Wilbert's onSite experience

Final updates and links to the new onSiter blogs

2008-05-18T17:50:00.002-06:00

Well, it has been about a month since I blogged. Convocation was on April 26th @ First Alliance.

This is where I got the parchment with my degree inside....

Where they put the hood over my head...

....Yeah I know it is a little crooked....

and of course I got a nice picture with my family...

...and the extended family who were able to come to Calgary...

....Of course a few people from my home church came as well...

All the pictures can be access through my facebook account.

Yesterday, I dreamt that I was ordering breakfast in a restaurant completely in French! I know that is is a bit surprising after 3 months away from Quebec, but it is cool to know that I still think in French sometimes.

My life kinda goes like this right now: I am working at Sportchek selling shoes and doing other various random tasks. Later this summer, I will also be teaching Sunday school to children in grades 4-6 and preaching in the English congregation of my home church. I am returning to Ambrose Seminary in the Fall for my Master of Divinity.

Now, enough about me. My onsite and my journey to completing my undergrad is finished.

This year, at my school we have 17 onSiters! If any of you are still reading this blog I hope that you will occasionally remember and pray for this new group of people who will be in various different parts of the world.

I have included a link to those who will be keeping a blog of their onSite journeys:

Lindsey Indonesia

Natasha China

Amanda Philippines

Becky & Charlie Spain

Eleah Sweden

Duc Cambodia

Hung Cambodia

Leah Quebec City

(Yes if you are reading this from Facebook you will to visit my actual site if you want to see the pictures.)

The Next Generation

2008-04-17T12:04:00.002-06:00

I know the title is from some sci fi tv show, but it is also relevant in my life because I am moving on. I have a week before graduating from Ambrose. I am coming back to the seminary for my Master of Divinity. Please Pray for funds and housing as I do not know exactly where I will be staying.

In addition, The Next Generation also refers to this new group of onSiters who are going to many different places all over the world. Please remember this new group of people as they go out to be God's Ambassadors wherever they are. I will update the links to include their blogs (if they have one).

Addendum.

2008-03-01T19:17:00.002-07:00

Hey everyone,
Apparently, some of you may have issues with the youtube player, so here are the links to youtube:
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okN5u1uOWTs&feature=user
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PtHUbcRVzg&feature=user
Youtube requires flash, so if you do not have that, then these videos are not going to work.
In such case, if you want to hear it, just send me an email.

Ready. Set. Hear my testimony.

2008-03-01T18:01:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone,

Well after a few days with Windows Media Maker, I finally finished all the translating of my testimony into English. If you are wondering about how I felt that night go here. In the testimony, I realized after hearing it again how bad my Anglophone accent is! Thus, I know that God enable these people to understand what I said that night.

Currently, I am still finishing up my degree @ Ambrose. I will graduate in April of this year and I am not exactly sure where I will go for seminary in September. Please continue to pray that I will have a clear direction as to which seminary I should go to. Once again, thank you for your continued support.

My Testimony Part 2

2008-03-01T17:23:00.003-07:00

Here is the testimony that I shared with Café Recontre on Jan 25 08. (Part 2)

My Testimony Part 1

2008-03-01T17:23:00.001-07:00

Here is the testimony that I shared with Café Recontre on Jan 25 08. (Part 1)

Mon témoignage est ici!

2008-02-27T20:49:00.002-07:00

Hey Everyone, I have received my testimony now! It will be up on this site very shortly!

UPDATE: There will be some minor editing because the clip is about 12 mins long and youtube has a max of 10mins per clip. Therefore, I will be cuting my testimony in 2 for youtube and I will also give it subtitles so all of you can understand what I said. (This might take a few days) Be sure to come back next week!

Last week of Feb

2008-02-25T12:15:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone,

Some of you may be wondering when I am going to post up my testimony on this blog. Let me tell you that I really do want to post up my testimony, but I still have not received the file yet. When I do, it will be on here ASAP.

Not much has been going on since I got back. Writing lots of papers, meeting tons of people and adjusting back to Calgary life. Last week, I was in a modular class at the school. As I walked out of the last class on Saturday, I realized that this is the last class I had for my undergrad degree. While I still have papers and I am doing a direct study, it was the last time I will be meeting with other students in a lecture setting.

In the Mirror

2008-02-09T15:07:00.001-07:00

It is a time of reflection in my life now after my onSite. This is where I get to look back and see what God has done in my life, what I have learnt and what is changed as a result of this cross-cultural experience. So what are some things that I have learnt? So here are 3 important changes that I have learned during my onSite.

Patience

Language learning is the hardest part of my onSite. When I came to Quebec City, I only knew 5 words in French (Bonjour, oui, non, merci and au revoir). At first I learned how to repeat random phrases like je ne sais pas ( I don't know) or Quelle heure est-il? (What time is it?) and even memorizing these words took more than a couple of weeks for me to remember how to say these phrases. After I was in Quebec for about 6 months, I was starting to be comfortable using my French in normal situations. But boy, did it take so long before my French was an integrated part of my life.

Taking initiative

It really does take courage to talk to others in French. First of all, I am not someone who really does up to random people in Calgary or Edmonton and say hi. And in Quebec, it is much harder because of the language barrier. It is a challenge for me to go up to random French people and say Bonjour, if that is the only thing I can say to them. Through the course of the 7 months that I have been there, I have gradually learned and forced myself to start a conversations in French.

Messy Ministry

It is always easier to say to tell other people to step out of your comfort zones to tell non-Believers about Christ. It is harder to go out there and actually be the person that goes and tells other people about Him. I was working in a soup kitchen (Café Recontre). It was totally uncomfortable to be working with homeless people because I have never really worked with homeless people before. I mean I volunteered at Salvation Army and at rez we have past out sandwichs, but never something more than once or twice. The people there were friendly and many of them could speak English. In fact, many of them came from Alberta! It was quite interesting to know some of these people and how they got there to Quebec City. It was messy in that I had to come out of my comfort zones to talk to them, serve them food and clean after they left.

All of what I have learned tied in with each other as well. I could not have conversations with the soup kitchen people unless I applied what I've learned in French and took the initiative to go to other people to say Bonjour or hi. This is not all that I have learned, but these are the top 3 that I have been learning and I know that this is a continuous process.

Who gives me this ability to learn these things? God. It really is all about Phil 4:13 "I can do everything through him who gives me strength."

Retrospect

2008-02-03T23:50:00.001-07:00

Many thanks

I just want to say a big thank you to all of you who have been reading this blog. I got a chance to talk to many of you today at church. Thank you for your support, it has been a really big blessing and encouragement to know that you were praying for me.

This week, I will be posting a series on what I have learned on onSite. This might be limited to 1 post per week, but please do check this blog every week.

So what am I doing right now?

I know that this is the question that many of you asked me. I am currently back at Ambrose finishing up my degree (Bachelor of Theology with intercultural studies concentration). When I graduate, I will be attending a seminary to get my Master of Divinity. I am still not exactly sure which seminary I am going to.

Random French Learning Fact

During my time at Quebec City, one of the ways that I learned the language was having conversations in French. Here was my conversational partner:

I was able to learn more French by just simply talking with someone else in French. There are words that I would have never learned just by going to class, so this was a huge blessing for me to have a conversational partner. It was even better because my conversation partner went to one of the churches here. It was great because we could pray for each other and I managed to share my fellow onSiters Jon and Kristen's visa situation to my partner in French and we prayed for them afterwards. This picture was actually the last time we met before I had to come back. Usually we would meet at this place:

If you can't read it, it is a Starbucks! Some of you who were with me in Quebec City might find this location very familiar. That is because this used to be a video rental place, but as you see coffee is much more important.

Anyhow that is all that I have for now, but come back a few days from now and hopefully there will be a new post. I am also still tracking down that recording of my testimony. When I get it, I'll post it here.

