Fall Colors

My week has been extremely busy with organizing lots of things that are coming up and also trying to keep myself  sane and healthy by trying to go out and socialize and take breaks from working on a computer for hours on end. This week has also been pretty grey and rainy all week, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying the fall colors. So I thought I would share with you a few photos of the fall colors here. A couple weeks ago a friend and I drove out of the city to just enjoy the fall colors for a day. I hope you enjoy them as well.

My Friend Ashley

For the beauty of the earth,

 

For the glory of the skies,

 

For the love which from our birth, over and around us lies.

Lord of all to thee we raise, 

This our hymn of grateful praise.

One year, already!

Exactly one year ago today, I arrived in Québec City for the first time. October 16, 2014 was the day I flew into Québec. So much has happened since then. I remember being so overwhelmed with everything, the city, the language, the people, the work, the weather already turning into winter, living with complete strangers. It was all so new, so foreign and so intimidating at the same time. I remember thinking that I could never be really close with some of the people here because I was struggling so much with the language barrier that connections were difficult to make. But praise be to God that I can now say that some of those same people are my closest friends here! The couple that I was living with have become family in so many ways and I am still being invited into other people's homes. The Lord has blessed me with so many new friendships here that continue to grow. And I am so thankful that I am at such a higher level of French than I ever thought possible. (And hopefully that will grow to be better as well!)

The Lord has indeed been good to me this past year. It can be easy to forget the small blessings He gives us, but I am thankful that He has brought me to a place where I am almost daily reminded of them. This year has been full of high points and low points, struggles and advances, losses and achievements, twists and turns and it has all been a humbling, rewarding, and difficult experience all together. I cannot wait to see what the Lord has in store for me here in Québec this next year.

(Me in Québec a year ago)

Trust in the Lord

Dear friends,
I am sorry I have not written recently. My life has been very over the last two months, but that does not mean I couldn't have spent an hour to write. For that I am sorry and apologize. I hope this post will make up for the weeks of silence.
Back in August, I went home to California for four weeks to visit my family and friends. It was very busy and filled with many things for me to do. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it very much. I love running from one coffee date to the next, being busy with a social life is something I love. But this trip was not just for visiting people for the sake of visiting, it was also to try and raise more support for my mission work. As I am already back in Quebec, I am hoping to stay for another year until August 2016. So I had to take the time to visit a few churches and give presentations and write letters praying that this will help fund my next year here in Quebec City.
So my time then, and my time since then, has been very trying. I don't know if what I have done will be enough for the next year, I don't know what I will do after this year is over, and I don't know how effective my work here is going to be this year. I am in the process of learning a serious lesson of trust.
Even before my trip home, I was frantically putting my trust and faith in God. As some of you already know, my youngest brother Scott became sick with Malaria during the first week of August. He had spent the last month in Uganda for a missions trip and became sick within two weeks of returning home. He had a very bad case of malaria and was in the ICU for three days and in the hospital for eight days total. I was still here in Quebec and wasn't supposed to come home until the following week. There was nothing I could really do. Except worry.
I tend to worry and get stressed over little things. So when a very large thing happened to my brother, I was kind of a mess. I learned I needed to give my stresses to God. It took a while to completely release my worries, stress and prayers to God, but when I did, a small burden was lifted. I was still very concerned for my brothers health, but I knew that it was in His hands.
Thankfully my brother is better and has fully recovered from the disease. We are so thankful to God for that.
Yet even after that, I still have troubles completely trusting God, or at least letting go of my worries and giving them to God. But I am so thankful for the lessons I have been learning recently about trusting God. I just finished reading the book "Passion and Purity" by Elizabeth Elliot. The book is mostly aimed towards relationships, and those wanting a relationship. That is something I have struggled with, but I took many lessons away from the book. But one main lesson that kept reoccurring in the book was the lesson of trust. Trusting God through everything and especially giving our worries and fears to God, "casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you." (1 Peter 5:7) The book was filled with encouraging lessons on trusting and waiting on the Lord. I highly recommend it for anyone going through those life lessons.
Even the message of a sermon that I did not hear has been gnawing at my heart. I went to a retreat this weekend with the church that I am working for here in Quebec. It was a family retreat for all the churches of this small denomination. I was helping with the kids during the first talk, so I did not hear the message. But people have told me about it since because they all greatly appreciated it. The message was about Jonah, trusting and believing God, and God's grace toward us. The pastor talked about how we can say we trust or believe God, but deep down we really don't, or our actions say otherwise. Jonah said he believed God, but he went West instead of going East to Ninevah like God had told him to. We do the same thing in our lives. We say we trust God to do something for us, but then we worry or try to do it all ourselves to make it go our way and get upset when it doesn't go the way we want it to. Instead of really trusting God, we worry and fret about the details. And then, it is by God's grace that He brings us back to His plan. The storm and the whale represent God's grace to us. It is by God's grace that he brings a large event or something into our lives to bring us back to Him and to truly trusting in Him.
That struck me, and it makes me thankful for the trials God has put in my life. Albeit, it is a little disappointing that this is a repetitive lesson for me. It is an "easier said than done" sort of lesson, but I am still grateful for it.
So as I am already plunging forward into busy days and busy schedules of organizing different events, my prayer is that I will be continually reminded of this lesson and that I will not lose sight of the grace of God toward me. I pray that we will all bring our cares and worries to God.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him, 

