Light of Togo

Every so often you get the chance to do something that could be defined as “once in a lifetime.” Well, I think that we had one of these experiences on Monday. We drove about 30 minutes from our house to an amazing place called the Hôtel de glace, or in English, “Ice Hotel.” This had to be one of the most amazing man-made things I have ever seen. Each year it is built by 40+ people over a period of six weeks, costing a total of 2.5 million dollars. The hotel is made up of 20,500 tons of ice, and it can hold up to 90 people each night but unfortunately we weren’t one of them! Each room is decorated differently, with ice sculptures and carvings made in the walls. The hotel is kept at 16 degrees Fahrenheit, which means that it takes a little more than long johns to keep warm at night. They provide each guest with a -40 degree sleeping bag and a deer fur.

Joshua felt right at home among this icy wonderland. For about 20 minutes without stopping to rest, he slid down the curvy ice slide somewhere around three thousand times. I went down with him a few times too, one time attempting to stand up and “skate” down the slide. After 10 feet or so, I was reminded why slides are meant to be sat on, and my tail bone continually reminded me of this for the rest of the evening!

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

We are very happy to announce that we have made a final decision about finishing language school here in Quebec and leaving for Togo.  We will leave here at the end of October, head back to Portland for the holidays (and TONS of packing!), then we will head to Togo in January of next year.  It is really exciting for us to finally know for sure when we will be in Togo.  Please continue to pray for our continuing progress in French, as well as for the many things that need to be accomplished before we leave.  We see the light at the end of a looong tunnel (a very snowy, cold tunnel at the moment).

Last Tuesday my good friend Dmitry came over for dinner, bringing with him a great assortment of chocolates from Russia, which is his home country. After dinner we had a very interesting conversation about God; whether or not He exists, who He is, and how He relates to man. Dmitry can clearly see that the intelligence of man alone is enough evidence that there is some kind of creator, he just isn’t sure who that might be. While he is very skeptical of Christianity, he is also very curious about it and willing to listen to what I have to say about it.

Please pray with me that God will continue to draw Dmitry to Himself, showing him both his condition of being dead in sin and his need for Jesus Christ and spiritual life.

Joshua was SO excited about Valentine’s Day. He made little valentine’s cards for me, Tiffany, and Malerie and was very anxious to give them to us. Two days before Valentine’s Day, he was begging Tiffany if he could give them to us.

He made this hat with Malerie and has been wearing it off and on for the past several days. I have nicknamed him the Love Bug. Watch out, he bites!

What is it that really frustrates you? I know that for me, there’s too many things to list. As a recovering obsessive compulsive perfectionist (is there supposed to be a dash between “obsessive” and “compulsive?” See what I mean?), there are way too many things that frustrate me. But, by God’s grace, I’m learning not to fret the small stuff and not drive my wife insane! (Read more…)

Somebody sent this to me quite a while ago, and I just found it again on my computer. I thought it was so funny that I had to show all of you.

Last Saturday we all bundled up and headed to vieux-Québec (Old Quebec) where the 2008 winter carnaval is being held. We went with our co-workers, the Huffs (Jon, Heidi, and Abby). We had a really great time, as there were lots of great family activities. I think the most amazing thing to me was the snow and ice carvings/scultures. Some of these were intricately detailed, and each one left me thinking, “I wonder if that’s just Styrofoam. Hmm.”

I think we would all agree that our favorite thing was “the typhoon,” which was a giant round inter-tube which held all seven of us. It was placed at the top of a steep hill and pushed off, but not before giving it a good spin. Everyone really enjoyed this, except for Abby. At only two years old, I don’t think she had any idea of what was going on. All she knew is that suddenly everything was spinning around her and she didn’t like it one bit!

Here’s some photos from our excursion.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

As we were preparing to leave for the winter carnival with the Huffs, Tiffany said to Joshua, “Grab an extra pair of your wool socks for Abby (the Huff’s daughter) in case she doesn’t have very warm socks.”  Out of nowhere he says, “Man!  I’m just so famous because everybody wants to wear my socks!”  HAHA!  Where does he come up with this stuff?  The funny thing is that he’s so serious when he says it.

If you’d like to become a member of Joshua’s fan club, send a check for $19.95 and you’ll receive an autographed crayola picture and a thread from his famous socks.

I’m wondering if any of you have ever found yourself asking the same question that I have recently, “Am I really able to live for God and serve Him?” At the surface this sounds like an easy enough question to ponder. I mean, if we know God personally as all true Christians do, then we should want to live for Him, right? We should want to serve Him with our lives, right? (Read more…)

I came home from school today and was greeted by a ferocious wild beast. It came crawling towards the door bearing vicious fangs, sharp claws, and a spine-chilling roar! I rolled up the newspaper in my hand and began beating it repeatedly trying to make it release my leg from its death grip.

OK, so maybe it wasn’t quite so scary, but it was still a big surprise nonetheless.


What has happened to my son? It looks like Picasso got ahold of his face!

Before moving to Québec, we heard about how bad the winters can be, but we had no idea what we were in store for! With winter only half over, we’ve already accumulated 59 inches of snow on the ground. That’s almost 5 feet! The snow plows generally do a good job of keeping the roads clear, but all of that snow has to go somewhere. A lot of it just keeps getting pushed to the curbs, which haven’t been visible since sometime in November, where the snow banks look more like white walls in a house than piles of snow. What’s interesting is that they actually will load the snow into huge trucks that transport the white white fluffy goodness by the ton to large areas which resemble trash landfills. These mini snow mountains would be great for sledding!

Here’s a video of one of the recent blizzards and some other winter scenes:

If you cannot view this video, click here for instructions.During the first big blizzard back in December, I grabbed the camera and went out to our balcony. It just so happened that this poor lady was walking, or trying to, through the snow back to her apartment. I was about to go down and help her out when she finally got back onto the path.