"Home" and home

2008-01-31T15:19:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone, I know I haven't blogged for a couple of days, so I just want to let you know that I have safely arrived to Calgary, my 2nd "home". I left Quebec City on the 29th @ 610AM and I arrived here in Calgary at around 1110AM. The flight was pretty uneventful, it was actually surprising a smooth ride from Quebec to Calgary. I got all my luggage and everything went alright. The only thing that was a little odd was that the Calgary airport had put my plane on a dual citizenship gate that lets in both Canada and the US, and usually it would not have been a big deal. However, somehow there was a lack of communication and we ended up being stuck in the bridge that was between the airplane and the actual airport. I took a taxi to the rez, and that is where I am currently staying.

Calgary has been great so far because I got a chance to meet with all of my friends and just to hang out and talk about what has happened in my life and theirs for the past 7ish months. I was reminded of what I had learnt at a intercultural class because I know that it would be a little different reintegrating back into Western Canadian culture. Well, so far I am getting used to speaking in English again. Another thing that I have noticed was the taste of the water. I have been living in Quebec City for 7 months, and I have realized that Calgary water does not taste very pleasant. Boiled or not, so I am adjusting back to that. I am getting used to the fact that I don't have to push a button at every intersection to be able to cross the streets because in Quebec, if we don't push the button on the intersection, we won't have the right of way to cross the intersection.

Finally, I am going back home tomorrow. I am excited to go home and to enjoying back in Edmonton. Yay!

This is not the end of my blog, because I will do a recap of some of the things that I have learned. I will start posting a retrospect series next week when I come back to Calgary.

Yesterday

2008-01-27T13:05:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I took these pictures:

I had no idea what was going on. I thought it was just something that is part of the winter carnival here. But I got my answer yesterday. It was called Crashed Ice.

This is an annual event where skaters from all over the world compete for the grand prize. It was a long race, and there were tons of people everywhere.

I don't know if you can see this, but on the top right of this picture, the skaters had to jump on steps. It was pretty crazy race.

I wanted to warm my hands yesterday during this race because it was cold, but I have realized that putting my glove onto one of those lights is not a good idea.

The picture actually makes it look worse, but only the rubber was deformed. When I looked back at the lamp where I put my hand, there was rubber stuck to the light frame.

So that was the event, and I got to spend it with some missionaries who are studying French at Laval. It was great to hang out with them one last time before I leave Quebec.

Today, I am just busy starting to pack and finish buying some gifts for home.

(Finally, to anyone who is reading this from Facebook, Windows Live Writer has an issue with the pictures, this is a known issue and they are fixing it. For the time being, if you want to see any of these pictures, please go directly to my blog)

Mon Témoignage (My testimony)

2008-01-25T21:26:00.001-07:00

Alright, let me tell you what happened tonight. Every month, one friday is devoted to an outreach event sponsored by the people who do the Café Recontre (soup kitchen). And this is what happened tonight: Praise & Worship (P&W), offering, speaker and some sort of an altar call with P&W. We sang a couple of Quebecois songs and a few that were translated. My testimony was especially tailored for tonight. You can't see this in the pictures, but when I was reading some Bible verses, they were also up on the screen so people could follow alone. I talked about how God gives me strength to deal with loneliness--more on that when I get my recording. Finally, for the altar call, there were people who came up asking us to pray for them. I learned a lot about just being in a situtation because I couldn't really do deep prayers like I can with English speakers, but to be there and listen to them...I found that was an important lesson. I was also quite encouraged when some people came up to me afterwards saying that they could understand most of what I said. I felt really encouraged tonight being able to convey what God has done in my life in French.

Vendredi (Friday)

2008-01-24T20:24:00.001-07:00

Alright, tomorrow is the big day. For those of you who are just starting to read this blog, I have spent almost a complete month preparing for my testimony in French. My mentors were totally right in that I would have to revise my testimony, practice it and just pray that other people would understand through the horrible English accent i have with French. It will be recorded and posted on this blog ASAP, I will post it twice, once completely unedited and translation free, and a second time with subtitles. So once again please pray that I will not be nervous and that God will give me the ability to articulate my testimony tomorrow. The service will commence at 730pm EST.

More brief updates

2008-01-21T19:14:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone,

Things are going well for me at the soup kitchen and my testimony for Café Recontre is this Friday. Please pray that I'll pronounce the words correctly and people would understand what I am trying to say.

On Friday, I said my goodbyes to the French Youth Group (Brillez). Goodbyes are always the hardest and I feel kind of sad leaving that group. (The reason why I won't be attending the last youth event is because I am giving my testimony to the soup kitchen outreach event this Friday night). It was fun spending time with them and practicing my french with them.

Finally, I am officially leaving on Jan 29th @ 610AM to...Calgary. Please pray that I will return safely.

A Quick update

2008-01-11T11:01:00.001-07:00

Alright, there is a bit of a mini snow storm going on right now. This is coming after a few days above zero. It rained a couple of days here too! Anyhow, because of the weather, my youth group tonight is cancelled tonight. This unexpectedly gives me more time work on my testimony. As I was practicing yesterday with my conversation partner I decided to have 2 separate versions of my testimony. One will be specifically tailored for Brillez (my youth group) and one for Café Recontre (the soup kitchen that I work in).

Scared about nothing

2008-01-08T19:33:00.001-07:00

Alright, a couple of days ago I received a letter from Laval. It was about my transcript, but couldn't understand the second sentence. The first part of the second sentence said "We accuse likewise reception..." I got a little worried, because why would they accuse me of something? Well, it turns out that the reason why they had those words in the sentence is because it is the formal way of the school saying they got everything they need to send out my transcript. I was worried but now I am glad that everything is alright.

Reversed.

2008-01-08T08:49:00.001-07:00

I have always knew that French reverse their grammar syntax, but their numbers too?!

Actually I think the real reason is because when trucks backup , they can understand the height measurement just by look at the rear view mirror.

News, People and Events

2008-01-07T16:42:00.001-07:00

Alright, I am done translating my testimony. The important issue is that I will practice the pronunciation so that when I speak, people will hopefully understand me. My mentor wants about a 10 minute range, so with more practice, I will see roughly how much time I take. In addition, I have been asked by Simon (see the previous entry if you don't know who he is) to share my testimony. Friday night on the 25th is the date for my sharing with Café Recontre, I don't know when I'll be sharing my testimony with my youth group (Brillez), but I do know it will be sometime before the 25. Please pray that people will understand what I say and that God will use this message to move their hearts.

Last week as I was working at Café Recontre, a missions team from Oklahoma came to help at Café Recontre. I was very excited to see some other people my age do a missions trip here. This group of people were involved with many of the things that we do at Café Recontre including, but not limited to: preparing the food, handing out food, making conversations and cleaning up. At the end of their 1 week stay, I managed to get a picture of them:

Café Recontre is located on the first floor of this building. On second floor is where we took this picture, it is also the sanctuary for Mosaïque Church.

Since this is Quebec City's 400th year of existence, there has been and will be numerous celebrations throughout the year. One such event took place last Saturday and Sunday. I went yesterday and this was an event that attracted a huge crowd.

From where this picture was taken, it was a 3 and half hour wait to go inside Old Quebec. To the right of this picture is the parliament building.

Don't know if you can make it out, but this is the entrance, or at least so I thought, it took another 15mins before I got into Old Quebec.

Inside, there were various dance parties and light shows.

And various reenactments of what it must have been like to live during that time. (Above, a fire to keep people warm, when there were no heaters) (Below, I don't think you can see it, but this was a enactment of WW1 trenches.)

This picture just has some people jugging fire things, but I liked how this picture turned out.

There were tons of other things at the festival, but unfortunately most of the pictures were very blurry. Nevertheless, this just to say that there so many celebrations going on here right now, I think there is something next week.

