Time Flies!

This blog was written for the week of May 20, 2013. It was not published until now though- my bad! Got so busy that I just didn't have time to polish it off!

I can't believe that we are already over half way through the project! CRAZY how time flies! This past week has been really busy, good but realllllly busy.

The Weekend!

Last friday Nadine (intern), Esther (staff) and Silas (Esther's boyfriend!) all went to see Shad! It was such a great show- well, he was good. The opening and closing acts were QUITE weird. It was an interesting concert that's for sure. We thought that it would be a cool outreach opportunity because we could go and meet some people but we didn't end up really meeting anyone :( That's okay though. It was a good show and I definitely became more of a Shad fan!



Saturday, Sunday and Monday (Vic Day) were days off. On the saturday a bunch of us women walked down to the Old Port to explore. It is such a beautiful part of Montreal. Luckily, that day there was beautiful weather so we could enjoy the outside! Exploring the older parts of Montreal, you can definitely see the influence that the church had on the area. There are old cathedrals everywhere. One particularly sad part of the day was when I almost got run over as I walked in the crosswalk by a galloping horse who was pulling a carriage with tourists in it. Yes, it sounds funny but the 'driver' of the carriage yelled a pretty common Quebecois curse word at me which, like many of the curse words here, are words derived from catholic traditions. :/ Definitely speaks, again, to the relationship that many people have with the Church.

A lovely, and random, Christmas store in Old Port.

On the Monday that we had off (since there wouldn't be any students on campus), teams decided to do a fasting and prayer day. The french team fasted and went to their two campuses (UdeM and UQAM) whereas the English team fasted and went to McGill, Concordia and finished with a climb up Mt.Royal to pray over the city. I stayed home during this for own personal fasting and prayer time. At one point I went for a walk to pray over the city and then ended up at the Place Des Arts- a lovely area with many lounging areas, shops, museums and tons of people. It was a lovely day and at the end, it was nice to reunite with the teams to hear about their days!

A protest that happened as I sat in Place Des Arts. Typical day in Quebec :)

Week 3 on Campus:

Wednesday was a fun day. Our apartment (Myself, 2 interns and 2 students) had decided to invite our neighbors over for a pizza night. It was a little intimidating going to each of our neighbors doors and inviting them over, and honestly, I didn't think that they'd be down with the idea, but they were! In fact, they were even enthusiastic about it! We made the pizzas from scratch and had all of the project guys, a male staff and then our apartment there and then the two apartments next two us came over (they're all guys that's why we had the other people form project there haha). It was really fun! The neighbors seemed to be having good conversations with people there and even ended up asking some good questions about how we, as Christians, live. Cool!

Thursday was also a fun day! One of the male staff who lives in Montreal ended up holding a BBQ and invited pretttty much everyone that we had met/know in Montreal. It was cool because there were some people come from the apartment building! My highlight of the night was talking with a man named Usher. He is very french and so there was a bit of a communication barrier at first. It also seemed as though my lack of french was extremely comical for him. Needless to say, i was not expecting to have a deep and meaningful conversation with him. But, after he had spent a few minutes talking with another project member he suddenly turned to me and asked, "Are you Catholic or Protestant?". Well, that opened up a can of spiritual conversation! He asked me questions about my testimony, eternal life, the trinity, what it means to have a personal relationship with God, who is Jesus and many more. We talked for about an hour. IT WAS SO AWESOME. One thing also that was amazing about it was when we were talking about spiritual things, the communication barrier seemed to be less evident. He was engaged in the conversation, understanding what I/the Holy Spirit was saying and really thinking about what we were talking about. Another reminder to me that I should never just discount someone in terms of having a conversation about God with them. And, well, even if I do, God may have other plans!

One last highlight from this week. I had met a girl named Emily in my first week here while she was handing out books on Krishna Consciousness outside of Montreal. I, and the staff that I was with, had a really good conversation with her and then got her contact info to possibly meet up again. I called the number she gave (of the temple that she lives at) and they said that she was in Toronto. I felt like I had just missed a really good opportunity because I waited a couple of days to get into contact with her...
On Saturday afternoon I was walking down the street with another girl on project and guess who is literally 1 block from my house handing out cookies to people passing by and chanting? Emily. I could not believe me eyes. I immediately stopped and talked to her. We had another amazing conversation that lasted about an hour and a half. I asked her if she'd want to meet up again to talk about spiritual things and she was down with the idea! We made plans for that monday! On monday, I went to the meeting spot and waited....and waited....and waited. I waited for 20 minutes, no show. But I just felt like I should stay longer. So I waited...36 minutes pass. Finally I decide that maybe she is not going to come and so I get up and begin to walk away. I am literally 20 feet from where I was sitting, and I see her! If I had been looking any other direction or had left a second earlier, I wouldn't have seen her! Praise the Lord. We sat and she gave me a whole bucket of lacto-vegetarian treats! haha :) Sesame Bars. We began our conversation pretty much immediately and it was SO great. She asked about the project, what we're doing, our 'goals', how we go about talking to people, she even asked for a knowing God personally booklet. As she flipped through the pages, questions came up and we talked. It was such an easy conversation, but relatively hard to gage. She is new to her 'faith' yet is quite 'determined' in it. Despite the questions that she couldn't answer about why she believes what she believes or where her confidence in it comes from, she was 'unwavering' yet gentle in her end of the discussion. I'd say the saddest point of the discussion was when another member of her group randomly showed up. It was sad because after he learned that I was a Christian, he began telling me how he used to be an evangelical baptist minister for 12 years before returning (he was involved it before Christian ministry) to krishna consciousness. I asked him about his transition between the two and got some pretty interesting answers. He was well educated in theology and used that to try to convince me of his beliefs and turn me against Christ. He was gracious in the way that he did it; however, it was really eerie and made me quite uncomfortable. Before he left, he wanted to give me something 'of value' and so decided to sing a mantra to me. While he sang and chanted, I just prayed- for him, emily and for my own mind and heart to be protected from the lies that he was saying.
Emily and i continued our conversation afterwards and when it was time to go we made tentative plans to hang out again! :) She is super nice and definitely open to talking about spirituality!

It has been a crazy week for sure! Coming up  we have a coffee house style open mic (thursday) and then friday we will be leaving for Quebec City!

Time flies!

Pray as Y'Read Prayer Requests:

1. For Emily and Usher- That their eyes would be opened to the truth of the Gospel, and for continued follow-up opportunities with them!
2. The team is experiencing a lot of spiritual attack, specifically relating to fear and anxiety. Please pray for protection against those things.
3. The Coffee House Open Mic on thursday- for logistics, people to come, and for good conversations and fun to be had!