It's almost time for Rwanda.

I miss my PT.

Christmas Break.

I have loved, loved, loved my Christmas break with my French family and tomorrow the rest of the fam arrives! We have been busy shopping for presents in the town, going to the grocery store I swear once a day because we eat anything we see and just spending time with each other. Yesterday was Charlie's 11th Birthday so we woke up to chocolate cake and presents, followed by a day of games.

I have seen Hugo Cabaret and understood every word but one, which made me very happy with myself, gone out for dinner, gone out for drinks, raked the leaves and the list goes on! The grandparents arrived a few days ago and we have been getting our time with them. Granny sits patiently with a pile of all our clothes that have holes in them. Popsie is busy doing his crosswords and reading his books.

I have expanded my shoe collection and wardrobe! Emilie and I did some damage in town today, she said first stop, and I yelled - bank, and from there it just went downhill. Other than that I have been busy reading, and loving every minute of it. I am currently reading The Paris Wife, and can't put it down, thanks to Devon for that.

Hmm, not much else. Can't believe Rwanda is in 2 weeks - not even! I will be living out of a backpack, sleeping on the ground and eating beans and rice and I cannot wait!

Just a little bit of everything.

Sorry for the long pause between blogs, it's hard to even know what to update people on. I am busy doing so much, but at the same time it seems like nothing truly exciting for the outside world. Let's see where to start...

I am finished the first phase of my trip, and am now on Christmas Holidays! Phase two begins on January 3rd when I am off to Rwanda!!

One weekend the "North Americans" went to Paris for the day to be your classic tourists - snapping photos at every given opportunity. We visited all the appropriate places, spent too much money on touristy nonsense and got to know the metro (subway) system quite well (even with one minor detour!). I myself was very proud of us navigating our way through, needless to say it wasn't hard to know where you were when all you had to do is look up and navigate your way to "that tall thing" in the sky. We made sure to stop at Starbucks, to fill our craving for a delicious specialty coffee or hot chocolate. It was high on our priority list as a piece of comfort from home.

After an exciting, yet exhausting day in Paris we came home and collapsed in our beds ready for a tour of the Champagne vineyards, as we are currently living in the region of Champagne, France.

It was great - we went on a train ride through the caves of the vineyard to see where it was all created, and of course ended the tour with some Champagne!!

We were also busy getting ready for Christmas with the decorations...

Spending a lot of time in the town nearby, Sezanne...

And finally having our Christmas dinner - the theme was that you were to dress up as your nationality. Question: How does a Canadian dress? As a lumberjack of course!!

Whitney and I only had our plaid shirts in our closets and thought it would have to suffice:

Indian :)

A German old lady, a French artist and some "Native Americans"

Anyways, as I said I am back at my aunt's house for the holidays. Today we had a lovely day strolling through the town with the Christmas market, had some coffee at the cafe (ha!). Lastnight we went out dinner to celebrate my uncle's birthday and tonight we are off to see a movie. Let's see how good my french is!!

I leave for Rwanda January 3rd and will not be taking a computer so posts will be few and far between as it will be when we encounter internet cafes. I will write more about where we are working and with whom. I cannot wait! We also cannot upload pictures when we are there (not sure why) so all pictures of Rwanda wont be posted until April sadly!

Merry Christmas everyone!

xxx

Thanksgiving!!!

Me and Whitney (in Belgium!)

Yes, it might be November - but we are celebrating Thanksgiving! Woohoo! The Americans and Canadians have joined together to create the ultimate feast, and to explain to the French why we love this holiday so much!
It started with letting the Chef Olivier know about ALL that we would need for this wonderful weekend. Our list of ingrediants was long, our imaginations were running wild. Real food!! Now I need to let you all know that this weekend would not have been possible without wonderful Whitney (please refer to picture). Whitney is a wonderful Chef, and also as a side note a wonderful buddy all in all. Whitney and I are often found together - she is actually at my side right now. Anyways so Whitney gathered all the recipes together, wrote out all the ingrediants, had them translated into French, organized with Olivier and VOILA - Thanksgiving is a go!