Finally, the weather has been a bit warmer. IT RAINED TODAY! that is how warm it is right now! Apparently this trend of warm weather is going to keep going on for this week, and for the next 14 days, the low is -8c!

Reminds me of Calgary right now...

News and more pictures!!!!

2008-01-03T20:16:00.001-07:00

I went out to volunteer at Café Recontre (A Soup kitchen here), then I had a chat with Simon, one of my "bosses" at the kitchen. After that, I met up with Pierre, my conversation partner to correct my testimony again. Sufficient to say I had a pretty busy day. When I was talking with Simon, he said that I should share my testimony at the outreach event that the kitchen does every Friday night. So I will talk with Troy and see where we can fit it in.

Alright, here are some more pictures of my time here in Quebec City.

While I might not be able to get some pictures of the actual soup kitchen work, here are my "bosses". This picture was taken during the huge Christmas dinner that Café Recontre had for the homeless people.

(On the left is Simon and Michael is on the right)

Alright, for youth group there is always some game involved before discussion of a topic. So, here we are playing a game similar to swoosh.

We had a big group, but the group shrunk...

Alright, there is this other game that we have played. I don't know remember what it was called, but essentially the objective of the game is to get the prize that is wrapped inside lots of layers of newspaper and various boxes. You can only open the box while you wear this costume (scarf, hat and oven mittens). There is a dice and whoever rolls a 6 can go into the middle and try to get the prize. This is a very fast pace game and there are no teams which means that everyone is against each other.

After some of the layers of the box has been ripped off.

Competition!

Don't know if you can see the prize, but this girl is holding a box of chocolates.

I should note that after some time had past, the leaders of the game decided to ditch the costume (with the exception of the oven mittens) to speed up the game. That is why you don't see the scarf and the hat on the last 2 pictures.

First post of the New year

2008-01-01T10:27:00.001-07:00

hey everyone,

I just want to say Happy New year! or in French it is Bonne Année! Alright, last week, I was hanging out with my mentors. From the 23rd to Christmas Morning, I hung out with Matt and his family, then on the 25 evening I shared a meal with Troy and his family. It was pretty cool to out with my mentors and not be alone for Christmas.

Right now, I finished some corrections to my testimony, but I still to practice much more making sure that I pronounce the words correctly. I am also still working at the soup kitchen as well. (Don't expect any pictures from me at the soup kitchen, people there don't take kindly to pictures.) Finally, this week youth group is starting up again. I am excited because I get to see the youth again and try to speak French to them.

Hey everyone

2007-12-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

I just want to say Merry Christmas to all of you. In French it is joyeux Noël a tous le monde!
Right now I am at my mentor Matt's place, and I am writing this on their Wii!

I will give a fuller report when I am back on my own computer. Tomorrow, I will be spending some time with my other mentor Troy and his family for a couple of days. Hopefully, I'll post before the end of this week.

2007-12-19T14:28:00.001-07:00

Alright, I discovered the final version of Live Writer can import pictures correctly! yay! To show you more about my life right now and to fully test out this feature, I am putting some pictures of my place right now. Here is what it looked like during the summer time:

Now, it is all covered in snow:

Crazy eh? Even though there is so much snow, it is not that cold outside, right now it is about -15ish. So....does anyone wanna visit me?

SNOW!!

2007-12-17T19:19:00.001-07:00

A quick note here:

I have started working at a local soup kitchen in downtown Quebec, it is pretty neat people come to the place for lunch. There is a lot of preparation work that needs to be done everyday, most people come around 9ish and prep the food. The ministry here is cool, it is mostly building bridges with the homeless people.

Quebec has TONS of snow! I am not exaggerating either! There is a crazy amount of snow here right now. The house that I am staying with has about 40cm of snow in the yard, it is crazy!! At least the snow removal here is SO much better than Edmonton or Calgary. There are tons of trucks and various snow removal vehicles that roam the city whenever snow hits.

"Hey! I am still alive!!!" (A long delayed post)

2007-12-15T16:14:00.001-07:00

Alright, so for the past couple of weeks, I wanted to blog, but I either got too busy with something or the Internet didn't work. O well, let me sum up my first 15 days in December:

So, French is getting better everyday. The past 2 weeks, I have learned a couple new tenses and usage of different pronouns. It was great learning much more French than the 5 weeks that I had, but I am glad I am done now. The coolest thing about attending the class was that I got a chance to meet a bunch of missionaries who are going to different parts of Africa. Last Saturday, we had a dinner together. It was pretty cool to spend time with people who are going to Africa. As soon as I get the group picture, I'll post it here. Brillez has been much fun. Last week, we had another discussion and yesterday we had a Christmas party as it was the last youth event for this year.

I am in the process of translating my testimony and sometime at the end of January, I will be giving my testimony to the youth. Also, for the duration of December, I might be working at a local soup kitchen and doing something ministry related there. Please continue to pray for my testimony and for my upcoming ministries.

hello!

2007-12-10T17:56:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am still alive. However, my internet was down since Sunday, hopefully I will post my update tommorrow. Currently, I am using a computer at school to post, but my pictures and parts of my blog are saved on my computer.

"Quoiever"

2007-11-29T18:38:00.001-07:00

No, the title is not a French word. For that matter, it isn't an English word either. Essentially, it means the same thing as the English word "whatever", but for some strange reason, I got into a bad habit by saying this word. Most young people will understand what I mean, but it is still not a official word in either languages. This is just one of many words or phrases that I have combined the French and English together to make some weird and wonderful new word. I call this Frenglish because it is a mixture of both languages and if you are familiar with these languages than you know what I am saying. The things you say when trying to learn a new language.

No big news yet, tomorrow I am going to a new church for a youth group. Every month, we have a worship service and a speaker will come and share about a topic that is important to the youth. This youth event, called CONTRE COURANT in French, is at a different location each month. It is a great event though, lots of people attend.

Finally, please continue to pray for my French skills, developing relationships with other people, --it is kind of hard developing relationships with people who I don't really know and please pray for my testimony that I will be able to finish corrections and present it well.

2007-11-25T16:52:00.001-07:00

Alright, Friday was youth group again. The game that we played was pretty cool, it was a eating contest between two groups. The food ranged from vegetables like carrot and peas to odd things like cheesewhiz, etc. After that we had a discussion on family, friends and God. The questions that were discussed were how do you view God, how does your non-Christian friends view God, etc. Yesterday, I also got a chance to attend the young adults group (18-35). In Quebec City at least, people emphasize on recycling and reusing materials, people make a big deal of saving the environment. And The questions are basically asking what more can we do, because God has given us such a blessing? Alright, afterwards I talking to people who I met early. Conversation skills are getting better, I mean, compared with even a month ago I know I am speaking better. I have finished a rough translation of my testimony in French, getting it corrected and pronouncing the words are my next step. Anyhow here is a couple of pictures, the first one is from Brillez, the youth group, and the second one is from Verticalité, the young adults group:

After a discussion with the youth group, we usually hang out.

These are my friends in the young adults group. We had a good conversation after the discussion.

2007-11-18T13:34:00.001-07:00

Alright, so on Friday, we had a scavenger hunt at a mall. It was pretty cool, the kids had lots of fun. I was passing out food for the groups to eat as a challenge. The food that the youth had to eat were canned mushrooms. Only 3 groups out of 6 came to our station. Some people like the idea of eating an entire can of mushrooms (and drink the juice) so the groups who had people who liked these mushrooms went faster than the group that didn't. After the scavenger hunt, we went to Krispy Kreme. So at Krispy Kreme, I was able to converse with some people in part French, part English. There were some words that we had to get one of the missionary kids to help us translate those words. It was kind of funny though because at one point we had a discussion of whether Wii was a masculine or feminine word. (In the French language, the gender of the word is reflected in the article so for all the nouns that I use, there is a gender form that I need to say. It is kind of like Greek in that sense). It was a good conversation because I got a chance to know more about some of the youth.

