June 27

Monday, June 24, was “Quebec Day.” We didn’t have class, so that morning we went back to one of the waterfalls we had already been to. 

This time we got as close as we could to the falls! This is a totally dorky picture, but it was the only one we got from that close!

Afterward, I had just sat down to study when Marie came in the door and asked if I wanted to go to the “island” and pick strawberries. How could I resist? She took me to a big island inside of Quebec City and we handpicked a basket of fresh strawberries. J

Then she took me on a tour around the entire island. We stopped to climb a tall tower that overlooked these gorgeous fields, which made me really miss home! This island has many homes on it, but it is also filled with fields of crops, fruit, and COWS! Who would think that after being gone for only a month I would miss things like this?

For all of those people who say there is nothing to look at in the MidWest, they obviously haven’t really opened their eyes while passing through! Call me crazy, but I honestly think that a field full of wheat has all the beauty in it that a river does. So needless to say, I was more excited to see the fields than to see a horizon full of mountains and other small islands. J

Moving on to QC cuisine…

Who’s up for some Chinese fondue? We’ve got lots of different meats to chose from: rabbit, “red” deer, lamb, and horse!

And if you’re still hungry after the fondue, you can just grill up one of these lamb-burgers. ;)

For real, though. We found these at a grocery store the other day. (I just hope Marie hasn’t snuck some horse into our dinners!)

And here’s a taste of the traffic we encounter almost daily. Three people trying to get in the same lane at the same time? No problem! While this is nothing compared to the traffic we found ourselves in two years ago in Port-au-Prince, it is still surprising that this happens as often as it does in a civilized country that actually has paved roads and stoplights. 

In order to save money on gas and parking we have been riding our bikes to schools a few days a week. It has been way too cold, rainy, or windy to ride every day, though! The day we took this photo was right after a big rain.

This past week we’ve kind of hit a rut with our school. We are trying to be patient, but new students are continually being added to our class, which really puts a hold on our learning. This week has been the worse; two new students who are very far behind our class level joined us. That meant that our class had to backtrack really far just to try to catch these students up. Things haven’t really progressed, so we are working on switching classes completely so that we can learn at a faster pace.

Long before we arrived in QC, Ryan was asked if he would speak at a church while we were here. So tomorrow (Friday the 28^th), Ryan has to speak in French on the Beatitudes! Just kidding. But really, he is speaking there (in English) tomorrow evening. More on that subject later. J

Not a whole lot has been happening here the past week. The house has been full of people since the weekend, we’ve celebrated Mathias’ 10^th birthday, and we’re wearing jeans and sweaters again because it has been really cold and windy here! Oh – and the Drahotas surprised us on Monday during our weekly Skype date - we got to see the Geyer family! That was a nice surprise. J

If you have a moment and would like to pray for us, we could definitely use some prayers for patience. Our classes in general have been pretty slow lately, but even outside of class we feel like we are running out of words to memorize and things to study on our own. It’s easy to forget that learning a language isn’t going to happen in a week! But of course that doesn’t stop us from wishing that the French language would magically pop into our heads and stay there. J

There are a few other more demanding things that you can pray about, too. 

(The Fisher Family)

I mentioned Sage Fisher in a post the other week. She is back in NE for recovery, which could take a while – but her MRI’s have shown that she is 100% tumor free! What a blessing it is for this family to hear such great news. You can pray for her recovery, as well as well-needed prayers for her family in general.

Lastly, if you have a few minutes, take some time to read this article on Stacy’s blog and send some prayers for Ezechiel -  an inspiring, God-loving man that is in a really tough situation.  http://mshaiti.blogspot.ca/2013/06/not-afraid.html.