Well, all is right with the world.
We have received almost a foot of snow in the last couple of days.
I went to see the Habs play the Canucks, and the Canucks SPANKED the Habs 4-0 (sorry Gil, these games never seem to be close)
It is now -21 C and dropping, and I am in my warm bed.
And now, for your reading pleasure, I present to you my Christmas letter. If for some reason you are not receiving it via email and would like to (I have close to a 100 people on the list, so please forgive me if I've missed you) or...
if you would prefer to read updates on my blog instead of receiving emails, feel free to leave a comment, and I will put you on/off the email list.
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Dear friends and family,
It is time for me to update you on my exciting adventures in the steamy jungles of Montreal once more. I am actually starting to wonder if we are in fact a little closer to the tropical regions of the world than I once thought. We experienced a brown Christmas for only the 13th time on record here in Montreal. This, combined with the fact that BC has had lots of snow, has led me to believe that there is a global conspiracy to keep me from getting my full winter enjoyment. They haven't even been able to build outdoor rinks yet. I even roller-bladed to church this morning. On January 7. In Montreal. Bah.
In other news, we have just returned from a massive missions conference put on by Intervarsity in St. Louis called Urbana. Over 22,000 students came down for a week of speakers and seminars on a wide variety of mission topics. People from every state and province, as well as many other countries came together for an amazing time. The speakers were top-notch, and there was great music, drama, videos, and artistic presentations. Most of the sessions were recorded, and can be viewed at
www.urbana.org. I was challenged in many ways, including the world AIDs crises, as well as our North American mindset towards missions, and how we need to receive from churches in other countries as well as give.
I was the bus coordinator for Quebec, and was responsible for getting about 90 people to St. Louis and back. It was an interesting learning experience, but a very stressful one as well. We were informed fairly late in the game that the drop off point in St. Louis for the buses was not capable of handling everybody, and we would therefore have to get people to their hotels ourself. I then discovered that the people in my buses were staying at a total of 12 different hotels. This made for some interesting planning sessions, and I got to know the computer programs google earth and google maps quite intimately (you can plug in an address, and it will come up with a satellite image of the location. Very handy, and also kind of freaky when you look up your own house). Anyway, everybody ended up getting there and back, but it was an adventure. The bus ride was about 23 hours, and I purposely rode back with them, which I'm glad I did. We ended up having quite the sharing and prayer time, I'm sure our bus driver hadn't seen anything quite like it.
My family flew to Montreal for Christmas, which was very nice. I unfortunately had to ditch them a couple of times to get the bus planning in order, but we were able to spend most nights together. It was definitely a memorable Christmas, because most of the things that we usually have around us (our decorations, music, and friends) were not here. We had a good time exploring the city, eating rabbit stew (yes, they sell rabbit meat here), and making a Christmas tree out of newspaper. It was also very good to have them here, because I had to fly out to Urbana a day earlier than the buses left, and so they were able to stay and help with collecting bus fares and registration.
Once I was actually in St. Louis, I was in charge of a small group made up of people from the University of Victoria. It was really good to see my friends from Victoria again, and we had a great time studying Ephesians together, waiting in ridiculous lineups to get food at lunch, and praying together. I am so grateful for the people that God has given IVCF at UVic, and the way they have blessed me.
Looking back on this year, I have been stretched in a lot of ways. The internship with IVCF has been everything I hoped it would be so far. I have developed good relationships with a lot of the students, and have enjoyed hanging out doing any number of things from intramural soccer, guys nights playing world-domination-type board games, student dinners, going out for dinner at one of the countless restaurants downtown, movie nights, prayer meetings, and many other activities. There have been a lot of good times, as well as a lot of difficult ones. One of the interns was asked not to come back, and so our team will look a lot different in terms of group dynamics. Also, as we experience growth here in Quebec, I expect to see more spiritual opposition and attack, in a number of possible ways.
I have been asked to consider returning next fall to help with next year's internship program. I am definitely considering it, although I am still finding it hard to wrap my head around the idea of not doing an engineering job when I have just spent almost 6 years working towards that goal.
Things to pray for:
-a possible missions trip to *a certain country I will not mention here* in April with students
-direction for the summer and fall
-team unity, continued growth an renewal in Quebec
-more staff workers for the schools of Quebec
Again I would ask that if nothing else, you at least pray for these things right now so that they at least get prayed for once. Please and thank-you. : )
I thank you all again for your support and prayers. I'm looking forward to the last 4 months of the internship, and seeing God work in the students and my life.
And what do you know... its actually snowing outside.
Grace and peace.