Post modernism = Post Religion?

2007-11-16T07:47:00.000-07:00

That was the title of a seminar that I went to yesterday at Laval. It was all in French, so what I could make out was pretty limited. The speaker summed up a brief history of various philosophers and important people who made an impact on our society. He basically said that in a post-modern world, individualism is the key. What that means is that morality and judgement is rejected by the person, and it is all about cultivating freedom of expression and desire. It was helpful that the speaker had a PowerPoint presentation. This seminar was sponsored by Campus for Christ.

Multiculturalism

2007-11-13T15:04:00.001-07:00

In Quebec City, it is a very diverse culture. I know that it is true of anywhere especially in Canada, but a couple of days ago I was reminded once again of how there are so many cultures here. On Sunday, I had lunch at the church. It was a farewell for an old man who is going back to Haiti and also a fundraiser for the new church building. Normally, he visits his home country and then he comes back, but because he is 98 years old, he decided that he will stay in his home country telling people about the Gospel. He donated the meal that we had yesterday and asked people to give to the new church building (They are currently renting a community hall, they bought land, but they need money for the actual building.) The meal itself was different and it was very good. We had an Haitian style food, there is some foods that I tried for the first time, and I like it! There was also a praise & worship time. It was pretty cool to sing new songs, and many of these songs were in an African language. I think it was Swahili, but I am not sure. As we were singing, the song leaders urged us to stand up and dance! It was cool to see people in the congregation dance and sing new songs, and it was particularly neat to see the old man stand up and dance for a bit. At the end of the fundraiser, people donnated around 2080 for the new church building! It an incredible experience to see how God works in the hearts of people.

I also see a lot of multiculturalism at the school as well. We have a bunch of Spanish speakers in my class. I noticed when they are late for class, they would asked if they could join the class. If they are very late for class, they won't come in at all, and they will just wait outside until the next class starts. They have huge respect for the teacher. As a side note, Spanish is the second most used language after French in Quebec. We also have a student from Finland. He said that people in his culture like to be silent. He does no go up to random strangers and say hello, because the act of greeting a stranger would be considered rude, perhaps offensive. One of our missionary friends who were also in the conversation asked him how people make friends, if they do not talk to strangers. He said that as an adult, in order to make new friends is to get drunk at the local bar. Then all the social norms of being very individualistic would be ignored. We all came to the conclusion that our Finland classmate does not have many friends, but the friends that he does have are willing to die for him. I am learning something new everyday with our multiple different cultures within our class and reminding myself that we are in a Global Village.

Finally, Today I made some minor cosmetic changes to the blog. (Links are in a different color now, I got rid of the pink and purple.)

Long time no post....

2007-11-10T21:03:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone,

Things are going well for me. French is getting better, and I am making some friends at the university as well as at the youth group. We are Christ's Ambassadors wherever we go, and it is most important when I am interacting with classmates at Laval. They already know that I am a Christian and I am studying to be a pastor. I did get a chance this week to talk with some of the students, they know what I am doing, but they do not fully understand why I would do what I am doing. Hopefully, in the coming weeks, I will be able to tell them more about my story.

Youth group was pretty cool as well. A couple of weeks ago, we had a guys' only hang out time. We played Wii and watched Les Transformer. It was pretty cool. Last Friday, we had a discussion group like always and this time we talked about the music that we let our ears listen to. It was pretty cool, and of course it was all in French, so I could sort of understand some parts here and there. I do know that the it was a big discussion and that the youth are very vocal.

Finally, Due to some of the limitations that various different online photo albums have, I am now moving my entire youth group pictures to webshots. For all you onSiters, webshots is pretty neat in that it allows you upload 1000 pictures + 100 every month after. Not too sure of all the details, but it is pretty cool. You can check out my pictures here. (Link opens in a new window.) My Flickr site will be updated on the last day of every month so I can load as many pictures as I can with the limitations. I will use flickr to upload some of the best shots and most defining pictures of my onSite. For my facebook albums I will upload everything else like my university pictures, scenic photos and random shots. Finally, any really important pictures will of course be posted here on blogger as usually.

(Nov 11) UPDATE: I have updated the slidebar to reflect the changes that I have said in the post.

Well...that was random..

2007-11-02T16:00:00.001-06:00

Alright, so I am walking down Old Quebec cuz i have youth group tonight and a bunch of young people (who spoke french) said hola! to me! I never thought that i looked Spanish but apparently to these guys I did. More to come when I come back from church.

Youth Group stuff...

2007-10-26T13:47:00.000-06:00

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...

2007-10-16T18:53:00.001-06:00

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.

2007-10-13T18:20:00.001-06:00

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.

2007-10-07T17:11:00.001-06:00

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...

2007-10-02T06:35:00.001-06:00

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)

Well.....it is about time for an update...

2007-09-29T14:34:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone, it has been a while since I have sent an update here. Lots of things has been going on:
1. Church stuff
I am regularly attending the youth group here. If you have facebook, you probably would have noticed the pictures that are starting to pop up in the group named Brillez. A group in facebook helps keep the youth in touch with what is going on, share updates, etc. With all that in mind, please pray for me I feel a bit uneasiness at times because of age difference that I have with the youth and not to mention language barriers. It is very uncomfortable. But I know I need to step out of my comfort zones. I know there is not just me who is uncomfortable at times, I think the feeling is reciprocated with the youth are too. I remember I said "hi, what is your name?" in French to one of the youth, he panicked saying "Sorry, I don't speak in English" in French. Please pray that God will give me strenth to step out of my comfort zones daily and that I will be able to fit in better with the youth group.
Speaking of youth stuff, yesterday I was attending the youth group, and there was a big ad for one of the Quebec Bible schools. The funny thing was that one of their pictures is actually from my school! I pointed it out to a student amassador, and she said "o.....we must have googled that picture". I thought that was funny.

2. I thought I said....
Alright a week ago I was at Boston Pizza and I was able to order in French! yay! I had asked for Green tea, but somehow the waitress gave me Earl Grey instead. According to the people who I was with, I said it correctly, but somehow it was mixed up. O well, I didn't mind because I liked Earl Grey as well.

3. Dreams.....
I had a dream last week, and it was in French! yay! The situation was that I was in the Rez at my school and I was writing a letter in French to the Residence Director. Then I ran up to random people in rez saying désolé (formal way of apologizing). It was a very strange dream.

Today's updates

2007-09-20T19:24:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone,

Last night, I got a chance to attend a youth leaders' meeting. It was across the river, and in another town called Levis. The meeting was pretty cool, I could pick out a few phrases that people were using, and from the context, it seems just like any regular board meeting that I have attended at my home church.

To get across the river, I took a ferry. Unfortunately, the scenic pictures were all burry, but I did manage to get this picture:

Today after class, I attended an activity with Laval. Basically, we swapped contact info with Francophone who want to help us with our French, and in return we will help them with their English. It was pretty neat, got to meet lots of people.

...One More Thing.

2007-09-17T16:51:00.000-06:00

After getting some people to read it, I have decided to post it as it is, and let you decide whether it is controversial or not. Here is the post:

Hey everyone,
My past week was pretty cool. At Laval, I learned a lot of French. And I got to spend some time with the missionary friends that are in my class. I am starting to build relationships with some people at Laval again. Yay!