We were so excited! On Friday night we had a big worship service to end our 24/7 Prayer week, but us Candians/Americans left early to start making the Cinnamon buns for the next morning's brunch (please note picture below!)...I got into the kitchen and truthfully I just watched Whitney work her magic, and cute Jessica be so precise in her measuring skills. I decided I would be spending my time more wisely if I went to bed! Morning came and we headed to the kitchen once again, we started making pancakes - plain, chocolate chip, and blueberry -- UMM YUM! Then the cinnamon buns were baked with yummy sticky goo all over them! Yum yumm!! Followed by bacon and eggs! Delicious! You have to understand we NEVER get to eat like this for breakfast. Breakfast for us consists of cereal and a baguette, yes yes I know we are in France but after a few months you just want some food from home. All the French were getting restless - what is this brunch thing? Late breakfast? They literally were waiting on the stairs and kept popping their head in the kitchen. We would come out and suddenly be bombared "Is it ready??!!" "Calmez-vous!". Betsy and I decided to take on the decorations (there comes a point in the kitchen when there are just too many hands!) we made it buffet style, found some "Thanksgiving-y" candles, fixed our leaf wreath (heehe), found some suitable music and set the table. They loooved it! So tomorrow is our actual Thanskgiving meal! Another early rise for us chefs so that we can make a delicious feast! So excited!

This is the brunch we made on Saturday! (It also had bacon and eggs!)

I also want to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my favourite BROSKI!! I hope you have a wonderful day, and I miss you so much <3 Love love love you Rossco!

Put it away, or imma punch [you]....

Mini-outreach: Charleville-Mezieres.

Bonjour tout le monde! If you'd like to see a little video of our mini-outreach in Charleville-Mezieries just click on the link below! It's only a portion of what we did!

Click me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXJmFS8la5Q

Craft time!

Betsy and I went on a lovely walk today and found lots of maple leaves and thought we'd start decorating for Christmas. Impressive, I know!

This is my Betsy.

A Day in Belgium.

This is US!

Angels and Mortals.

The above picture is all of us girls (minus dear Lydie) at the dinner of a very long week! We were told to dress up (since we all live in our leggings and sweatshirts), wear some make up (since we all seem to have forgotten what that is) and just be ready for a nice dinner.

The week we had consisted of the usual lessons, which is enough in itself to wrap your head around. A crazy teacher from the States who was awesome, but none the less so ecstatic and exuberant all the time you found yourself needing a nap after every conversation with him. Finally, it was the week of angels and mortals. On Monday we all picked a name out of a basket, the name written on the piece of paper would be our "mortal" and we would be their "angel". This was to say, we had to do things that would make them feel blessed and loved without them knowing who was actually blessing them. It could be anything from a little note that says "Good morning - Love, your angel" or buying them chocolate etc. We all found it a little difficult to do things for our mortals after writing a note, getting a flower from the garden or buying them some chocolate. Living in a place with no stores around forced us to get creative. It was a lot of fun to both make people feel special, but  to also feel special in return from some unknown 'angel'.

The special dinner we had was the revealing of our angels. The staff prepared a wonderful meal, decorated the room with candles and we just had lots of laughs surrounding the dinner table. It was a great way to relax after a long week and just be together. OH and I cannot forget, dear Whitney made the MOST delicious brownies I have ever had in my life, with homemade icing. I told her that when she opens a bakery, I will be there on opening day. They were scrumptious. Concerning my angel, I myself feel that I had the best angel, but I know everyone is biased. Little pieces of love found their way to me every day and always cheered me up and made me feel better about the week ahead, so thank you angel.

Tomorrow we are off on our mini outreach! My team is heading up north to Charleville-Mezieres. It's very close to Belgium so we just might go and cross the border!! We are staying in a church, not having showers and have half a backpack each per person aka...this is going to be an adventure. We have been working on dramas and dances all week, and even though I know it will be exhausting I'm so excited for all of us to stretch our comfort zones!

In case anyone was wondering Panda is doing very well. He has watched the first season of Greys Anatomy with me numerous times (its the only season I brought) and I think is wishing that I brought more DVDs with me. But c'est la vie!!

xxx

Craziness. Watch it.

Boyce Avenue Concert Tonight at home in Toronto. Panda = Jealous

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Yesterday was my birthday, and it was great! I woke up to my wonderful roomies (at that moment I did not think they were wonderful) singing Happy Birthday - not the worst 6 a.m. wake up call. I was then not allowed to go to the bathroom for a good half an hour but found out that it was because wonderful Betsy (Elizabeth - my go 2 girl) was decorating my door with hearts that had notes from all of our team here! So Sweet! I then went downstairs for breakfast and Betsy had all the cards from my family laid out at my spot with a tea, ready made and a gift. What was the gift you ask? Good question! Peanut Butter! The French do not really eat peanut butter, and it can be hard to find...but she prevailed. Now thanks to her we have the blessing of peanut butter at breakfast with our bread! Yum!  A nice touch of home. The usual class day followed, with another gift in break from Betsy of some chocolate. She knows me so well! Then lunch time! Olivier, our wonderful chef here, had decorated the room so beautifully and laid out my place setting with real flowers from the garden, some hearts and a tall glass of orange juice and MORE chocolate! Not wanting to hurt Olivier's feelings I shared the orange juice with the table and we ate a lovely meal, followed by cake and singing! We then had our usual chores and then a little 'fete' or 'party' in English, just really everyone hanging out. It was great! During the day I tried to fit in speaking to everyone important to me, could not forget that it was my beautiful Mumma's birthday as well! My phone was ready on hand to take phone calls from everyone! So all in all, everyone I had a great birthday!

