Well after a few days with Windows Media Maker, I finally finished all the translating of my testimony into English. If you are wondering about how I felt that night go here. In the testimony, I realized after hearing it again how bad my Anglophone accent is! Thus, I know that God enable these people to understand what I said that night.
Currently, I am still finishing up my degree @ Ambrose. I will graduate in April of this year and I am not exactly sure where I will go for seminary in September. Please continue to pray that I will have a clear direction as to which seminary I should go to. Once again, thank you for your continued support.
Hey Everyone, I have received my testimony now! It will be up on this site very shortly!
UPDATE: There will be some minor editing because the clip is about 12 mins long and youtube has a max of 10mins per clip. Therefore, I will be cuting my testimony in 2 for youtube and I will also give it subtitles so all of you can understand what I said. (This might take a few days) Be sure to come back next week!
Some of you may be wondering when I am going to post up my testimony on this blog. Let me tell you that I really do want to post up my testimony, but I still have not received the file yet. When I do, it will be on here ASAP.
Not much has been going on since I got back. Writing lots of papers, meeting tons of people and adjusting back to Calgary life. Last week, I was in a modular class at the school. As I walked out of the last class on Saturday, I realized that this is the last class I had for my undergrad degree. While I still have papers and I am doing a direct study, it was the last time I will be meeting with other students in a lecture setting.
It is a time of reflection in my life now after my onSite. This is where I get to look back and see what God has done in my life, what I have learnt and what is changed as a result of this cross-cultural experience. So what are some things that I have learnt? So here are 3 important changes that I have learned during my onSite.
Patience
Language learning is the hardest part of my onSite. When I came to Quebec City, I only knew 5 words in French (Bonjour, oui, non, merci and au revoir). At first I learned how to repeat random phrases like je ne sais pas ( I don’t know) or Quelle heure est-il? (What time is it?) and even memorizing these words took more than a couple of weeks for me to remember how to say these phrases. After I was in Quebec for about 6 months, I was starting to be comfortable using my French in normal situations. But boy, did it take so long before my French was an integrated part of my life.
Taking initiative
It really does take courage to talk to others in French. First of all, I am not someone who really does up to random people in Calgary or Edmonton and say hi. And in Quebec, it is much harder because of the language barrier. It is a challenge for me to go up to random French people and say Bonjour, if that is the only thing I can say to them. Through the course of the 7 months that I have been there, I have gradually learned and forced myself to start a conversations in French.
Messy Ministry
It is always easier to say to tell other people to step out of your comfort zones to tell non-Believers about Christ. It is harder to go out there and actually be the person that goes and tells other people about Him. I was working in a soup kitchen (Café Recontre). It was totally uncomfortable to be working with homeless people because I have never really worked with homeless people before. I mean I volunteered at Salvation Army and at rez we have past out sandwichs, but never something more than once or twice. The people there were friendly and many of them could speak English. In fact, many of them came from Alberta! It was quite interesting to know some of these people and how they got there to Quebec City. It was messy in that I had to come out of my comfort zones to talk to them, serve them food and clean after they left.
All of what I have learned tied in with each other as well. I could not have conversations with the soup kitchen people unless I applied what I’ve learned in French and took the initiative to go to other people to say Bonjour or hi. This is not all that I have learned, but these are the top 3 that I have been learning and I know that this is a continuous process.
Who gives me this ability to learn these things? God. It really is all about Phil 4:13 "I can do everything through him who gives me strength."
I just want to say a big thank you to all of you who have been reading this blog. I got a chance to talk to many of you today at church. Thank you for your support, it has been a really big blessing and encouragement to know that you were praying for me.
This week, I will be posting a series on what I have learned on onSite. This might be limited to 1 post per week, but please do check this blog every week.
So what am I doing right now?
I know that this is the question that many of you asked me. I am currently back at Ambrose finishing up my degree (Bachelor of Theology with intercultural studies concentration). When I graduate, I will be attending a seminary to get my Master of Divinity. I am still not exactly sure which seminary I am going to.