This past Friday and Saturday I attended a conference on how the Church must respond to homosexuality. The presentation was mostly done by Exodus Global Alliance, you can check out their website here. Anyhow there were a few overall themes in this conference. 1. These people need Jesus. 2. We need to learn how to build bridges and connect with them on their level 3. The Church must understand steps 1 & 2. In addition, the speakers point out that there is an alarming statistic about how people in the church are apathetic on this issue. Sometimes I would wonder about just how much we would just like to push uncomfortable topics under the rug and not realize how much we will regret not doing anything, when the issue comes back again. It is unfortunately because we just don't talk about such issues or go into depth with the topics like homosexuality, or frankly anything that has to do with sex. It just boggles my mind that we don't talk about God's gift to married couples--one male and one female. We have no problems addressing the boundaries of this issue and drill the word "no" into peoples' heads. But we feel embarrassed and frankly uncomfortable when people start asking questions or talking about such issues outside the service. You may even feel a little uncomfortable reading this in my blog. However, if the Church doesn't really address or confront these issues, then where are all the people going to go for answers? I was reading Barbara Nicolosi's blog and this is the quote on the main page, it is from a 1930s theater critic: "Theatres are the new Church of the Masses--where people sit huddled in the dark listening to people in the light tell them what it is to be human." It is quite applicable in today's society when you replace the word "theatre" with the word "media". I know I am ranting now, but it is unfortunately very true. If we don’t answer the question to these issues, then people are going elsewhere to find answers. One of the speakers' closing remarks in conference were "we need to learn how to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations." As an onSiter, I find those words quite hard because it is difficult to react positively to change and I am currently experiencing what it is like to be uncomfortable. It is not always a pleasant experience, but I know that God is teaching me more about Him and more about His people while being completely uneasy living in a very different culture with different value systems than what I am accustomed to. I am not saying that I am a perfect embodiment of being comfortable in uncomfortable situations –far from it. But, in order for positive changes to happen our lives and have a positive influence on the people around us, we must face the uncomfortable situations.

One little update for today, Come back tomorrow.

2007-09-16T20:43:00.001-06:00

Hi everyone,
Today, I had an interesting experience with trying to speak in French, I was telling a friend that I gave a birthday card to my sister. But apparently, I stressed a vowel or 2 because she miss interpreted and thought that I was giving a birthday card to my girlfriend. (BTW I currently do not have girlfriend and will NOT for the remainder of my onSite). My everyday trial and error in French. O well, at least I tried telling her that I gave a card to my sister in French.

I was going to post a longer post tonight, but due to the fact that I thought it was a little controversial (yeah I know that is kind of weird on a onSiter blog), I will post it up tomorrow after some people read over it. You'll see what I mean.

The Past Week.

2007-09-11T18:17:00.000-06:00

A couple of things here:
1. The amount of French that I can speak and that I can understand grows everyday. Praise God!
2. I met with Matt and he said that maybe in the last month or so, I will relocate to another place as far as Montreal to get a get a feel for the diversity of the ministries that are in Quebec. However, it is all still up in the air, so please pray that I will know what I am doing after I finish Laval.

Sunday was pretty eventful because I got a chance to share a meal with the church that I am with. (For those who are curious, I attend Église Évangélique du Berger; it is one of the three Alliance churches in Quebec City.) It was a "Barbeque". By barbeque, I mean that we had chips and corn on the cob. It was a good experience for me because I got to connect with some of the church people here and for the most part like anywhere else, I tried speaking in French. It was different for me because I am usually accustomed to attending Barbeque with some kind of meat involved. Nevertheless, I thought it was cool and the corn here seems to taste better than in Alberta.

As part of my ministry opportunities here, I have to interview some pastors about their ministry, what God is teaching, advice for an intern, etc. I got a chance to sit down with one of the pastors at du Berger today. After we talked for about 2 hrs, I came home and wrote down everything that I could remember. One of the questions that I had for him was: "how do you adapt to a different culture?" He quoted Arnold Cook (Former CMA President) "Wherever you are...be all there". Which meant that in order to adapt a different culture the quickest, attitude and actions must conform to the new culture. So what the pastor did was that he would speak English only at home, and whenever he encounters a Francophone, he would speak French to them. It was a good reminder to me and anyone else who is doing cross-cultural work.

Random things
The picture that you see belowis a ring-ish kind of shape. It is also broken, because it is supposed to be in my mouth. This bracket in my braces broke a couple of weeks ago. Today, I got it out because it felt uncomfortable. I hope that this doesn't really affect my teeth.

Past couple of days...

2007-09-05T14:56:00.001-06:00

Alright, Yesterday was my first day back at Laval. When I was in class, I noticed something different. I could understand around 60% of what the teacher was saying! This was a hugh improvement compared to the first time back in July where I couldn't really understand anything the teacher said the first few weeks. I found my pronunciation was improving, but I still needed to practice a lot with the words. I also had a conversation that was sort of French mixed with English with Kristi (CTS student) and some other people that I met randomly. Apparently, one of the phrases that I use a lot is pronounced differently in Quebec French. The phrase is je ne comprends pas. (I don't understand). I was taught to pronounce the "ne" but apparently, my new teacher says that we don't actually pronounce it here in Quebec French. Now I have to make a habit of not saying "ne" when I am using that sentence.

Today, I had a chance to meet some missionary couples who were in the class with me this semester. It is pretty neat, we have a lot of baptist missionaries who are going to Africa sometime in the future. Laval had some kind of Free lunch thingy today. It consisted of hot dogs and juice. I am not exactly sure if it is a culture thing when compared to having hot dogs and corn on the cob. In the culture here, sharing a meal with other people eating hot dogs and corn is very important way of connecting with each other and building relationships. It was neat talking with the missionary people, we encouraged each other and now I know more people going to Africa.

Anyhow, I will meet with Matt (one of my mentors) sometime this week. I will also hopefully set up a time to meet with one of the local pastors here so that we can sit down and talk. I am preparing a list of ministry questions to ask him. I have also finished a book that I had to read for my history class that I am taking for onSite.

Another Test via email

2007-09-01T16:33:00.001-06:00

Hi everyone,
OK this is another test with emailing to my blog post.

I attached a picture... let's see if it works.
The picture is from my connecting flight from Montreal to Quebec City.

OK I used another method of email, because this one supports picture attachments. However, I cannot use this way from my phone. It is cool though.

Re: 3rd test

2007-09-01T15:49:00.003-06:00

OK.
I tried another test with the cell. Pictures don't work, but hey at least I can send Text over via my cell and correct it later. In addition, no Telus images either.

One thing is that all my posts now seemed to be centered.

UPDATE: Fixed that. Still no picture though. Apparently, pictures aren't supported in the method that i have used.

3rd test

2007-09-01T15:47:00.001-06:00

Hi i am blogging from my cell

Ok...

2007-09-01T07:44:00.000-06:00

Well, If you came to my journal a couple of minutes ago, you would have seen Telus labeled everywhere. That was because I tried blogging from my phone. Text msgs worked...sortof...labeled TELUS everywhere... pictures don't. That is what I found out.

THis week's updates...

2007-09-01T07:30:00.001-06:00

hello everyone,
I know i haven't been blogging for a bit. So here are some updates:

1. I got a chance to sit down with Matt on Wednesday to discuss in more detail about my ministry opportunities and we also talked about how I will achieve my professional and personal goals for this internship. He is going to setup a meeting with the people who do a street ministry in Old Quebec. What they do is pass out sandwiches to the homeless and destitute. I have also started to write down my testimony in French to present to the youth group before I leave. Now this is not a 6 min presentation, it is 20mins! In French! So please pray that I will present well. On Fridays now, I will be regularly attending the youth group and trying to develop closer relationships with the people there. In addition, I have been exploring Old Quebec to understand the culture better and to also use what I know in a project that Matt wanted me to do. It is like a scavenger hunt in Old Quebec.

2. I will be heading back to Laval on Monday! How exciting more French!

3. I made some more minor changes to the site. The dates are now in French if you have not noticed. Finally, I am blogging from my Hotmail account and I just wanted to test if this email blogging tool works.

Get news, entertainment and everything you care about at Live.com. Check it out!

