Spring

 

Spring is finally here, or at least it is coming. In the last few weeks the weather would not stick to one type of weather. It would snow one day, then rain, and melt the snow, and then snow and rain and freeze. And then it would all start to melt and then snow again. Needless to say, it has been confusing, for me at least. But the last week has included a lot of rain and warmer weather above the freezing point. I haven't worn my winter coat in a few weeks now and that feels really good.

 

But today was special.

It was a crisp cool day of 50F/ 10C,

But you could feel something different in the air.

The birds were singing,

Many people were walking about,

And some trees have started to bloom.

There is a freshness in the air that cannot be described;

That feeling of new life.

Rebirth has come to the city

In the form of Spring.

 

Kid's Days

For the last two months I have been doing a program for kids to learn a little English through Bible stories. We only did it for a couple hours in the afternoon every other weekend with four sessions in total. Even that was a lot of work. I was in charge of the program. I came up with lessons, crafts, games, snacks, songs, bible stories, and volunteers to help me. I did get a lot of help and tips from people who had done some of this before, but it was still a little stressful for me and in the end a good learning experience.

The first week we had 17 kids. I was not prepared for that many kids. We did end up running out of papers for every kid. So I planned ahead hoping to have the same numbers, or similar numbers for the next three sessions.  The second session had 14 kids, the third had 10, and at the fourth and final session we had 5 kids. That was a little disappointing for me, watching the numbers going down every week. But, from what I could tell, I think most of the kids had fun. And I still had a few continue coming back, even if it was only 5 in the end.

I have learned that I am somewhat of a perfectionist. I am not an OCD type of perfectionist, at least not all the time. I have learned that I don't like it when things don't turn out the way I expected them to. And when things go wrong, I tend to panic before coming up with a plan. I worry a lot and stress out over tiny details, like the fact that my sample cross craft was not a perfect cross. And if I leave things to get done at the last minute, then I really am a big mess.

But through this, I have been reminded of what God has already told me:
- He tells us not to worry. "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself." Matthew 6:29
- We are not perfect. "As it is written: 'No one is righteous, no, not one.'" Romans 3:10
- Yet God still loves us. "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person - thought perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die - but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:6-8
- And nothing can separate us from that love. "Nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:39

I hope you will be as encouraged by this as I am. We are not perfect and we are not in control, but we should not fret or worry about it because God is in control. And even though we are not perfect, we have been made perfect through Jesus who died for us.
"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ... For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." Ephesians 2:4-9
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the word might be saved through him." John 3:16-17

Happy Easter! He has risen! He has risen indeed!


And here are a few pictures from my Kid's Day events.

The Man Who Prays to Mickey Mouse

The other day, I was on the bus on my way to my French lesson and I ended up having a very interesting conversation with a man on the bus. It started with small talk in French about my reusable bag that folds into a pocket. (It's pretty handy, never knew it would be a conversation starter!) He was curious about where I got this bag because he had never seen anything like it. I offered my answers as best I could, then he realized that French wasn't my first language. He asked me "what's your language?" and I told him English and he switched to English just like that.

He asked me where I was from. He got a little excited when I said I was from San Diego. He said that was his favorite city that he had been to in California. He said he had visited San Francisco and Los Angeles as well and still called San Diego the best. (I was a little proud of that) So then the conversation goes along the normal questions that I get: Why are you here? Why Quebec? Do you like the city? Do you want to stay? Good luck with learning French!

It was all good harmless talk until I said what I do. I told him "I work for a church that creates English programs for people to practice their English." "A church?!" he asks me, cringing a little at the word "church." He goes on to explain how he doesn't believe in God and continues into his own monologue filled with hate about why he doesn't believe in God.

This is a paraphrase of our conversation:

"I don't believe in God. I tried all that religious stuff once, being good and going to church all the time. But it doesn't work. What the church teaches you is crap and doesn't work. How can a god who is all good and perfect let all the bad things that happen in world happen? I think he just likes to watch us sit here and be tormented and punished by all the bad things that happen to us. He doesn't want to listen to us. I used to pray to God, but now I pray to Mickey Mouse."

