Front Of The Bus

I spend two hours of my day commuting to and from school. I walk down to the end of my street, flag down the trusty 16 GO Bus, and head to Union Station in Toronto. When I arrive at Union Station I walk, on average, 13 minutes until I arrive at school where I spend hours learning about baking to then reverse the journey back home. While embarking on my commuting adventure I’ve made a point to make mental notes about the wonderfully interesting individuals I’ve had the pleasure of observing and interacting with.

On days I travel back to Hamilton alone, I generally choose to sit at the font of the bus. It’s easy to get on and off, and since I tend to have a lot of stuff with me from my baking lab, the very front is a seat with the most space for all my baked goods and schoolbooks. As soon as I ask if I can sit beside the individual who also chose to sit at the front, and we cease our general chit-chat about having a lot of stuff and how it’s easier to sit up front instead of wander to the back of the bus, I expect the pleasantries of small-talk to subside and for each of us to go about our own activities— which for me, is sleeping.

While this may be the end of small talk, my expectancy of sleep is often met with the reality of conversations extending the length of the bus ride, with snacks shared and adventures revealed. 

One of my first experiences sitting at the front of the bus led me to meet a lovely older lady who shared her vegetable tray with me. It was funny—she opened up her snack and just offered me some. She told me how she didn’t like celery (which was perfect as I love celery) and there we sat—eating vegetables on the bus while she shared with me how she was going to Hamilton to meet with some immediate family before they all headed south to visit extended family. While my first thought was ‘I wanted to sleep’ (wow, how ungrateful!), it changed to ‘Man these are good veggies’, then finally transitioned to where I was genuinely surprised this kind lady would want to share her food with me—just a random girl sitting beside her.

One recent experience in particular I found to be the most amazing.

I sat down next to a lady at the front of the bus and after the generic small talk I offered her a freshly baked cookie. She retrieved a piece of Kleenex from her purse, took a chocolate dipped vanilla shortbread cookie from the box, and very politely started eating it. We briefly chatted about how I am in school and began to discuss her: her life and her recent life-changing experience with her daughter. She is a children’s book author who moved to Hamilton after living in Pennsylvania for a while after she fled from Afghanistan with her family. She moved with her husband, who has a heart condition, and her daughter. The most random detail of our conversation was how we share the same name. I found out, where she is from, Aelea means ‘a woman of great distinction’.

Being a refugee, fleeing from Afghanistan due to the war, her life has been full of unbelievable trials. Being an author, she has a way with words, and was asked to share her story at McMaster University about immigrating to Canada—the challenges she faced and the ones she still encounters. While speaking with no emotions held back, she looked out into the audience and found a face she recognized—her teenage daughter was sitting in the audience with tears in her eyes.  As a mother, she hadn’t shared her struggles with her daughter—she has been strong for her child, never letting on things were hard, never showing her personal battles to keep her daughter feeling safe, secure and welcomed into this new country and new place they decided to call home.

Her daughters’ words to her after the presentation were simply that she didn’t know. She had no idea her mother was going through these things, how she faced challenges, and how she was continually overcoming them in the countless ways she was.

I don’t know why she chose to share this story but I’m glad she did. It’s eye opening, inspiring and challenging when anyone shares a personal story with the glamour stripped away and naked honesty standing there speaking every word. The conversation shifted to how her daughter loves baking, and she asked if she could buy a box of my cookies. I gave her all I had and the bag I was carrying them in and when I left she said, if it were God’s will, perhaps we would meet again.

Sometimes I don’t have the opportunity to have in depth conversations—the bus driver who see’s me standing under the tree and pulls over without me having to wave the bus down can leave the same impact as the person I’m sitting next to who shares mints. The observation of the lady who gets off a bus and gives her transfer pass to a young mother waiting with her child at the stop says more in her brief actions than any words I would imagine uttering to her or her to I. The lady getting onto the bus to audition for a gospel choir elective at University is someone who shared with me one piece of her unique story.

All these people, whose interactions are small in the grand scheme of my day, week and semester, make the commute worthwhile. Everyone can leave an impact, even without words, and it’s important we look for those moments, listen with intent to those who are speaking, and always sit near the front of the bus—because it’s those little moments I don’t want to miss.

The Inspiration of Conversation

I like to chat.
Big surprise, I know. *hello sarcasm*

I enjoy talking with friends, acquaintances, and just about anyone else I happen to randomly meet. You never know what kind of conversation you will have if you allow yourself to be open to the idea that every conversation, every word spoken, can change a life, change a heart, or even simply change a mood.

Obviously you can't expect every single thing you say to change the world, or have a HUGE impact on someone, but if we spoke to others with the mindset that what we say has the potential to influence them I think we would choose our words more carefully and even just be pumped to talk to people!

The first time I went to a night called Women of Beauty put on by Let Go, Let God ministries, one of the main points that stuck with me was how what is in our heart, is on our mind, is what we speak. Our words have power and we need to be conscious of what we say. I had heard messages on this before but that night it really stood out to me. From that point on I have made a conscious effort to choose the words I say carefully-- knowing they can give life or do just the opposite.