Friends from far away....

2007-08-28T12:00:00.000-06:00

Alright, today I got a chance to meet up with Nathan and Kara. As some of you may know, they are also going on onSite in October to Mexico. So this morning, we toured around Old Quebec and stopped to eat at a Crepe Restaurant. We talked about onSite stuff and I point a few points of interests. We had a good time telling each other what God has done in our lives. It was cool seeing each other again.

We are standing on top of one of walled sections, to the right is Old Quebec.

Sunday Updates

2007-08-26T20:21:00.000-06:00

Today was pretty eventful. At church today, a missions team from First Alliance in Calgary came today. The service was still in French, but what was different was that the prayers, and announcements we had were translated into English. The sermon was not translated, but one of the pastors gave us a summary of the sermon in English. I found it a little different because he announced it to everyone in the pulpit and then the speaker preached the sermon. After the service, I had lunch with the missions team at the Life Bible college AKA IBVIE (Institut Biblique VIE(vérité, intergration, expérience)). The last three words are truth, intergration and experience. This Bible college was pretty small. They have one classroom for everything. By everything i mean the lunchroom, library and classroom was just one room. This Bible college trains many lay pastors. As far as i know there isn't a fulltime pastor. The pastor would have a secondary job either working as parttime staff for IBVIE or doing something else. This is part of their culture because they understand that lay leaders work best in the Quebec context. Unfortunately, this luncheon was very brief because the missions team had to go on and visit old Quebec and @ 5pm they would go on a cruise.

The other event was that the local churches here had a surprise birthday party for Troy (one of my mentors). So we meet @ a park around 3 to wish him a happy birthday. I was able to mingle around and practice my french on some of the people. I also got a chance to talk to some other missionaries who were studying French. I manage to get a picture of my two mentors and myself. I will post the picture up as soon as I get the picture.

Everything is starting to come together...

2007-08-24T08:29:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I got a chance to meet up with my mentors. It turns out that I will be having 2 mentors for the remainder of my onSite. So Troy, Matt and I talked about different ministry opportunities for me to do. This includes things like (but not limited to) passing out sandwiches to the needy in Old Quebec (Downtown), working in a soup kitchen, creating a Amazing Race-ish kind of event for the incoming missions trip teams and sharing my testimony in French. More details to come on all that as they arise.

Last night I also went to the youth group at Lévis Alliance church. This is the largest Christian & Missionary Alliance French church in Quebec. It is also the only one that has its own building. Because the Alliance churches in Quebec City are small, they combine their youth program together. I was surprised to hear that many of the youth who come have to travel a great distance. Troy told me that that some of the youth have to travel 45mins to get here. It was amazing to see the young people want to come and spend time doing a Bible study and also hang out. It was also different because in the summer, French ministry shuts down. So I think my mentors were pleasantly surprised when a dozen youth showed last night. Yesterday's Bible Passage was on Ecclesiastes 1. That's all i got from the short talk, but i do know that it was a bit of a discussion because the youth were very interested and they were discussing the passage with my mentors.

Other updates
In September, I will be going back to Laval to learn more French.

I made some minor cosmetic changes to the site. In addition, I now have a link to all my fellow onSite friends.

2007-08-23T14:49:00.000-06:00

Test of a world clock. I know i am only 2 hours ahead. But i wanted to test out this nifty html coding that is on a website.

To any fellow onSiter who reads this blog, let people know what time it is in your zone by going on to this website: http://www.timeanddate.com/clocks/free.html?n=165

2007-08-20T18:35:00.000-06:00

Today, I did a little bit on my paper, went out to get some food for the week and pray/read the Bible. My host is still gone, so i am still all alone.

If you want to call, email or msg me on facebook, please feel free to do so.

2007-08-19T14:24:00.000-06:00

Hi everyone,

I know i haven't posted in a while, that is because my life hasn't been too interesting. I have been working on some papers for onSite and trying to practice my French. That is all i have been doing last week. My mentor should be back from vacation soon, so hopefully we get to talk this week.

Random Fact:

The strangest culture experience that i had was finding milk in a plastic bag. In Quebec City (at least where i am at) The 2 liter milk containers are the same but there are no 4 liter jugs. We just get a few bags, and we put them in a pitcher like the picture that you see below.

moving in....

2007-08-14T17:53:00.000-06:00

Alright, some brief updates:

My mentor is away on vacation for the week. Thus, right now all I am doing is watching French TV, writing some stuff and trying to speak French to my host.

I moved to a different place in the house. I like this place better because even though it is smaller, i have access to the bigger kitchen and the living room.

This is a picture of my keys...I took it because i haven't seen such a old design in a long time. And i never used one before either.

Hopefully in the coming week, i will be able to tell you more of what i will be doing in Sept. My mentor think it is a good idea to go back to Laval and I agree with him. I am currently waiting for further instructions from Admin. Please pray that God will show me what to do with the Laval stuff.

New beginnings.....

2007-08-11T19:16:00.000-06:00

Well, all my friends that i made here have left and returned back to their homes. Now i am all alone. boy it feels like i am starting over again, except i am still living in the same place, and i can speak a little french now (yay!)

so much is up in the air right now in terms of what i will be doing. I have no idea what i will be doing this coming week. One of my mentors' are going on vacation, and i haven't met my other one. THe important thing that i need to do everyday is practice my French.

The Big Recap

2007-08-10T13:31:00.000-06:00

Well, today was my last day in the FLE program. I finished my last exam today and I hope that everything will be alright.

For those of you who are just starting to read this blog, I will recap what has been going on the past 1 month and 10 days:

To fulfill the onSite requirements of the language component, I signed up for an intensive French immersion program at Laval University.

"School of Languages" This is the building where my classes were at.

My class looks like this. it is specifically designed like a u-shape so that we can all see each other and work on French together.

This program was designed to help people develop better communication skills in French. They have levels from being completely beginner to bilingual. To tell what level a person is in, we had to wear a bracelet. The bracelets look like this:

Blue is beginner, red is intermediate and yellow are advance/superior levels.

We had to wear it at all times, so that other people can identify how good our French is. The French program was very intensive, yet at the same time very enjoyable. I had to take two classes. One was French grammar (worth 5 university credits) and the other is French pronunciation (worth 1 university credit). Each day, I would wake up around 630AM, do devos/ eat breakfast and I would take the 746AM bus to the University. Classes will start around 830 and end at 1230. I have made a group of friends and we would hang out in one of the cafeterias to eat lunch. Now at the campus, we are strongly encouraged to speak French all the time. If a professor sees us speaking French, we would get a card like this:

We take these cards and put them in an envelope. Each week, the animateurs (AKA student leaders) would count how many cards a class has, and the class that has the most for that week gets a “coffee break”. In addition, a couple of days ago, the animateurs counted who had the most orange cards. I came out third in my class, so I got a little prize.

Now there is also punishment for speaking in English (or any other language), and that consists of a white card:

Basically, you get send to an office and you have to tell a counselor why you didn’t speak French.

On campus, we are also encouraged to take part in many activities.

The animateurs had a list of activities that we could sign up for. I went to almost all the movies and a few excursions.

In the coming days, I will start posting up the pictures from my excursions on facebook and flickr. I wish I had more time to do more of the activities, but I was busy working on French homework.
If you scroll down the page, you would see the pictures of my host’s home. But I know that most of you haven’t seen who I lived with so here is a picture.

My host is the older woman that you see in this picture. Her name is Lise and for the next while I will be staying at her house. All the males that you see in this picture are my housemates, I have 4 housemates who lived in different areas of the house.

Breakfast and dinner are provided in the off campus living plan that I signed up for. So our host would cook dinners for us everyday. Mealtimes are a great experience for me, because we get to really practice our French speaking and listening. Our host will also take us to tourist sites and different cultural places. The people who I lived with here are very warm and friendly.