<3

Soon I'll be off to Rwanda!

S

J'aime les vaches et les poires.

Yes, you read the title right, I have found a new love - cows and found a new love for pears. Elizabeth and I started taking long walks as soon as we came to live in Le Gault. We are in the middle of this beautiful countryside and we did not want to miss out on it. The first few weeks we chose different roads each time - we would walk through numerous villages just by walking straight down one road. One day we were walking through this beautiful village, and it was almost magical. We walked by a deserted mansion that looked like it was from Beauty and the Beast - as we explored we then found horses, and to our delight a pear tree just growing on the side of the road. We both looked at each other and with  mischevious delight decided to pick the most perfect pears we could find and eat them. We thought it was so French, just eating a pear on the side of the road with the juice dribbling over our hands. This is why I now have fond memories of pears.
Another marvelous day, we found ourselves exploring another road, and another town. We walked with awe struck eyes as we saw, blueberries just growing beside the road, and then raspberries and blackberries. We saw apple trees, hens, roosters...it was like a movie. Then we see to the left of us some cows. We were intrigued. They were far away so Elizabeth "mooed" at the cows (in a French accent of course), they also seemed intrigued, Elizabeth decided that another moo was necessary just for fun. This second moo caused the cows (5 of them) to run, gallop even towards the extremely weak fence that was created to keep them in. As screams of delight escaped our lips we ran away in fits of laughter. When we were brave enough to return we saw five angry cows staring us down. We walked home, fearful that everytime we turned around we would see cows galloping towards us. Yesterday we decided to return to the cows with our friend Andrej. As we practiced our French cow accent, we found that we really had learnt their language - I can not describe what I saw everytime we mooed, but it was a sight. If you were to drive by you would see three people dying of laughter. Let us say we learnt their love language. I therefore have decided that I love cows because they bring me joy.

To see the cows, please refer to facebook.
Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving back at home !
<3
Miss you all with my whole heart.

This really was a post about nothing, but I do hope that you enjoyed it.

Another view of Paris

 A week or so ago we headed to Paris, which is about two hours from the base. We were told to pack our backpacks with everything we "thought" we would need to live for four days...sounds easy right? Those were the only instructions. We filled out a medical waiver form with strange questions such as  "Are there any medical conditions we should know about?", "What are your physical capabilities?".... needless to say were a little bit nervous. After this we packed our bags, all thinking we had everything covered. What we didn't know was when we got to Paris everything we "thought" we needed would change.

I can't actually put into words everything we did, but let me tell you - it pushed us in every possible way. Physically, mentally, spiritually...any part of yourself was tested. We walked 35km in one day, 14 hours of not knowing when we would rest. We were only allowed limited bathroom breaks...and I mean no bathroom breaks. So we didn't drink water, although it was scorching hot, we had 20 minutes for lunch and 20 minutes for dinner. We walked through every district of Paris, saw every monument, every street corner. I have seen Paris, all of it.  We had blistered covered feet and wondered where we would end up sleeping...it was just in one word, rediculous. Four days of being in the exact same clothes, being sleep deprived and disoriented. My group was all French speakers so that even added another element to it...my  brain worked overtime just to understand "turn left". By the fourth day I dont think I even tried to say anything in French, just was silent and followed. We walked through deserted tunnels where once trains bellowed through. We did anything and everything you could do in a city of Paris that cost under 5 Euros. No luxury hotels for us. At one point they asked us "Are you having fun?" I would look at them with this blank stare..."No, im not." They seemed shocked at the response. There were laughs of exhaustion, I have never wanted to sleep on concrete more in my life. Every single surface looked tempting. Camp did end, finally, and we all survived...barely, but we survived!

After this "camp" we had two days of classes learning about Paris, walking around Paris...a city we were not keen to walk around again, but I can say I saw it all...twice :) We were all thankful for real beds, showers and places to even sit down. Finally after being in Paris for just less than a week we arrived at Le Gault and the Big House was silent, we all slept and slept...and slept. 

We were back on Wednesday night, and Friday I took the train to see my family, which is the next post :)

Weeee!!!!