Picture by Lani Elias

Yesterday I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with an absolutely lovely young lady. She is smart and spunky and her appearance is quick to reflect how she is so full of life and creative energy! The hangout was instigated when she approached me asking if we could chat one day about Not For Sale and my involvement with them...
Obviously...
As someone who enjoys chatting...
We chatted about a lot more than my time with Not For Sale.
In the classic coffee shop setting, over coffee and too much green tea then should be consumed in a two hour period, we spoke of travels, human trafficking and other injustice, how faith and love play into all of it, and what our dreams turned into goals are.

I think sharing your passions, dreams and goals are important. It helps bring them to life and seem more real and attainable. I have a goal to one day, open a bakery and teach baking classes to survivors of human trafficking as therapy while they are going through their aftercare program. Those that show talent could then be hired-- they have skills, a job, and best of all, a future that doesn't involve them being caught up in the same unimaginable situations that lead them to being trafficked to begin with. On top of that, I'd love to provide delicious baked goods that use all natural, organic and as often as possible, local ingredients! I would also want to ensure every thing I use is ethically sourced-- from the adorable cupcake liners to the ovens those scrumptious cupcakes bake in! Sharing this with someone makes it seem real, attainable, and like it can really happen!... Even if the goal seems so far in the future.

To hear her share her ideas, goals, dreams and passions is encouraging! Partly because she is going to do amazing things using her God given gifts and talents. Partly because she believes that God and love are crucial to seeing the end of injustice around the world! I was 100% being inspired by our conversation!

Being inspired by the words others speak is easy if you allow yourself to find the optimism and love in the smallest words. A simple "Thank-You" can change your day if no one has yet to appreciate an act you've done. Someone sharing their dream can inspire you that your dream maybe isn't so far fetched, that your dream is worth sharing and pursuing.

I have learned that you do not choose the moment you will influence someone. You must seek to have your actions and comments consistently inspired by Love. You never know when God will use even the smallest comment to change the direction of someones life or inspire them to further seek relationship with Him, which can and will change the world.

When have you been inspired by a conversation with someone? 

"Where am I supposed to buy clothes?"

I was recently on vacation with my family in Hawaii.
When I say family I mean my husband, mom, dad and two older brothers.
The last "family vacation" we took was when I was 16 years old to Disney World.
Needless to say, it was an interesting time to see how our personalities, interests and lifestyles meshed and, at times, didn't mesh.

I'm sure we can all agree that people are in a state of constant development. Consistently growing, changing, evolving into the product of their beliefs and surroundings. Every person in my family is very different. It was quite interesting for us be together for just over a week, and I am consistently grateful for my husband being there as someone I could escape the generic "family craziness" with.

While on this trip, you best believe my family is on the prowl for deals. You're on vacation-- you take in markets, touristy shops, and all the big shopping centres and outlet malls. As a girl on vacation, it's often essential to at least go into a store and see how expensive the high end brand names items are (Coach, Prada, Tiffany's, etc) and compare that with how reduced the prices are at the outlet malls.

But something else occurred.... I found myself standing up for the "over priced" products.

Now I'm not talking overpriced Prada and Gucci purses, or Armani suits, or Channel clothing. I'm talking about the $7.95 chocolate bar and the $24.00 bag of coffee.

These are the items we most often, without a doubt, consistently try to receive the best bargain on. When you go to the grocery store, when you hit up the dollar store, you are looking for the best deal on the little extras we casually supplement our lives (and even our waistlines) with. Should a chocolate bar be only $0.65 or should we be paying $7.95? When you consider the supply chain, $7.95 seems like a small amount to pay for fair wages & labour practices, codes of conduct, transparency, and a company that cares enough about the people making their product to treat them fairly-- from picking cocoa to getting it on the shelf. And while I can't say the company that produced these $7.95 chocolate bars are taking all the necessary precautions, it is a lot harder to imagine that the $0.65 you pay for a chocolate bar is providing even close to the same.

As I make mention of how I now choose to take my business from a clothing company that has a poor. or no, Free2Work rating to a company that does, I am being asked more and more "What is Free2Work?" and "Where am I supposed to buy my clothes?". People ask those questions sometimes in a mean way-- how you get offensive when you are being informed something you have always been doing is not seen as "right" by everyone around you.

Moments like this are a turning point.

You now have the opportunity to share with people about modern day slavery and how it's literally in the fabric of our clothes. It's an opportunity to plant a seed with them that their every day choices-- the bargain they hunt for, the deals the try so hard to find, are contributing to something they may not have even known existed. To put it simply, you could change someones life by sharing with them the choices you are making and the reasons why.


\When people ask where I shop, I love sharing with them the amazingness that is Free2Work and their most recent Apparel Industry Report | From Farm to Factory. Being with NFS at the time this was released and doing their social media posting was a blessing. While the report doesn't feature strictly Canadian brands, it highlights so many of the brands we all have access to (brands like H&M, American Eagle, Lacoste, Forever 21).



I encourage you to take a look through the report and do two things:
1) Put your new knowledge to action.
Be a more conscious consumer when shopping. The hardest thing can be applying the knowledge you have-- when you have a chocolate craving, buy the A or B rated brands, not the D or F rated. When you go shopping for clothes, buy items from stores with A or B ratings, not D's or F's.

2) Share your knowledge with others.
The more that people know they can make a difference when they are purchasing their wants and needs will hopefully result in more people making that difference and shopping smart.

When have you explained to someone why you are a conscious consumer? Has this inspired others to do the same?

Polices | Company Performance from the Apparel Industry Trends | From Farm to Factory Report