Youth Group stuff...
Alright, I have been attending youth group here for a while, so I am going to tell you a little bit of what happens most of the time on Fridays: (The pictures that you see are from last week.)
First, there is the 'icebreak' section of the night. This is where the youth would play a game just to help them bond with each other. This particular game has the youth in pairs and in 2 circles (1 partner in each circle) and they would walk in opposite directions as you see below:
Then after a few seconds, the director would tell them to find their partner and connect with their partner by touching a part of the body using the same body part from the other partner.
For example, during this round the partners were instructed to touch each others' heels.
After the icebreaker, we would go into a time of singing songs. I find that most of the songs are translated from English to French, thus many of the songs are very similar to me.
After songs, a leader would either show a video clip(s) or discuss the topic with a story of some sort. After that, we would split into small groups where we discuss the topic further with Bible Verses. (BV) Since most of the conversations are in French, it is very hard for me to participate but I do notice that the conversations are very interesting and the youth voice out their opinion on a subject. Pretty neat thus far. As a side note, I will be hopefully putting up some pictures of myself with the youth soon.
A few updates...
Hey everyone,
It has been a couple of days since my last post, and I just want to briefly update you on what is going on in my life.
1. I got a chance to talk with the pastor of Sainte-Foy today. It was pretty neat, I got to ask him about his ministry, how he reacts to cross-culturalism, etc. One thing that he stressed was that before graduating from BIble college, was that students need to know if they are called into ministry, because it is a very difficult road, for the leader. As we talked, he also pointed out how spiritually dark this place is. Christians make up around 1%. There is a mentality of "if you are a Protestant Christian, we dislike you because you conquered us." No wonder this place is a missions field.
2. On Sunday, one of the youth shared her experience going to Russia for a STM. It was cool, she show the congregation about an hours worth of photos on a slideshow. I did not understand much, but I know she had a good learning experience judging from the pictures.
After church, Kristi (A CTS student going to Niger, you can check out her blog here) and tried to find the observatory where we can take sky view of the city. It turns out that the building we when to was a hotel/restaurant! The front desk lady helped show us were the observatory was. When we go to the observatory, it was closed because they close @ 5 on Sunday. O well, at least we know where it is now.
3. Finally, I am using yet another blog writer. This one is called Windows Live Writer. What is different about this one is that it is a offline program that only goes online to publish a post. You can check it out here.
Hello everyone,
Yesterday, I was at youth group again. I am continuously finding it easier to make conversations with some of the youth here, and they are starting to talk to me, at least saying "hello". Last night, the theme of last night was to guard what we expose ourselves to in the media. Troy showed a couple of trailers for some upcoming videos, and then we had small group discussions. The leaders had a bunch of questions to ask the youth, there was also a couple of Bible Verses that we used as well. I was in Troy's group and I could understand some of the questions that were asked. However, I could not understand the majority of the reponses. There is something that I have noticed: They are very active during the singing part, meaning they would stand up and do actions to certain songs. Especially the English songs like "Trading my sorrows", they seem to do more actions probably to help to youth understand the song because some songs are not translated.
Some of you may have noticed that I have started putting up the pictures on Facebook. I am not in most of these pictures, because I am the one who is taking the picture.
Other news...
French is going alright thus far. We have a couple of tests this coming week. I am going to meet with some other pastors this week just to sit down and have coffee. This is going to be an exciting week! Well, meeting other pastors is going be exciting, I am not too excited about the exams.
A update.
Hi everyone,
This weekend has been pretty eventful. Our Youth group had a retreat this past Friday and Saturday @ Lévis. The theme was Transform. We did not have a big conference talk, but we had little mini discussion groups where the youth can discuss about being transformed by God, and how we can impact the world in practical ways. So beforehand, the leaders would split into teams of 2 and we had 4 youth groups. So I was with Troy and a bunch of the youth for a discussion group. It was (of course) all in French, and I could understand what Troy was asking to the youth, but I didn't really understand what the youth were saying back. Still, it is an improvement from before. I am also getting more comfortable interacting with people at youth group. I was able to have a conversation with some people. My ability speak is still a little behind compared to my listening ability. Generally, when I speak in broken French the youth would panic and try to speak to me in English. For this weekend though, Troy told the youth to try to speak to me in French, and as a rule he asked them not to be the first one that switches to English. For the most part, I was able to communicate with these people with very limited French. Praise God that my language abilities are growing better, Please do continue to pray that I will be able to communicate with these people in French.
I have just realized that I have been here for exactly 3 months today! It has been an exciting journey thus far!
Alright, I finally got a picture up of myself and my mentors. From the left is Troy and Matt is in the middle. This picture was taken during the youth retreat @ Lévis Alliance church.
Just when you think you know...
Well this morning was quite eventful, my bus decided to make right turn and NOT pick me up. Turns out that there is some nearby construction. I am going to be late for classes today. o well. yes I wrote this on my cell as I am walking to the school.
UPDATE: Alright, It turns out that a house was being demolished, and the road was blocked off temporarily for 2 days. I wish they gave people some prior indication that we weren't able to bus that way, but o well. (Usually, they would have a big orange white sign that says service is temporarily unavailable)
