A visual presentation

So no camera yet (been looking hard at the Canon S2 IS, but I'm not sure how much duty would be to buy it from the US, if anybody knows about such things and would like to enlighten me I would be much obliged), but nevertheless I will attempt to give you a small glimpse into my world for the last 3 weeks.

Me breaking into our house the first day because we locked our key inside.

Me practicing my spider man skills after successfully gaining entry

Saturday night student dinner

Dinner with the fam

One slightly well done tortilla

Some cool art downtown

Camping trip fun in the rain

A cool picture of the campground



My hair, chopped off as of today

I was originally planning to grow my hair out till Christmas. However, I realized very quickly that I really do not enjoy spending a lot of time doing my hair, and therefore needed to cut it off. The funky color effect is one of the built in photo effects for the camera in my computer.

By the way, for anyone considering buying a macbook in the near future, I would recommend waiting a bit. I bought my in June, and have already had a major repair done. Thousands of people are experiencing random shutdowns. The fix for this is to replace the logic board and heat-sink. However, now my computer doesn't always boot up properly. Intel macs are great, but if you can hold off making a purchase for another 6 months so that apple can work out a few more of the bugs, you'll probably save yourself a lot of grief.

(My apologies for the faulty link in the previous post, it is now fixed)

Today we went into Dawson College. At staff meeting last friday morning, we brainstormed ways that we could help the students cope and readjust with last week's shootings. It was decided that we would offer to operate a drop-in room where students could come in, hang out, talk, and just process things in their own way. The local chapter of IVCF has an office in the college, so we hung out there for the morning. One of the first people to come in was this girl.
She wouldn't even walk through the atrium, the main eating area where the shootings occured. I came accross her picture while looking at the CBC gallery tonight, and realized that it was the same girl. We had a chance to talk and pray with her, which was really good.

Later that day I met the director of student development, and was recruited to help run a number of tables where students could write personal messages to the student body, and also thank-you cards for the police. We also had bottled water and cookies that someone had donated to give away, as well as pink bows which have become the symbol of support for the girl that was killed, Anastasia.

Most students actually came back to school yesterday, and were greeted with loud applause from the staff as they entered the building. As the applause faded away, the echo apparently reminded some of the students of the gunfire they had heard only a few days before.

I was at the table today for about 6 hours, and got to see a lot of students come through. There were very few tears, at least in the busy area that I was in. I suspect there was more of that yesteray, but still, most students seemed to be doing relatively well. A lot of them sat in groups and traded stories about where they were when everything happened. Some were ready to write things in the notebook at the table, others fealt like they needed more time.

It was nice to be able to do something tangible for the school and students. The funeral was today, and there will be a non-religious service tomorow as well. We will be going in every day this week, so if you could continue to pray for the team and the students that would be awesome. Also pray that through this situation IVCF's relationship with the school would be strengthened, and that we would find favour with the administration.

Thank you for all your prayers.

Well, as many of you have probably already heard, there was a shooting today at a college a few blocks away from Concordia University. I was actually at Concordia when it happened. I didn't hear any sirens or shots or anything, but word kind of spread throughout the school fairly quickly, and everybody was on their cell phone talking to parents or friends about it. The actually brought the students to Concordia for the counselling right after. There were people all over the place with signs directing Dawson students to the university, and I could see a helicopter circling overhead.
Its all still very sureal right now. As interns, we don't deal with the people from Dawson directly, but I know the two IVCF staff workers that do fairly well. They will definitely need our prayers. I think that this will have a long term impact on a lot of what we are doing here too, and so you can pray that God would give us wisdom, and somehow make something good out of all this. One of the names of God is the Redeemer. He is very good at taking something very bad, and turning it into something amazing. He does that with us as sinful humans everyday.

So, here are some random first impressions of Montreal...

Amazing architecture
-A lot of old buildings are still around, especially churches. Most have been transformed into other things such as schools and museums. One was actually jacked up (we're talking a giant stone building here) and a shopping mall was put underneath. I still haven't gotten a camera yet, but hopefully soon.

Suprisingly easy to communicate in
-One of the questions that I could count on people asking me at home when I told them I was moving to Montreal was "How's your french?". Since I have moved here, I have had one or two experiences where language was a barrier. For the most part, everyone is bilingual here.

Not interested in the church
-Virtually all swear words in french have some religious significance. The Catholic church was once very strong here, but since the quiet revolution in the 1960's, Francaphone pride is the new religion.

24-hour bagel stores
-As a lot of you may know by now, I tend to stay up late sometimes. Well now, I can go and buy bagels. ANYTIME I want. And we're talking real bagels, not those pansy little bread circles that they sell at safeway. These suckers are cooked on a wood fire (but only after they're boiled first of course, as all true bagels are).

