This week we have been hanging out in the beautiful city of Hamilton, ON practicing up our new show for you guys! getting ready to come to your schools and rock your faces!
We are going to do the best we can to keep you up to date with what we are doing along the way, so keep checking back here!

If you want to know more about our band and the music we make or even become online friends, you can check us out on facebook, myspace or our website!

Hope to see you soon!

Dave, Nathan, Ken and Hiona

allleftout.com
myspace.com/allleftoutnz
youtube.com/allleftout

Beauti have come from Kelowna, BC all the way to Hamilton, ON to tour on the Absolute Road team as the feature band during their “Think Fast”, motivational experience in high schools. Beauti has just recently come together in this past year and have just finished their debut full length album. In the months of July and August we worked really hard in the studio striving to get the CD done before our deadline to leave for Ontario. With some of us taking the greyhound bus across the country and some of us driving we were all glad to finally arrive at our destination in Hamilton. For the past 2 weeks we have been hard at it with rehearsing and setting up the stage for tour. We have been consistent with a steady diet of KD and peanut butter and jam sandwhiches. All the food groups you need to play in a band :). We look forward to a bright future with Absolute and hope to play a school near you on our Western Canada tour this upcoming Fall!

For more information on Beauti, visit www.myspace.com/beautirock

-Jordan, lead guitar

 All of us students arrived between Tuesday and Wednesday, eager and excited as to what was about to handed over to us, and not really knowing what was to be expected in the least. The girls; Nikki, Tara, Teijna, Adele and myself; settled in with our awesome resident supervisor Gem Tuesday night, taking quickly to the idea of having a place of our own. Josh was set to arrive on Wednesday, and get settled in with the bands over at the boy’s dorm. Getting settled and comfortable in our new place was amazingly easy as everyone at Absolute is so great, and continually tries so hard to make us feel at home here.

Nettie and Meghan showed all of us girls around Hamilton on Wednesday, helped us to get our footing in the city, and told us a little bit about what was about to become our lives. And on Thursday, the festivities began.

Thursday morning was our first “class” if you could call it that. It started out with us meeting Josh, the one boy to join our awesome little group and he defiantly added to our dynamic. Now fully equipped with an amazing group of students, we started to our days work. Sometime tedious but always fun, we did our paperwork and started on the basics of what our program really expects. While drudging through papers, we got to know each other a little better and found ourselves pretty intrigued as to what our next class would bring.
That night we found ourselves amongst almost every Absolute employee and friend, at a BBQ. We spend the evening eating and chatting it up with what seemed like a million different amazing people, each one just as equally shocking and welcoming as the last. We returned home pumped up and looking forward to seeing all these people on a day to day basis, slightly nervous as to all the interesting moments to come.

Friday morning [this morning] was a fresh day, and off we went to the office building to start the rough task of sharing our stories together and working on putting the show together. We learned a lot about ourselves, and our teams. It was a long day, filled with raw emotion and complete closeness within our little group turned family.

Tomorrow morning it has been planned to take us all to Toronto, which seems to have some pretty interesting prospects. That being said I think it’s time for us all to crawl into bed, and get ready for another busy day.

-Kristi

When the time came for the party to start, it was pouring rain. So, because of this, we decided to go ahead with the party anyways! As we were trekking up with steep mountain roads towards the village we were hosting the party in, I was reminded of how this location ever came to be for us. Last summer, at the beginning of August, in the last days of her short life, we met a little girl named Danica. Danica’s life was lost to a totally preventable disease. She was 18 months old and was stateless, too poor to be helped in time, and basically abandoned. Her death rocked us to our core, and it actually was what provided the inspiration for the clinic that our friends, Phil and Donna Williams, have built in her name. It is called Danica’s Clinic and it is a clinic of hope in a poor community where health care is often a pipe dream and rarely attainable. Danica’s Clinic now provides this community and the surrounding area with a compassionate doctor and quality health teaching, and a stocked pharmacy, and all this is made possible because of people like the ones that joined us on this particular Hero Holiday. Because of all of this, this community seemed like the perfect community to celebrate friendship and solidarity…and really,  what says “I love you” better than a couple of roasted pigs?