The funny thing that I realized was that apparently our government has a program where if you are a Canadian citizen, and a fulltime student at a university, they cover all the costs of attending a spring or summer FLE program. It is called the explorer program. You take a look at it here: http://www.jexplore.ca/english/index.html. The only catch is that winning this bursary is by random draw, and you might not get to go where you want to because there are many universities that accept explorer students. Just to give you an example of how cool this program is, two of my housemates are explorer students and they get $245 to spend on meals or whatever they want. It is a neat program; check it out if you are interested in learning French.

Short updates

2007-08-09T13:43:00.000-06:00

I will be posting up a big recap of my time here at Laval and I have a couple of oral exams tommorrow .

Please pray that I will finish well.

Pictures on Blogger,,,,experimental

2007-08-07T14:32:00.000-06:00

Alright, I am going to experiment with this blogger picture tool. And show you the place where I call home right now and possibly for the remainder of my onSite experience.

There are 10 rooms, 9 of them are bedrooms. My host has a tv for every bedroom. There are also 4 refridgrators, 3 washrooms and 2 kitchens in this house.

This first picture is the exterior the house.

The top floor has four bedrooms, shower room, washroom, and a kitchen.
Here is a couple pictures of my room

I live on the top floor, it is surprisingly very cool during this hot season.

GroundLevel: This is the kitchen, there is a bedroom to the left of the picture.

GroundLevel: This is the living room.

This is the basement, there are three bedrooms, bathroom and my host lives in another room here as well.

BackYard

As you see, my host is making us dinner.

Thats all I got for now, Feel free to leave comments.

2007-08-07T14:19:00.001-06:00

Hi everyone,
Today is August 7th, which means that I have been in Quebec City for 1 month!
A couple of updates: First of all, I have my final exams (2 oral, 1 written) on Thursday and Friday. Please pray for me, that I will remember everything that I studied, and that I will use it outside the classroom.

I will not be moving out on Saturday as originally planned, I will stay here in my host's home until further notice. Some of you are wondering what my host's home looks like, I am going to put some up on Flickr for you to see this big house.

Update: I decided to just put them on blogger as a test.

2007-08-02T18:02:00.000-06:00

Well, today was my first day where i could carry a very basic conversation in French. It was very exciting to say a few sentences to other people. I have realized that my read/writing is definitely better than my ability to speak. But i am excited that i can understand about 5-15% when other people are conversing in French. My host is very nice, because she talks really slow for me to understand.

I remember that when I try to practice my French outside the university, most people will tend to switch to English or find someone that does. I was at Subway a few days ago, and my friend who was finishing up a French major said 'Bonjour' and the guy behind the counter got someone else who knew English to help him and I. Events like this happen all the time, which is good because I am able to communicate with them, but it is also very detrimental to my French.

Well,, next week I will be finished this program! I got finals next week, please remember me in your prayers. I am also not exaclty sure where I will be living or what I will be doing after the program because my mentor thinks it would be a good idea if I learned more French before any kind of ministry, so please pray that God will show me the next step soon.

Finally,,,an update....

2007-08-01T16:43:00.000-06:00

hello,
It has been too many days without an update. Not much has been going on, except learning french. The teacher did lose a quarter of the classes oral presentations (Midterms). SO yesterday, i had to redo mine. Hopefully, it goes well.

My host wanted to see a couple of movies yesterday and so We (Host +4 guys) went to the local theater to see a The Simpson's and a French movie. Unfortunately, the Simpson's in French were all sold out, so we had to get the English version. (I am not a fan of the Simpson's, so i went purely just to immerse myself in the French language). The French movie was interesting, it was a story about a mom finding and reconnecting with her daughter. I am not exactly sure of all the details, because there was no subtitles. But I did understand that much, and it is more than what I would have understood during my first week here. BTW the Film is called Ma tante Aline which is My Aunt Aline in English.

I got 1 week and a half left of French studies! I am not exactly sure of what I will be doing after. My mentor suggested that I learn more French at Laval during the fall term. However, as of right now, nothing is confirmed.

hm...slight change of plans

2007-07-28T16:13:00.000-06:00

Alright, it is 615 here, and we have decided not to go out and watch the fireworks. We are just going to stay home and watch movies (in French of course).

But hopefully, I will put some pictures up from our little trip to the Aquarium tonight.

The past 4 days.....

2007-07-28T08:55:00.000-06:00

hi everyone,
I know i haven't blogged in 4 days. That was because I spent most of my time studying for 3 midterms (2 oral, 1 written). Thanks for all your prayers, God gave me peace during my exams, and we know how i did next week.

Today, my housemates and I are going out to see an aquarium and a museum. Later tonight, we will go and see fireworks.

Monday...............the day of reviewing French in preparation for the Midterm!

2007-07-23T20:35:00.000-06:00

That is my life today....i spent some time reviewing french and spending time with some of the people here.

Sunday.....

2007-07-22T13:39:00.000-06:00

Alright,
Yesterday I went out to Old Quebec, and that was fun. However, that wasn't the only activity that i did, because we went out again after dinner to see some fireworks! Every year, Quebec City hosts a fireworks contest that representatives from different countries compete for a prize. Last night, the team who put together the fireworks were representing Spain. Over the course of the next few weeks, we will see other countries like Canada and China competing to win the prize. (i have no idea what the prize is).

Pictures in general
I know many of you have facebook, and thats where I will put the majority of the pictures now because there is no bandwidth limit. I will contiune to put the important and carefully chosen pictures on Flickr.

WOW,,,, haven't posted in 4 days.....

2007-07-21T15:18:00.000-06:00

HI everyone,
It has been a while since i blogged. Let me tell you that life has been pretty busy here. My schedule this week was: Waking up/Devos,BF, School, LUN, doing activities @ school, DIN, hmwk, sleep. I wish i was exagerating, but this was my life this past week. I can definitely tell you that my French has improved, but I haven't been able to go out much because of all the work I had to do.

Thankfully, Saturday came along.
Today I was able to go to Old Quebec and take a couple hundren pictures. I will choose a few and put them on Flickr. (They have a bandwidth limit per month). It was cool to see a bit of history here, many historical sites have been here for over 200 years.

One final note is that on weds or thurs, I will be doing my midterm, it is a oral presentation! Please pray for me!

So......tired....

2007-07-17T19:57:00.001-06:00

hi everyone,
The last couple of days were quite busy with French homework, but today... we got much more to work on! I like learning French, but right now I am quite drain from all the French homework and learning that I did today.

Hopefully,, Tomorrow I will get more time to blog and put more pictures up.

2007-07-16T19:35:00.000-06:00

Well, today was just one of those days where I spent time learning French and trying to use it in daily life. Not much is happening here at the moment, although it is raining.

Sunday updates....

2007-07-15T14:08:00.000-06:00

Hi All,

Today, I went to one of the Alliance churches here. It was a small church held inside a school. The service was not different from the other Alliance services that I have been to in the past. What is so neat about this church is that it is all in French. I of course, do not understand French, so it was difficult for me to understand when we were praying, doing communion, etc. Of course that is expected, and that's what I have been trained to expect, but to be there and listen to 2 hours of French and not understand more than a word or a phrase at a time is quite frustrating. It was also a bit embarrassing this morning, because when I went inside the church, I went up to a group of people and asked them if they spoke English! I keep kicking myself after that because what I should have said was "hello, my name is Wilbert, and I speak English" in French. (I could say that in French). The hardest thing to do here is to use French because I can always get by with English, and people are very understanding. However, my French is not going to improve if I speak English. It is so hard to speak French when you know you have a backup language that you can use.

One week mark....