Random French Learning Fact
During my time at Quebec City, one of the ways that I learned the language was having conversations in French. Here was my conversational partner:
I was able to learn more French by just simply talking with someone else in French. There are words that I would have never learned just by going to class, so this was a huge blessing for me to have a conversational partner. It was even better because my conversation partner went to one of the churches here. It was great because we could pray for each other and I managed to share my fellow onSiters Jon and Kristen’s visa situation to my partner in French and we prayed for them afterwards. This picture was actually the last time we met before I had to come back. Usually we would meet at this place:
If you can’t read it, it is a Starbucks! Some of you who were with me in Quebec City might find this location very familiar. That is because this used to be a video rental place, but as you see coffee is much more important.
Anyhow that is all that I have for now, but come back a few days from now and hopefully there will be a new post. I am also still tracking down that recording of my testimony. When I get it, I’ll post it here.
Hey everyone, I know I haven’t blogged for a couple of days, so I just want to let you know that I have safely arrived to Calgary, my 2nd "home". I left Quebec City on the 29th @ 610AM and I arrived here in Calgary at around 1110AM. The flight was pretty uneventful, it was actually surprising a smooth ride from Quebec to Calgary. I got all my luggage and everything went alright. The only thing that was a little odd was that the Calgary airport had put my plane on a dual citizenship gate that lets in both Canada and the US, and usually it would not have been a big deal. However, somehow there was a lack of communication and we ended up being stuck in the bridge that was between the airplane and the actual airport. I took a taxi to the rez, and that is where I am currently staying.
Calgary has been great so far because I got a chance to meet with all of my friends and just to hang out and talk about what has happened in my life and theirs for the past 7ish months. I was reminded of what I had learnt at a intercultural class because I know that it would be a little different reintegrating back into Western Canadian culture. Well, so far I am getting used to speaking in English again. Another thing that I have noticed was the taste of the water. I have been living in Quebec City for 7 months, and I have realized that Calgary water does not taste very pleasant. Boiled or not, so I am adjusting back to that. I am getting used to the fact that I don’t have to push a button at every intersection to be able to cross the streets because in Quebec, if we don’t push the button on the intersection, we won’t have the right of way to cross the intersection.
Finally, I am going back home tomorrow. I am excited to go home and to enjoying back in Edmonton. Yay!
This is not the end of my blog, because I will do a recap of some of the things that I have learned. I will start posting a retrospect series next week when I come back to Calgary.
I had no idea what was going on. I thought it was just something that is part of the winter carnival here. But I got my answer yesterday. It was called Crashed Ice.
This is an annual event where skaters from all over the world compete for the grand prize. It was a long race, and there were tons of people everywhere.
I don’t know if you can see this, but on the top right of this picture, the skaters had to jump on steps. It was pretty crazy race.
I wanted to warm my hands yesterday during this race because it was cold, but I have realized that putting my glove onto one of those lights is not a good idea.
The picture actually makes it look worse, but only the rubber was deformed. When I looked back at the lamp where I put my hand, there was rubber stuck to the light frame.
So that was the event, and I got to spend it with some missionaries who are studying French at Laval. It was great to hang out with them one last time before I leave Quebec.
Today, I am just busy starting to pack and finish buying some gifts for home.
(Finally, to anyone who is reading this from Facebook, Windows Live Writer has an issue with the pictures, this is a known issue and they are fixing it. For the time being, if you want to see any of these pictures, please go directly to my blog)
Alright, let me tell you what happened tonight. Every month, one friday is devoted to an outreach event sponsored by the people who do the Café Recontre (soup kitchen). And this is what happened tonight: Praise & Worship (P&W), offering, speaker and some sort of an altar call with P&W. We sang a couple of Quebecois songs and a few that were translated. My testimony was especially tailored for tonight. You can’t see this in the pictures, but when I was reading some Bible verses, they were also up on the screen so people could follow alone. I talked about how God gives me strength to deal with loneliness–more on that when I get my recording. Finally, for the altar call, there were people who came up asking us to pray for them. I learned a lot about just being in a situtation because I couldn’t really do deep prayers like I can with English speakers, but to be there and listen to them…I found that was an important lesson. I was also quite encouraged when some people came up to me afterwards saying that they could understand most of what I said. I felt really encouraged tonight being able to convey what God has done in my life in French.