"Really?" I ask in disbelief

"Yeah! Because I have the same chance of getting my prayers answered when praying to Mickey Mouse as I do when praying to God. Its a 50-50 chance. I have a 50% chance of getting my prayers answered or not no matter who I pray to. The church is wrong. The church will tell you that God loves you and that he will answer your prayers. No, that is wrong! God only loves you if you obey everything he tells you. You need to follow all of his ten laws and keep them perfect. But if you slip and mess just one - BAM! You are in trouble. He will beat you and torment you and send you to that fire they call Hell. So he really doesn't love you. He doesn't love us and the church is wrong."

My stop was coming up and I was about to get off, but I had to say one more thing before leaving him. So I said to him, "I believe God does love you because he sent his Son to die for us and to take that punishment for us."

"B.S.! Religion is full of crap and wrong!"

And that was the end of our conversation because I had to get off the bus at that moment. The only thing I could do was pray for him on that short walk to my tutor's house.

I have been told that this is the common response to religion here in Quebec: blind hatred. My tutor told me that some people have their reasons or rational thinking behind it, but most often people don't. They don't have a good reason other than they just hate it, the church, Christianity, religion, all of it. This man had obviously been through something to make him hate God that much. These people have been through a lot to get them where they are now. The best thing we can do for them now is to pray.

Please pray for that man. Please pray for the people of Quebec, that God will change their hearts and turn them toward Him. Pray and be thankful knowing that we do have a God that listens to our prayers.
Psalm 86:7 "In the day of trouble I will call upon you, for you answer me."
Matthew 21:22 "And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith."
1 John 5:14-15 "And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him."

My encounter with a Frenchman

A couple weeks ago I met a very interesting man while waiting for the bus. When you take the same bus system every day you start to see "regulars." You start recognizing someone by their coat or their face, even though you have never personally talked to them. Those that you have talked to stick out more and sometimes they will start up another conversation with you if they see you. But when someone you have never seen before starts talking to you, while waiting for the same bus, that is special. (To me at least.)

Picture this: You head out the door on a Saturday morning with plans to be busy most of the day. It is a little warmer outside, and the sun is shining brightly. (Usually here in Quebec, when the sun is shining it is a colder day. That has been somewhat of a depressing fact for me in the past because I come from sunny California where the sun is always warm. But today was a little different in that it was a little warmer than the past days had been, and you could feel a little of the warmth coming from the sun. I have learned to really appreciate a sunny day here.) You walk down the road to the bus stop hoping you haven't missed it. You are pretty sure you haven't though, because you are almost ten minutes early. The question now is if there will be people waiting there as well. (If there are, that is usually a good sign that you haven't missed the bus.) You turn the corner and the first thing that catches your eye is a man standing at the corner of the bus stop, wearing colonial garb. He honestly looks like he came out of a history book with his coat, boots, satchel, hat, and ponytail. He just looks more French.

You walk up to the bus stop and politely stand a few feet away form the man, but close enough to be able to see the bus when it comes. You stand there a few moments in silence as a few more people start coming to the bus stop and join in on the awkwardly standing around and trying to avoid talking or looking at anyone else. The Frenchman eventually turns to you and starts talking.

He explains that he on his way to a Founding Fathers celebration. A good amount of people in Quebec City can follow their family line all the way back to when the city was first started over 400 years ago. I think they celebrate this every year and have a booth in the local mall and everything. Some of them come dressed in period attire, this man certainly was. He started showing off his costume, talking about the material and whether it was warm enough or not for that day. I am sure he said more than that, but I couldn't understand it all.

But throughout this whole time, he has a huge smile on his face. He doesn't care that people are looking at him. At one point a bus drove past, it was not the one we were waiting for. As the bus turned the corner, the bus driver was blatantly staring at the man. Our friend here laughs out loud and waves at the bus driver as he goes past. He laughs making a comment about how shocked that driver must have been. We eventually get on our bus, but we are separated because he finds someone he personally knows on the bus. He starts talking with them and I take a seat farther away. But I couldn't help but watch him. He was so full of energy and laughter as he continued to explain his costume and why he was wearing it to his friends. If he caught someone staring, he would just start talking to them and explain his costume. He had an infectious joy and humor about the whole thing.

We both ended up getting off at the same stop and I watched him go with that big smile on his face. I honestly wanted to go back to the mall and see the booth before the end of the day, but my plans got changed and it ended up not happening. But his attitude and smile had brightened my day. The day seamed to be a lot more special because of that. It is quite interesting how one person's attitude can effect those around them. My brief encounter with this man in the morning had made my day. My hope now is that one day I will be able to do the same for someone else as he did for me.