and he will make straight your paths.

Be not wise in your own eyes;

fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.

It will be healing to your flesh

and refreshment to your bones."

Proverbs 3:5-8

English for Teens- Seeing God in Creation

Last week I went camping with 16 teenagers. We had an entire week with these kids, teaching them English and going through the camping experience with them. A lot of them are city kids who have barely had camping experience, so that was fun to deal with. I had to come up with English lessons for that week as well. The only thing I had to go off of was our theme of "A picture is worth 1000 words." I did come up with some basic plans and activities for the kids. They seemed to like it enough. They did mention that it was very similar to what they did in school. Oh well, I tried to not make it too much like school. I can only hope they enjoyed it.

We did a lot of different things with the kids. We went to a copper museum the first day where we all made our own small copper art works, we hiked to an observatory tower, got a private tour at a local church, fished, swam, got ice cream, and played games. We had fairly good weather during the week. It rained the last two days, but it wasn't too much for us, at least not for the team leaders. We were able to pack our tents before it got too wet on Friday. Other than losing one dish-drying rack on the drive home, the traveling back to the church went smoothly.

After a week at camp with these kids, I can say I appreciate the fact that my parents took my brothers and I out camping a lot when we were young. I don't scream every time I see a bug or spider, and I can eat off of utensils that have been dropped on the ground. I don't need my phone or video game with me all the time to keep me entertained, and if I get wet in the rain, it won't hurt. I watched these teenagers fuss and complain about tiny things that seemed like life and death problems for them. I hope I wasn't like that, though I probably was. I am sure all of us have gone through that stage at one point in life. Even if I did complain when we went camping, I am glad my parents made me do it. Because they took us out into nature a lot, I can fully enjoy God's creation in different ways than if I had been raised in the house all of my life. When they saw a cloud that threatened rain, they started hurrying for shelter and ran once it started to rain. I personally like rain clouds and noticing the deep and contrasting colors in clouds. I took my time in the rain, enjoying the sights of the water and the people running, and smelling the wet earth.

My friend pointed out to me that I marvel at the small things in life. It's true, and I think that is why I like photography so much. I love looking at smalls details and marveling at the creation around me. The following Sunday, after the camp, the pastor brought this up in his sermon. He made a point that we can see God and learn about God by looking at his creation and the things He has left for us on the earth. "For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made." Romans 1:20. We can see God's power and love in the nature that He has created around us. That is something we easily forget, especially if we see it everyday. But even if we live in the city, we don't have to go out to the woods or the mountains to see His glory in the world. Look up and watch the clouds and the birds. Look down and watch the insects and the grass and flowers. Or look around you and admire what God has allowed man to make with our imaginations. The beauty and the love of God is always around us. We just forget to look for it.

With this week of camping and looking at pictures of people and nature, I hope that those 16 teenagers learned something new. If not something new about God, then I hope it was something new about His creation, or a new way to look at the world around us. I know I learned a few things and I hope that I never forget them.

English for Kids

This last month has been a little crazy for me. I have finished my first summer of three weeks of English day camps for kids. We had three different teams come every week from Canada and from the United States. Not only did these groups have to work together, but they also had to live together in the same house during the week. It can sometimes be difficult working with different people from different backgrounds, but with a lot of communication and with God's help we didn't have any serious issues among the team members. We also had a very full camp every week. This year was the first year the church has had to put kids on a waiting list. We had 54 kids the first week and decided that was too much. Our teacher, for the 5-7 year-old kids that week, had 17 children in one tiny classroom that was most likely made to hold 10 kids or less. So we created a limit of 50 kids per week. We had around 5+ kids on the waiting list for the next two weeks. That was amazing to think about! We are hoping a lot of those kids will return next year and we already had some parents say they wanted to sign their kids up for the next year. We are so thankful for that!