As we pulled up and fishtailed up the mud hill beside the clinic in the pouring rain, I smiled as we saw a group of young boys out in the rain playing percussion on the five gallon pails and with a stick…it was festive, if not soggy! After spending the first two minutes trying to not get wet, we all gave up and stood in the rain and laughed. This is what memories are made of! Our roasted pigs were skillfully chopped up with a machete by Garcia, one of the our Dominican friends, and some rice, beans, and casava finished off the menu. Within moments, word had spread far and wide that we were serving the meal, and people came hurrying up the hill through the mud and sludge to get their meals. We set up a sound system and just began to celebrate life and love and friendship, and it was a beautiful thing to behold! Children laughed and danced and sang with the music, and many of our team laughed and danced right alongside of them.

In my mind, I had fully believed that by some stroke of divine intervention the rain would eventually stop and we would have a little time to just stand outside, but it never did. In fact, it only seemed to rain harder and harder the longer we stayed there. However, that meant little in a moment like this where for just a short time you can indulge in the gift of great food, great company, and great entertainment!

To all the Danica’s Dream Team, I would like to say, “Thank you”. You made that party a success, and your gifts made that clinic possible. The world needs people like you to do things like this. Thank you for giving of your time, your talents, your passion, and your love.  I think a little girl would be very proud of you right now…

There were about 20 of us at the garbage dump today working with the people there who collect bottles for income and scrounge for food and provision. We are honored to be able to work alongside them, even if it is for such a short time. Today, while working, Smith, my translator and friend, walked toward me, laughing, and said, “I have to tell you what the people there are talking about. They have a theory on Creation, and I thought you might be interested to hear it: they say that when God made people, He had two piles, one with paper and the other with sand. The paper was white people like you, and the sand was people like the Haitians. The paper gets to learn and grow and become something else, but the sand has to work hard and nothing ever seems to change.” I stopped walking and looked at him. “Is that really how they see it? Do they really think that it is because of my skin color that I can move ahead?” Smith, who is Haitian, said, “People have no answers for their hurt and hard times, and it just seems like it would be easier to be you.”

This afternoon, some of the participants joined me as we brought out rice, beans, and oil to our friends in the village that work at the dump. As we pulled up, it started to rain really hard, so we jumped out of the car and followed them to where it was out of the rain to get organized for delivering the food. We ran under a tiny tin roof on a porch that was held up by sugar cane stalks, and everyone followed us. So here we were:  4 Canadians  and  about  55 Haitians jammed together listening to the rain pound on the tin roof. I don’t know what happened, but all of a sudden the hilarity of the situation struck me and I couldn’t stop laughing as chickens were dodging our feet (I guess they didn’t like the rain either) a dog was leaning up against me, a little boy was holding my hand, and I watched our translator wrestle with a Winnie the Pooh umbrella (that someone handed him) that wouldn’t open and probably was a ‘treasure’ from the dump. Just another Saturday at the office, I guess! To the people that lived there, this was life as normal, with the exception of a few extra Canadian faces in the mix. As I kept looking at my watch and wishing the stupid rain would finish because I had other places that I needed to get to before the day was out, they patiently waited in the rain for the food that they desperately needed to feed their families. We really do live worlds apart in so many ways, and I could really learn a few things from these amazing individuals who have lived through more than I can even comprehend.

I have to admit, I guess I can see how my friends’ theories on Creation could seem to be more real than either of us care to acknowledge. Here I am, sitting at my laptop, trying to get my work done, but knowing that in a few minutes I am going to have food, that tonight I will get sleep and be safe, and that for me, the garbage dump is a place to visit, not the place where my existence currently depends on. Nothing but mere location of birth truly separates me and them, and today, after sharing our rainstorm moment, I am even more keenly aware of it.

As we drove back from the village, the car smelled like a wet dog, but we all had a great laugh at the seemingly random moment that we just experienced with total strangers. One of the students with me in the vehicle said, “That’s it - this is definitely what I want to do with my life.”  I assumed she was referring to working with those less fortunate and experiencing change, not standing in the rain with humans, dogs and chickens all vying for dry space, and so my response to her was, “Then if this is what you want to do, I think you should definitely make it happen. This experience can not only be a memory, but it can be a major moment in your life that you will look back on as the moment that changed your way of thinking.”