Ice Hotel

This last week I was able to visit the beautiful Ice Hotel of Quebec City. This is one of just two ice hotels in the world, the other hotel is in Sweden. The Quebec hotel is celebrating their 15th anniversary of being open this year. They have had over 1 million visitors stay overnight since they opened, and it costs them thousands of dollars to rebuild the hotel every year. The hotel is made entirely of snow and ice, there are no beams or poles to hold it up; it is a "self-sustaining" structure. It is quite something. It is expensive to stay overnight, I believe the price starts around $200 a night, but it would be a once in a lifetime experience. I however did not stay the night, I just visited for one afternoon and took a lot of pictures. Here are just a few of my pictures of the Ice Hotel. You can find out more about the hotel on their website here.

 

Welcome to the Hôtel de Glace 

The Chapel

 

The Slide

  I went down the slide. :)

 

Hallway to the bedrooms.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures and perhaps someday you will be able to see for yourself the beauty of this hotel. The fact that we as humans can make something so beautiful out of God's creation still astounds me. It makes me appreciate the beauty God has put in the world, even the beauty of winter. 
I hope you all have a wonderful and blessed Lord's Day!

Quick Update

I'm sorry I haven't been writing a lot recently. Life has been busy here and it keeps getting busier. Other than my French lessons, I keep busy with helping people in the church; babysitting, helping people move, picking up kids, socializing. I have been attending a bible study that a Christian group on the local University campus organizes. They are with the Power to Change organization and I have really enjoyed getting to know a lot of those people. The English Conversation groups are continuing and we continue to have more new people almost every week. We will be having one more session this week before we take a break for two weeks, but we will continue due to the requests of the many people who have been coming. :)

Yesterday we had our first session for a Kid's Day in English at the church. I was in charge of it all, the organization, planning, getting volunteers, buying supplies. Being the leader and being in charge was and still is a little strange for me. It will take a while before I become comfortable with that position. I even had to make a short announcement to the church in French! That was nerve wracking! But Lord willingly I got through that and I got through Kid's Day.

We had quite a lot of kids come for the first day. I was expecting around 10-12, but in the end we had 17 kids by the time we were done. We had kids come from the church and  kids from the neighborhood, it was great. Everything really ended up going smoothly, but we did learn about some things that we need to change. But learning that now is a good thing. Hopefully we can fix that for the next time. I have two weeks to prep for the next session, and I pray that God will help me through this.

Again, thank you all so much for your prayers and support. It means so much to me. Please pray for this Kid's Day event and that these kid's will be open to the Word. And please pray for my health, I am afraid that all this activity is finally wearing me out and it may be possible that the cold/flu might finally catch up to me. As someone kindly mentioned to me today, I need to survive this and stay alive! :)

Thank you again. I hope you had a blessed Lord's Day.

Winter Carnival

Every year in Quebec City there is a winter carnival. It is a long event that lasts two to three weeks at the end of January and at the beginning of February. This particular carnival has returned every year for the last 60 years. It is a big event that lots of people enjoy. The history of this festival goes back to when the province was a territory of France in the 1600's. The villagers from both sides of the river would meet in the middle of the frozen river to have a time of festivities to celebrate the winter. Can you imagine that? They would create a small "village" in the middle of the river for this event and spend several weeks there. Today, the river cannot be allowed to freeze completely due to large ships of cargo and such. But the Quebecois people still celebrate it. And I experienced it for two days.

Most of the festivities happen on the weekends when they will have races and different sports in the snow and ice, but there are still things to do during the week. They have ice sculptures, snow sculptures, snow slides, different races and many events for the kids. It is a very family friendly environment, and I enjoyed that aspect of it. There is also a small Ice Palace where Bonhomme (the carnival's mascot) lives, and a parade of lights and floats. You can find out more about the carnival and the history of it here.

It can be fun, especially if the weather is nice. But it is usually very cold, and only the bravest will join the activities for a full day. I was able to walk around for one evening and watched part of the canoe races the following afternoon. The whole idea of a carnival in the middle of winter is bizarre, but it was quite enjoyable for me.

Game of Thrones throne

Inside Bonhomme's palace

The outside of Bonhomme's palace.

Snow sculpture

Ice sculpture

Canoe races.

If you are ever in Quebec City in the middle of winter, it just might be worth it to check out the carnival. I hope you all have a good and safe winter wherever you are. Stay warm!