Crazy Drivers
-Cars will not stop for you. Pedestrians come second.

Multicultural
-McGill is still pretty white, but Concordia University has an amazing mix of people from Africa, Asia, Central America, and all over. Sometimes it almost feels like I'm the minority as a white person.

Hab's crazy
-If you think that Vancouver is obsessed with the Canucks, or even hockey, Montreal will blow your mind. Its the freaking summer, and the sports page is covered with Montreal Canadiens stories. One of the other interns, Patrick, its a Habs fan. We have decided to take it upon ourselves to re-educate him. On a completely unrelated note, the sports page of the newspaper doesn't seem to always arrive here anymore. Strange.

So those are a few first impressions I've had. I'm still getting to know the people and the students I'm working with, so I'm sure that my ideas will change somewhat over time (except about the Canadiens of course).

Today I went and visited the satellite campus of Concordia called Layola. I brought a soccer ball along, and ended up getting to meet a number of people just by kicking the ball around for a bit. It looks likeI will be helping lead a bible study there this fall. I don't know of any other christian groups that operate there right now, so please pray for me that God will give me direction, and also send students my way.

In other news, it appears as if my graduation will be delayed until the spring. I was unable to get the forms I needed signed by my work in time (I ended with a coop this summer). It was very stressful trying to get things done in time, especially seeing as I'm accross the country, and its rather disapointing not to get it finished and done with, but on the other hand I'm just relieved that I don't have to deal with deadline anymore. I fealt in a lot of ways like I was still only partially here, at least mentally anyway. Now I feel like I can fully focus all of my energy on the Internship at last.

I suppose it would be easier to write shorter posts, and just do them more frequently, but oh well.

Things to pray for:
-Direction in terms of how I approach the Layola campus
-That God would bring me the students at Layola that He wants me to get to know
-Inspiration for bible study topics, that I would have insight into what students need to talk about

Again I would ask that even if you don't remember to pray for these later, that you would at least pray for them now while you're reading this. Thanks so much!

And so it begins

Well, Montreal is now my home. I arrived on Wednesday, August 30, and life has been a whirlwind ever since. We had about a day and a half to unpack, and then we were off to the first retreat of the year. Student leaders from a number of different schools including Concordia and McGill Universities traveled by bus to a little town called Dunham where we stayed at a YWAM base there. All the speaker sessions were translated into French and English, so it was an interesting experience. On the bus ride there I got one student to help me read the French version of the waiver form. I would like to learn as much French as I can while I'm here, but unfortunately Montreal is a very bilingual city, and almost everyone speaks English. Some people have lived here for 50 years and never really learned French. I will just have to make the most of the opportunities I get I guess.

I just got my UVic email account up and running yesterday afternoon, only to find out that a coop coordinator had sent me an email saying that my final coop report was due today. So with the help of copious amounts of Jasmine green tea that I found in the kitchen downstairs, I managed to finish it by 4:00am last night. Needless to say I am looking forward to a good sleep tonight.

My to do list is still ridiculously long, but I am slowly chipping away at it, and now that my coop report is done, I feel like a lot of weight is off my shoulders. I still have a few forms that I'll probably need to fax to Victoria, but the hard part is done. It feels strange not having to organize myself for classes after having done school for so long.

Support seems to be coming along, although I'm not entirely sure where I'm at right now because I'm still waiting for a lot of stuff to get mailed and processed. God is good though, and I have no doubt that He will provide what I need. It has been very humbling to see all the people that have donated so far, and it continues to amaze me how God provides in ways that we don't expect.

Things are in a bit of a lull right now as all the students get their classes organized, but we will be meeting with the Concordia IVCF exec tomorrow to do some initial planning. It looks like I will be helping lead some small groups, and perhaps start up some stuff at one of the satellite campuses for Concordia, called Loyola.

We got to meet most of the exec group at the retreat on the weekend, and they're a really fun group. Definitely a lot smaller than UVic's group of 30+ however. It will be a big switch from working with such a large group. There is also a lot more cultural diversity in the group. It will be an interesting year. I am looking forward to the challenge though.

Anyway, I've covered a whole lot of topics here, but hopefully you've gotten a taste of what my week has been like. Please pray for me, even if only right now as you read this. Pray that God will give us wisdom in how to develop a strategy for reaching the campus, and that we will be able to develop lots of good relationships with the students. Also pray that God would go before us on the campus and open up doors. There is a lot of mistrust towards the church in general here.

PS
I will be getting a digital camera soon, so hopefully I will have some pictures for you shortly. If anyone has suggestions for what to get, my budget is roughly $300.