So, on behalf of changed lives everywhere, I need to thank the dogs, chickens, and humans that shared today’s experience with us. You people are what make it worth it all! Thanks for making this Saturday at the office another great moment in my life where I can learn and make a memory with you. You give so much meaning and perspective to who we are and you inspire us to want to grow to be able to help you grow and move ahead as well…Thanks!

Hero Holiday DR was over, and Vaden, myself, and three others had taken the long trek to the southern border with Haiti and now found ourselves in the middle of the poorest neighbourhood in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The area was called Cite-Soleil, and my life was changed by what happened that day. As we crossed over the foot bridge that spanned over a river of deep black sludge, human waste, and rotting garbage, I held Vaden’s hand, and tried to imagine what a place like this could look like if it didn’t look like this. In truthfulness, it was a very difficult image to conjure up in that moment. As we walked up to the group of people staring at us, she caught my eye almost immediately.

Her name was Analiecia, and she looked so tired. Her eyes were sad, her hands weathered, and her clothes looked like they were doomed to be eternally filthy. She was a single mother of 7 kids, and but it was what she said when she looked me in the eye that struck me: “We have nothing and no one cares. We watch as our children starve to death in front of us, with no hope of feeding them enough to survive. Yesterday, 15 of us put our money together to buy one pound of rice between us for our families. Why does no one care?”

I had no answer for Analiecia, only the silent tears in my eyes as I bowed my head in recognition of her intense need. I didn’t even have money on myself, as we were too scared to come into this dangerous neighbourhood with anything of value, and I wondered what it would be like if, in that moment, her eyes were mine and mine were hers. What would I see differently? What would I view as important and worth giving my life for? What would I be willing to do for what I loved?

This past month I have spent many hours and days with incredible people in a very bizarre set of circumstances. With Hero Holiday, we have the privilege of leading Canadians on a journey of self-discovery and global awareness. Through the course of time that our trips take, I am always in awe of one thing more than anything else…Everytime I hand out food, or shoes, or reach out to a hand that needs to be pulled up, I am struck by one simple truth: there is nothing except birth that has separated my hands from theirs-my eyes see life from this view purely because of where I am born, and not because of anything I could have ever done to deserve it.

Analiecia’s eyes held mine that afternoon because they were eyes that reminded me to keep going, to keep believing that something can change, to keep joining hands with those who love the poor and reach out to the exploited.

Analiecia, your eyes have told me of deep truths that I needed to be reminded of and they have stirred a compassion that is not letting me sleep at night. I can’t not become a voice for you; I can’t not see your pain as my own. I can’t not want to be changed by what I now know.

Thank you, Analiecia for having the courage to look me in the eye. It was what I needed to realize that I need to look back into yours and recognize that which I can do to begin to change things for all of us.

“What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.”
C.S. Lewis

Right now, as I type, everyone is around a campfire, getting to know each other and ending the day of in a relaxing way. Tomorrow we head out on our Awareness Tour where we will learn about Mexico, working cross-culturally and the problem of poverty and the issues that surround it. And a little bit of beach time:)

A big happy birthday goes out to Meagan Peters, one of our road team leaders and a staff member for this Hero Holiday. She celebrated her birthday today and is quite happy with this milestone of a quarter of a century…so far, so good.

Stay tuned all week for pictures and blogs.

Our eastern and central Canadian participants took a lovely road trip from New York City to Toronto. I am pretty sure that everyone slept the entire bus ride with the exception of a few snack and washroom stops. The bus pulled up to the Travelodge Dixon on Monday July 28th at 11am. After tears of goodbye and may group hugs everyone went on there way. Not that bad…

The western travels had a much more drawn out, but more adventurous trip home. They got to spend the day in New York City, exploring it’s many wonders! On July 29th, all 25 of them flew from JFK to Buffalo then took a coach bus to Travelodge Dixon in Toronto. I met up for lunch with them and loved hearing their NYC stories. That night some of the less tired travelers went to watch a Blue Jay game. Early the next morning the team split with some going to Vancouver and others going to Edmonton. I am pleased to announce that everyone made it home in one piece!

Thank you to parents for your co-operation and understanding as were worked hard to get your sons and daughters home. International travel can make things complicated but I think we worked out all the kinks.