This whole experience was so new to me. Yes I have done VBS camps before, and yes I have done English camps before, but nothing like this. I have never done three full back-to-back weeks of camps all in a row. My first week was a little more stressful for me than the other weeks. It was my first week, so I was learning the ropes of how the camps worked but I was also leading music. I have never led music before in my life, let alone lead 50+ kids to sing songs that they don't know or don't want to sing. So I was singing as loud as I could with high songs the entire week. My throat was sore, and my voice was nearly gone by Wednesday evening! I also learned some lessons on how to deal with misbehaving kids that week. The theme for that week had been about Jesus being the one Mediator between God and man. The fact that another camp leader and I took on the role of being mediators between these misbehaving kids and their teachers was a lesson to me. Our pastor, in his sermon the following Sunday, even talked about how we as Christians can be mediators and intercessors for those that we love. It was a lesson that reminded me of God's grace toward us.

Those two kids improved their behaviors just enough to get through the end of the week. But one of the two came back the following week and seemed to have an improved attitude that week. I was glad to see that, but still hope and pray that God will change their hearts.

That week had a few rough starts, but we made it through with a lot of prayers and patience. I learned that I don't always do too well in stressful situations. I am still working on that and I saw some small changes and progress throughout the next two weeks. But I don't know how that first team put up with me and I am thankful for their forgiving and positive attitudes throughout the week. They were a great help and a witness to me. I am so thankful to be able to now call them my friends.

The second team was a larger team and was set up differently. They had too many volunteers to run the camp, so we tried something else with a few of the extra people. Our original plan was to take five members with us to camp with teenagers during that week. But because we didn't have enough teenagers signed up, we had to cancel that plan and come up with another plan. 

But first, here is the whole team. 

The rest of the team still did the English for Kids program as planned. They also had a full week with 50 kids on a very hot week. So they were very tired at the end of the week, but I never heard about any major issues with the kids, which was a good thing in my opinion. There were a few issues of miscommunication at times, but once that got cleared up the whole team worked well together. They had a successful week. Even though I wasn't with them during the days, I still had some good times with them at the end of the day and I enjoyed their friendships.

But what did we do with those extra five people? We did English Conversation activities. We went to one of the nearby malls in the morning to talk to people in English, we would go out to parks in the afternoon to talk to people in English, and then we would return to the church to have more formal English Conversations with people who would stay for that. We may not have been corralling 50 kids all week, but we were still busy. Every day we had to push away our insecurities to ask random strangers walking by if they would like to practice their English with us. People in Quebec have lots of opportunities to learn English if they want to, but not a lot of chances to practice it. I have come to realize that when someone, who wants to learn English, finds out you speak English, they can be really excited to practice with you. So that is what we were offering to the local people surrounding the church. We had many good conversations and some great connections were made between some Americans and "Quebecers." We did have our own struggles though. On Thursday morning, an official from the mall came and said we couldn't be their at the mall anymore. It was a little disappointing at first, but we learned about what we can and cannot do next time we try to have English Conversations in the mall. We also had several people walk away or flee from us as soon as the word "church" was mentioned. But I was very encouraged by this teams reaction to that. They prayed. We prayed every day for the people we would talk to, for those we had talked to before, and even for those who had turned away from our conversations. It was a great reminder to me to bring everything, even the smallest details of life to God. Nothing is too small to bring in prayer to our loving Father. 

I really enjoyed getting to know this entire team. I made a lot of connections with some of these people and they were such a blessing to me. My birthday was during that week with this team. They were so sweet and actually bought me some very nice gifts such as wine, tea, and a tea travel mug which I have used and am enjoying a lot. They were a wonderful team to be able to spend my birthday with. 

The third team was quite a bit smaller than the other teams, which meant more work for every person. Almost every person on that team had at least two to three jobs to do throughout the week. I remember thinking, how will they manage this, but every person worked so hard and did their best that the whole week went smoothly. This team also brought many things to God every day, and I was very encouraged to see that and to hear their prayers. Even when I got scared with the threat of a pulmonary infection, the team was so supportive to help me recover and prayed for me. I was very thankful they had a nurse to help us decide what to do. Thankfully my lung sounds were clear by Wednesday, and I have continued to improve with each day.

