first hockey...then Hebrew

"Mr. Matt!" Malachi told us today, "When I grow up I'm going to be a snow board man."
They decided to start with ice skating and for an hour endured the 10 degree weather to work on their slap shots...or at least standing up. After skating, two of our Canadian friends from the Bible school came over and taught us a new game: in French. (We would not advise learning new games this way!) It is wonderful to be a part of the community here and to have some distractions, even if they are in French, to break up our studies.

Haiti bound...

We have just received our first teaching assignement for Emmaus Biblical Seminary. Matt will begin teaching Hebrew to 3rd year students five days a week, and Stacey will be teaching English to first year students. This will fill our mornings, and in the afternoons we will be studying Creole with a tutor. The semester starts September of 2007. It is so exciting to finally realize that in 8 months, we will be completely immersed in ministry in Haiti!

oh, Canada

We had a wonderful weekend with Dad, and caught a beautiful sunset over Montreal and on our drive back to Sherbrooke.

mon pere est ici

My Dad is here! He made it here safely and we are having a wonderful time showing him around our new city and working on our French. Today we walked along the river where an ice-skating path has been created. Despite the temperature (5 farenheit) hundreds of people were walking or ice-skating along the frozen river.

8 minutes

Weather reports here in Quebec are a little different....We learn about any expected snow, are given a predicted temperature scale (today, -28 Celcius low, or -18 Farenheit) and then, we are given a time frame. Today is "eight minutes." That is, you have eight minutes outside before your exposed flesh will be irrevocably frostbitten. This, to me, means looking at my watch before leaving the house and making sure I am back indoors in less than five minutes, just to be safe. However, I was told this morning by a Canadien friend that this is more of a guideline. "As long as your skin stays in the pale white stage, and doesn't start fringing blue," she says, "Then you are ok." I suppose this is good to know, not that we'll be testing it.

It is another winter camp weekend, and today 150 teenagers, ages 13-17, will be hitting our slopes. (hopefully for no longer than 8 minutes at a time!)

even more snow

On Sunday Matt shared his love of skiing with Steve, whose three boys are now anxious to try the sport. It snowed several more inches this morning, covering up the muddy snow from last week. Tonight we have "culte", the French word for "church service." Our word "service" means "funeral" in French, so we are all trying to move beyond the strangeness of saying "we are off to cult!"

...but can he play with Canadiens?

Finally, Matt found a sport that transcends the language barrier. The seminary students, a staff member and Matt teamed up Anglophones vs. Francaphones and played for some 2 hours (Matt is in the red hat) before returning to their studies. The American is feeling a little sore!

Primere un Examen

This is where Matt and I spend most of our time...studying!
We got our first test back today, scoring a 99.2% and a 100% (we are to discourage competition, so I won't say who got what :) However, we were both happy to score well, especially with a large phonetics test coming up on Friday! People are wondering why all of the pictures are of Matt in the snow. That's because the only time Stacey is in the snow, she is running for shelter and completely bundled up.

C'est dimanche

We are glad it's Sunday! Several neighbors found their cars quite stuck in the snow, so we had a full car to church. The pastor of L'eau Viv (Water of Life) got his masters from Dallas Theological Seminary in Texas, though he knew no English whatsoever on his first day of class. The church is entirely French speaking, but every now and then, if he notices confusion on an Anglophones's face, he will repeat his last point in English. He also has all of his points projected, and this significantly helps us understand.
Matt is anxious for people to ski with who also speak English, and since none of the other missionaries know how to ski, he's teaching a few of them today at Mon Joie, or "My Joy", a ski slope 10 minutes from here.

Camp du Neige

Not getting any warmer...

"Snow Camp" is in full effect on campus today, with over one hundred 18-year olds running, skiing, sledding, ice skating and snowboarding all around campus. It is only 6 degrees, but no one seems to notice (except for us!)

We are spending the day studying, and tonight are planning on eating out for our first time since moving here. It is sure to be a cultural experience as we attempt to work through the language barrier!