. it's just so close to the Manitoban border i guess that they just call it that. it's not even a time difference either. so if you've ever been to camp crossroads, you'd know how it's going to compare with Pioneer Camp. well, let's just say Pioneer Camp is a little more rustic than Crossroads. where Crossroads seems like a Conference Centre, MPC seems like a.. a shack? i'd say that's a pretty accurate description. it's not THAT bad, but it's no Howard Johnson. anyways, we went on a 4-day canoe trip starting the 3rd day we were there. keep in mind, we're site 1 Guatemala, and we spent this time with Site 2 Guatemala, but sort of ignored them.. so. Site 1 split in two and I, being in site 1A, canoed with about 18 other people to Donna's Island. the area we were in was FILLED with islands everywhere. wherever you looked, it was an island, not mainland. but it was SO beautiful. i saw this GIANT bird fly off the first day of rowing, it was awesome. so we're at Donna's, and the area we put up tents in had really tall trees.. it'll take too long to explain. there's pictures, don't worry. so anyways, the 2nd day we planned to move onto another island and put up tent there, but it rained the night before and it started to get really cold out, so we didn't move on and decided to have a day trip. the trip was sweet. (oh yeah, and we cover like 9 km a day, with a few hours of paddling. actually, we didn't get to bring watches! it was crazy). but we travelled to an abandoned gold mine on one of the islands! it was sweet! we even found a new camping spot so we're naming it after our group, called the Trowel Team. the trowel, folks, is because we have to dig holes to take a poop in. be careful not to get any poop on the trowel. that's not good. anyways, we stay that night at Donna's and then move on the next day. that day was the coldest and windiest of them all, i think. the canoe ride was awesome though! we had all these huge waves pounding on our boat and it was totally intense. ok, i only have 15 minutes left before i have to get off the computer. so we were gonna stop at this one island to pick up some extra blankets for the night, but it ends up getting worse and we end up spending the night at this other small camp that they own that wasn't in use. that was the coldest night of all, but we made it and the next day we made the painful ride back to camp. don't take this the wrong way though-- i had an awesome time. i'm getting to know all these people and it's lots of fun. so i've been drawing a bunch of scenes at camp because my camera ran out of batteries and there's no where to charge them. it was awesome though. so ANYWAYS, we're now at some conference centre thingy in Pinawa, Manitoba. Pinawa was made in 1964 because the government set up a nuclear power plant here and so it's like one of those "built" towns. ....there are deers everywhere! it's so weird. just like in the middle of the street. i bet you if i looked out the window right now, there'd be one sitting there eating grass. so the place we're staying in, it's been said, was a research facility, so it's a weird atmosphere when you're walking through the halls. so yeah, we're gonna stay here for 10 days, which is awesome compared to camping, because we've got it good here. after that, it's off to the YWAM/Winnipeg Urban Punge, and then thanksgiving weekend at CMU.

DAH! longest email ever. Mom and Dad, please forward this to relatives. Tom, please forward this to youth. i'll hopefully put this up on my multiple blog sites. and please, you few others i've sent this to-- send it onto others! i'm running out of time to find all the emails!

talk to you later!!

Danny Fast