We were also blessed to see small improvements in some of the kids throughout the week. Some of the trouble makers weren't as troublesome by the end of the week, and one child actually came back and asked for forgiveness and fixed a problem he had created. We were very thankful and excited to see that. It was a successful week and I had a lot of fun with the team that week. They had a lot of fun people on their team which made the whole group have a fun and positive outlook on the week. I really enjoyed working with them. 

I really enjoyed working with every team. I felt very blessed to work with every person from every team. I learned a lot from each team, and I am so thankful call them my friends and brothers and sisters in Christ. 

I need to give one last "shout out" to my  good friend Suzy who was my partner in all of this. This was her third year being the camp manager and I don't know what we would have done without her. She is a wonderful godly woman who loves these kids and this ministry so much. I am so thankful to have been working with her these last three weeks, and I am so thankful that this work has created a close friendship between us as well. Thank you so much Suzy!!

Thank you to everyone who prayed for the camp, the kids, the teams, and for me when I felt a little "under the weather." God answered our prayers and we had three successful camps. Please continue to pray for the kids that we taught. Pray that a love for God will grow in their hearts and that it will spread to their parents and families. We may not be seeing the fruit of our labors right away, but we hope and pray that God uses the seeds we have sown to bring these people to Him.

God bless!

I'm alive and by God's grace!

I am so sorry that I have not written anything in a long time. I have been so busy the last three weeks that I have barely had time to settle into my new apartment, let alone write about it or the English for Kids camps. But I wanted to let you know that I am doing well. I am in the middle of my third week of English for Kids. Things have been up and down every week between issues with kids and also issues among team members. But it has all been flowing smoothly. 

I would ask for a few prayer requests from you:

- That things would go smoothly for this last team. They are the smallest team we have had so far this summer, and they are realizing that a few extra people would have helped. Pray that they will have enough energy for the rest of the week and that the kids would listen and learn from them.

- For our English for Teens group coming up in less than two weeks. We are in need of another person to join us teach teenagers English while camping. And also for my friend Suzy and I as we prepare the lessons and plans for this trip.

- That the gospel will be heard and received by these children and teenagers.

- And lastly, for my health. Three full weeks on going nonstop has been the most I have done in a long time. I strained my voice and my body by doing music during the first week. As a result of all of this plus many different points of stress from these camps, I seemed to have caught a pulmonary infection of some kind. I brought it up to the team nurse on Sunday after I had been experiencing symptoms for a few days. But thankfully it seems to be slowly getting better. She says that my lungs sound so much better now and I am slowly feeling better. I thank the Lord for that. But please pray for continued health and strength for the next few weeks. 

Thank you so much for all your prayers. It has been a comfort to me knowing that people are praying for me and the many team members and children that have been coming to these camps. I thank God for you intercession, knowing that He hears your prayers because we have our own intercessor through Jesus. (Hebrews 7:25) 

Thank you and have a wonderful week. I hope to write again and in more details soon.
Jennifer

Family Visit

I am sorry I haven't written anything in a while. Things have been getting busier with all of my preparations for the English for Kid's camps, plus I am moving into a new apartment this week. So life has been very busy for me. But I am doing well, and I had a wonderful week that I am sure I will tell you about soon.

But what I am excited to tell you is that my family came for a visit! My parents and two of my brothers came to visit me here in Quebec City. I had a great time with them. We got to see the touristic things around the city, we experienced a local art/theatre exhibit, ate the popular chocolate dipped ice cream cones, and spent a lot of time with some of my friends from the church here. It was a very busy week with lots to see, lots to do, and many late nights with my brothers as well. Also going back and forth between the languages of French and English can be tiring when you are not used to it. Needless to say, I was pretty exhausted by the end, but I had a great time and was sad to see them go. I am thankful that they got to see a little bit of what my life is like here in Quebec City.

We took a bus tour around the city.

 (Scott, John, and me) 

 My Parents

(Stacy and Mike)

The Chateau Frontenac 

The old city. 

My parents 

My Dad, Mike 

 My Mom, Stacy

Scott 

 John

 With a few friends who showed us around. 

My family :)

I will post more soon. But until then, I hope you all have a blessed Lord's Day. Enjoy the warm June weather!
In Christ,
Jennifer