It is the end of our first weekend at Le Gault-la-Foret. We are getting used to the big bell ringing for meal times, drinking out of tiny glasses (impossible to ever feel satisified in the thirst department) and feeling at home in the big farm house.

Last night, we had a bonfire out in the fields, it was absolutely beautiful. I loved wrapping up in scarves and warm clothes to be around a fire and just talk. We played some worship songs, us English folk had our first attempt at singing in French and then we all shared how we came to be at Le Gault (YWAM). As the night went on it was interesting to hear everyone's different stories. The evening ended with some prayers and we all headed to bed.

Today we woke up bright and early, had some breakfast and were off to church. It is in a cute town (pictures will be up soon) called Sezanne. It was about a 10 minute drive through the fields. Church actually felt like home, we walked through a cobbled alleyway to get there and then helped set up all the seating. Worship was in French but it was easy to recognize what songs were playing and didn't take too long to catch on. The sermon was translated into English for people of the group who are still struggling with the language. Afterwards we cleaned up, had some tea and cookies and then we all headed to a lake!

A small lake, I would perhaps say a pond? The sun was shining, the water was glistening and we had a picnic! Truly French! We ate baguettes avec du fromage and jambon (cheese and ham) and tomatoes and then little baked goods. Afterwards we were free to do what we liked. Some of us girls headed off in the direction of the park which is where the picture was taken. It was great fun to be like a kid again, some of the boys refused to go on the see-saws...mocking us at our age, but then once they were seated could not stop laughing. It was great! Good clean fun, as some would say!

Day by day we are all getting to know each other better and be ourselves more. Tonight we were introduced to everyone that works at our base in YWAM not just our teachers. It was a great dinner with lots of laughter. Our table had a rule that we could only speak French for the whole meal! It worked out well....sometimes haha.

That is all, Panda and I are heading to bed. He gets sad sometimes that he cannot come on the outings but I do let him know all about them. Tomorrow is the first day of "school".... early morning! Ah!

Bien Dormir!

xxx

Bisous!

Je suis arrivee!

So, I have arrived at my placement which is ACTUALLY in the middle of nowhere! This is what you see when you step out onto the road...fields, fields, feilds! It's great, other than when you want even a chocolate bar and there is no such thing as a convenience store around. I am sure that I will spend most of my time on walks and perhaps reading out in the garden, because yes, we have a wonderful garden!

Today is my second day here, yesterday I was greeted at the train station by Samuel, the leader of the base. He grabbed my bags and we had a two hour journey through the fields to the farm house on the hill where we are staying. I am glad to tell everyone that YES I spoke French the entire way, and to the enjoyment of my aunt he said my accent was amazing! So that made my self confidence go way up! When I arrived at the base, it was really amazing I think around 10 people ran to see me as I was one of the last to arrive. Voices fluttered around my head in French and in English offering to take my bags to my room, make sure I have dinner etc.

After dinner we had get to you know you games, some prayer time and then off to bed. I set up my little bunk and got to know my roomies. Two french girls - Luci-Anna et Lydie and Jessica who is from the States. 

This is my bed!

As you can see Panda has made himself at home! Today we have just been busy walking through the Village...I mean a couple of streets and eating lunch while getting to know one another. It is quite chilly and a lot of people are outside playing games, but I thought some quiet time would be nice.

Not much else to report!

Love you all :)

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1928399743923.88680.1660080110&l=7520eade3d&type=1

Here is the link for the pictures on Facebook, you do not need facebook to view the pictures so dont worry about having an account!

Touchdown.

Hello world! I have touched down in France. I had a very tearful goobye, and an even more tearful wait in the gate as I could no longer see faces that had become so apart of my everyday life. Papa had the privelege of getting me a rum and coke to calm the nerves and stop the tears...did not work in the least, Papa then walked me right to the plane, gave me another hug and VOILA I was on my journey.

The flight was smooth, watched some movies and spoke to a nice French couple who were sitting beside me. Panda slept nicely on my lap - he is enjoying the adventure so far. Off the plane and my job was to run through customs and baggage claim so that I could catch a train to Nantes to see the French fam. The train ride was interesting - French people are sooo not Canadian...probably had five men just watch me struggle with my huge bags trying to get them into the baggage holdings - o well all done.

Home, showered, ate, time for cousins!!! Met the girls at the bus stop, went to get a sim card for the cell phone, and now they are doing homework. I thought it would be nice to update everyone! Sorry for short sentences etc. this french keyboard is driving me insane; it takes some insane concentration to form even a word.

Miss you all! Once I have my comp set up with internet I will put up more pictures!! Here until Friday and then one more train ride until YWAM.

Almost there...

It is August 1st and I'm getting ready to go...one more month!!!