We arrived in Vancouver at 11:45 PST and headed to customs. The rest of the team made it through fairly easily. My boarder agent however, felt like playing 20 questions. It started out simply enough.
"Why are you coming to Vancouver?" For the Olympics.
"What else?" Well, we were invited by some of the local churches to do some volunteer work.
"What do you mean?" We're going to be working at hospitality stations passing out water, coffee, and information to visitors. This is where it got fun.
"Ok. Are you receiving any kind of benefit for your work like housing or monetary gain?" No, it cost me money to come here.
"Where do you work back home?" I'm a minister at a church.
"What church" Lee Road Baptist
"Is that just a Baptist church or Southern Baptist?" Yes, it's Southern Baptist. (At this point I'm thinking who is this guy and why does he know the difference between Baptist denominations?)
"So, are you an official volunteer?" We're not VANOC (Vancouver Olympic Committee) official, but we're with More than Gold, which has partnered with VANOC to help provide hospitality service during the games. After that, he looked at me a few seconds longer and finally stamped my passport and welcomed me to Canada.
We picked up our luggage and then took the train to the parking lot where our transportation was waiting to take us to Royal Heights Baptist Church. Things only got more interesting once we arrived as we were informed of the schedule for showers: men in the evening, ladies in the morning. Since it was evening, the men went ahead and showered and then settled into the cold, cold room and tried to sleep on the air mattresses. The church operates a preschool during the school year. Thus, some of the rooms they thought were available for volunteers to sleep in were not available.
We met with the team from Colorado for a devotional and prayer time this morning. We have orientation from 1:00 to 8:00 this evening and start work tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes.
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