2007-07-14T20:45:00.000-06:00

hello everyone,
Today marks the first week that I have been in Quebec City! It has been exciting and fun so far....exploring the French language....The one thing that has crossed my mind is that learning the language is quite slow. I can only say a couple of phrases at the moment and my responses to questions are very limited. Nevertheless, i do notice an improvement everyday to French.

Pictures!

2007-07-13T19:40:00.001-06:00

Hey all,
I have upload a few of my pictures on to Flickr
you can check out the link here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9846792@N04/

More on the way!

some changes....yes....

2007-07-12T20:07:00.000-06:00

hi all,
After two days, my class switched teachers, classrooms and class schedule! To say the least, I was a bit suprised because I didn't expect so many changes to happen in one day. O well, Life is still the same. I am starting to understand some more phrases and a few more words.

Aside from those changes, today was quite uneventful. Other than doing some homework and speaking French, not much is happening here.

I had a soup and French toast for dinner tonight. I do not cook my meals here, my host has to prepare the meals, but to be honest I was expecting a little more French style food. Nevertheless, the food here is good.

Bonjour, Je m'appelle Wilbert! (hello, my name is Wilbert)

2007-07-11T21:03:00.000-06:00

Hi all,
Today, was just another usual day with school and just spending time with the people that I currently share the house with. French is quite difficult for me, but God has given me great French teachers who help me everyday. By teachers, I do not mean just in the classroom, but just everywhere I go, people are friendly and very patient with my very limit phrases. I know I wrote this in my last post, but learning another language enables me to understand the ESL students better. All the grammar, sentence structure and pronunciations take so much time. My host was SO happy when I said "hello, my name is Wilbert" in French!

I took some pictures of Laval, which I will upload sometime this week. It is a huge campus. I was talking with someone that goes to the UofA and he said that this campus is bigger! Of course, the building that I am in most of the time is already bigger than my university!

Ow....my head hurts

2007-07-10T17:04:00.000-06:00

The first of many classes started today. I was in the beginner class and the professor spoke French the entire time. I have help teach ESL classes and I have attended many seminars on language study, so I understand that creating a French only speaking environment is the only way that I will understand and speak French. It is still quite a slow and hard process (hence the title).

There are two French Programs that Laval offered this year, one was the French immersion program (It is the one that I am in) and the other is called Explore. The neat thing about Explore is that you get a $2000 bursary so your entire trip is paid for! (not including Reg Fees and flights) So if your interested in learning French, all the details are here: http://www.jexplore.ca/english/program.html

ah...Monday.

2007-07-09T19:09:00.000-06:00

hello Everyone,
Today, I went to Laval University to do a placement test and to get a photo taken for my ID card. I had never taken French before, but I still had to do a placement test. I am learning a few french words here and there, but not enough to form a complete sentence, hopefully, I will be able to say something at the end of this week.

The people who I live with are very helpful, they would say a phrase in French and then repeat it in English so that I'll understand. I live with an older lady who has taken 5 French students (including me). To give you an idea of how big this house is, there are 3 washrooms, 2 kitchens and about 10 bedrooms!

It is hard learning the language, I started writing words down so i could pronounce some of these words/phrases better. But to be honest, I am not use to writing down words. O well, it does enable me to understand the words better.

Bienvenue Ville de Québec!

2007-07-08T14:27:00.000-06:00

hello everyone,
At 915pm (local time) yesterday, I arrived safely at my host's place in Quebec City. One thing that stood out immediately was that most if not all the public signs were in French! I was told that it was like this in Quebec City, but to see it first hand is quite different. I do understand some of signs but I am not used to reading French words everywhere i go.

Taxis, Buses and Intersections
The taxis and buses here go really fast! I took the taxi from the Airport to the host's place, and we were going about 36km over the speed limit! The buses aren't slow either, I had to hold on to the railing every time we made a turn, or stop. I have noticed a few differences with the lanes here. They have a specific lane just for bikes! I think that is so cool and we should get some in Alberta! The way that traffic works here is also a little diferent because when pedestrians cross the road, all the cars stop, even if the cars are going the same way as the people. I found that a little strange because I am not used to looking at all the cars that stopped so I could cross the street.

I am truly blessed to have Internet access at this home for the next 5 weeks. So I will try to blog daily. Tomorrow I will be at Laval University for registration, and doing my placement test because apparently they lost my other one. Laval sent me an email link for the test and they said I would only have to enter and exit the test if I was a beginner. I don't know how they could have lost that, but O well I'll just tell them that my French consists of "Bonjour".

Almost there.

2007-07-05T10:13:00.000-06:00

hello everyone,
It has been a while before I updated this blog, first of all, i am leaving in 2 days to Quebec City. Praise God that i have a place to stay during my French studies and after my time at Laval University. I am almost packed! This is going to be an exciting experience!

April's FIrst Update.

2007-04-09T13:29:00.000-06:00

Hello everyone,
It is the month of April and there are some more details about my onSite. I will be working with a missionary in Quebec City, and my focus will probably be with the youth there. In addition, I will also be taking a 5 week intensive French language study at Laval University.

Please Pray that I will know more details about my onSite, because I still do not know when I am going, what I will be doing exactly and where I will be staying.

Thats all i got for now.
willyZ

yay! some news!

2007-03-09T22:03:00.000-07:00

Hi all,
I am officially accepted to Quebec City! yay! I still do not know where exactly I am going, but at least I now have a general idea where.

willyZ

A possible place...

2007-02-15T13:32:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,
My onSite place may have a place now. The location is in Quebec City!
Please pray for placement as this is still tentative, but I am excited because I might have a place to go now!

willyZ

still there?

2007-02-13T10:38:00.000-07:00

hi everyone,
It has been a few months since i have written my last post. The funny thing is that i STILL do not know where i am going,, so please remember me in your prayers.

There are 10 of us going on onSite and last week we had a great retreat where we got to know each other a little better. Now in the class, we have to do this assignment as a team (which i think is really cool...) using this pert thing(i am confused). If your wondering what pert is...check out the link: http://www.netmba.com/operations/project/pert/

Thats all i got for now, thanks for reading this!

willyZ

Long Time no Post....

2006-11-06T16:19:00.000-07:00

Well,
I didn't post in the month of October, but here are some updates to my life:

I am (offically) accepted into the onSite program! (October 16)

I am still looking for a placement!

Other than that, my life isn't much out of the ordinary, Please remember me in your prayers.

Update for today.

2006-09-20T15:24:00.000-06:00

Not much has happened in the last 2 days since i first started this blog. However, this weekend i will be attending a training session on ESLing. It will be the first of 3 weeks that i will do as partial fulfillment of my practium in intercultural studies. Other than that i am still superly busy doing all the other classes that i have.

The First post........

2006-09-18T20:09:00.000-06:00

Hey all,
This is my online journal as i prepare for my onSite experience at Alliance University College.
Many of you may not know what onSite is, so heres a quick answer to the question "What is onSite?"

onSite is the overseas internship program of Alliance University College. It is 7 - 10 months of ministry and study in a foreign nation. It satisfies the internship requirements of the Bachelor of Ministry and Bachelor of Theology programs, but is also an option for Arts & Science students in any of AUC/NUC's programs. While on onSite students can earn 12 credits for internship (ministry students only) as well as an additional 9 credits that can be applied to almost any program. These credits include 6 credits of language study and 3 credits for onSite History and Culture.Students may apply to onSite at the beginning of their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th year to go the following year. All students in the Intercultural Studies concentration must apply to onSite. Students must complete Cultural Anthropology and Team Dynamics (aka the onSite course) before going onSite.

-Taken from onSitecentral.blogspot.com (The quasi-official onSite website)

My onSite experience is going to be different from most other ones as I will not be going overseas. Instead I will go to a different culture here in Canada. (Perhaps Quebec?) I do not know where yet, but in the coming months we will see where God puts me.

##TITLE##

1969-12-31T17:00:00.001-07:00

##CONTENT##