Today, we had the honour of reuniting with some CHAT alumni who took a gap year this year. They all graduated from CHAT last year and decided to spend the next year in Israel, either at a yeshiva, kibbutz or a mix of yeshiva and university. They joined us for Friday night and joined us in our evening service and tish. We also had rotating one-on-one conversations with all of the gap year students while discussing our opinions on Jewish values and education in general. I was able to learn a lot from these students and was very proud that these upstanding students were graduates of my current school. The next morning, we went to a modern orthodox service for the shabbat shacharit. It was interesting to see a functioning shul at the other end of the world that had so many similarities and differences to my shul. The people around us were mainly from Israel but they were all fascinated by our program and the trip that we are on. Grade 12 student, Jacob Beallor, was asked to bless the congregation as he was a Cohen. He gratefully accepted and preformed the Birkat Cohanim in front of the congregation. We were very thankful to the Rabbi afterward and were appreciative of the way in which we were willingly accepted into their service.