Light of Togo

This is a quick update of what we’ve been doing while in Québec, and of where we’re headed in the next several months.

RELATED LINKS:
•Blog posts about our Togo departure progress
•Fund-raiser page
•www.day6images.com

Click here to download a printable PDF copy of this letter: Aug ‘08

It seems like just a few months ago we were writing an update letter telling you that we were arriving in Quebec to begin language school, but now we are thrilled to tell you that only seven weeks remain before we leave here to head back to Oregon! We will be there for a few months doing all the preparing, packing, and “paperworking” for our planned departure to Togo at the end of January. We can hardly believe how close we are to finally arriving in the place where God has called us! In the next few weeks, we will be sending out a special update with more details about what lies ahead for us in the next six months. In the mean time, please be in prayer for us that our French will continue to improve and that we will accomplish as much preparation as possible before leaving here on October 27th.

The past couple of months have been very busy for us, but very good as well. Since our last update letter, here are some highlights of what has been going on.

•I preached my first sermon in French. (listen here)
•My parents came for a week long visit in Quebec.
•Along with two friends, I helped develop a new website for our church here in Quebec. (www.eglisebaptiste.ca)
•My cousin and his wife from Australia spent part of their vacation here with us for five days. We then went with them to Boston for five days and had a really great time with them.
•We started tutoring again with our tutor, Suzanne, after her two months off during the summer.

We’d like to ask that you please continue to pray for all the other missionaries with whom we will be working in Togo. In all, there are five missionary families and two single missionaries. Two of these missionaries are already in Togo, two are in language school, two are on deputation, and one is heading to Togo shortly. As you can imagine, we are all very anxious to get to Togo and begin working in the church planting process, so please pray for God’s direction and provision in each of our lives and ministries.

Thank you for your prayer and support!

It seems that ever since the summer started, we have been going non-stop. In all the busyness though, we’ve managed to take advantage of the sometimes nice weather and do some really fun things together. I fully intended to write blog entries about each one of them as they happened, but blogging often has to take a back seat to other things.

So, here is a whole summer of fun wrapped up in one long blog post. I have included two different kinds of photo slideshows that I’m experimenting with so please let me know if you have any difficulty viewing them.
(Read more…)

Ever since moving to Quebec, we’ve been telling our parents about the city and how much they would enjoy it. Tiffany’s parents were able to come for a visit last October, and my parents have been planning a trip for this summer. Well, the summer has flown by and my parents are here already. They took a red-eye flight on Tuesday night and arrived Wednesday morning. Needless to say, they were VERY tired. After my mom woke from an afternoon nap, my dad said, “I’m feeling pretty good! I thought I’d be more tired, but I’m really not.” This is a photo of him one hour later.

They had a good and long night’s sleep last night, so this evening we are headed to Old Quebec for a tour of the city and to see the Moulin à images, which is a multimedia show that is projected onto a massive building.

We are very happy to have them here, and we’re glad that my dad finally woke up from his not being very tired.

ow, I can’t believe it’s been a week since Joshua’s and my camping trip. I really wanted to have the video done and this entry written right after we returned last Saturday, but between lots of work to catch up on, taking longer on the video than expected, and incredibly annoying frustrations with uploading it to Google Video, I have just now got around to it. I know that since last weekend you’ve all been sitting at your computers in anxious expectation of this moment, so I do apologize for keeping you from your TV and other important things.  I hope you do know that I’m just kidding about TV being an important thing.  Of course, everyone knows that video games are much more important.

The camping was really a blast.  Although the mosquitoes were almost unbearable - we couldn’t even sit down long enough to eat - we really enjoyed ourselves and had a great time.  I asked Joshua what the funnest thing is that he’s ever done in his extremely long life, and he said it was this camping trip.  That right there made all the mosquito bites worth it!

OK, enough babbling.  You probably just want to watch the video.  It is really quite a lot longer (13 minutes!) than I wanted it to be, but when putting it together I just couldn’t cut out so many of the cute things that Joshua did or said, so 13 minutes it is!  Because of the aforementioned problem with Google, I am trying a different video hosting service called Vimeo.  Hopefully I’ll have better luck with it than I have with Google.

You can watch it in full screen by clicking the squarish-looking arrows just to the right of the volume.

Jesse and Joshua’s Camping Trip from Jesse Shanks on Vimeo.

And here’s some photos:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

It’s amazing to think that we have been living in Quebec now for almost one year.  We have been thinking a lot lately about our first few months here and the amazing ways that we say God work in our lives.  Here’s a brief summary:

May 6th, 2007 - last meeting of deputation, Pasco, WA ~ May 7th - La Grande, OR…journey begins ~ May 8th - weird van noise, overloaded back end, prayer ~ May 9th - really weird van noises, squealing, grinding, more prayer ~ May 10th - arrive in Quebec, 2,851 miles in 4 days, decided never to do that again…no apartment reserved, no furniture, no French, no plan, no idea…more prayer…stay with missionaries we’ve never met, poor missionaries ~ May 11th - meet another missionary we’ve never met, gives up his whole day to drive us around and translate…thanking God…appointment to see the only available 3 bedroom apartment in all of Quebec City…nice, good price, 5 minutes from the university, no bugs or crazy neighbors…we’ll take it…thanking God again ~ May 12th - thrift store marathon, no translator, lots of hand motions…and prayer…not finding furniture…receive random phone call from unknown furniture-collecting lady, offers furniture, next thrift store, receive call from furniture-collecting lady’s friend, offers more furniture…thanking God ~ May 13th - Sunday, church…what are they saying? ~ May 14th - classes start at university…what are they saying?  more prayer ~ May 15th - morning classes, more random calls from more unknown furniture-collecting people ~ May 16th - classes, still no idea what they’re saying, is this even French? …moved into apartment, slept on floor…thanking God ~ May 17th - classes, feeling very lost…prayer…another call from furniture donator, this is borderline weird, wondering where they get our number, only explanation is God…thanking God ~ May 20th - fully furnished apartment, everything free…speechless ~ May 9th, 2008 - Jesse still trying to regain sanity from 2,851 miles in 4 days, Tiffany doesn’t believe it will happen

Without going into every little detail, all we can say is that what God did was nothing short of a miracle.  Since then we’ve seen God work in so many other ways, but mostly in giving us the ability to speak and understand French…finally.  I know that we’re not fluent, but just to be able to carry on basic conversations is light years ahead of where we were a year ago.

We really appreciate all of you who have prayed for us in the past year, but please don’t stop.  Many people have told us that our last several month in language training will be the most important because we are now at the level where we can make the most rapid progress.  And as we look ahead to January of next year, we see the next big obstacle of getting to Togo.  We really have no idea yet how it’s all going to work out…we just know that it will.  It might not all happen exactly as we plan, but it will happen as God has planned, and we just want Him to get all the glory for everything, good or bad, in our lives.

Following the ancient Scottish traditions of our Shanks forefathers, Joshua and I constructed quite a handsome snowman a little over a week ago. We had been waiting all winter for the perfect snowman conditions, since they are very picky as to the type of snow that they like to be made of. Every time it snows here in Quebec, it is very dry and powdery snow that is impossible to make anything with. However, after a recent rain the top 3 inches of snow became optimal snowman material. Once he was finished, we enjoyed seeing his smiling face from our back window for a few days, but then disaster struck. Watch the video below to see how the saga unfolded.

Last night we had the worst storm of the winter, with 60 mph (100 kph) winds and LOTS of snow. This was the second big storm in five days. What is really cool (to me at least) is that we are only 20-30 centimeters (8-11 inches) away from breaking Quebec’s all-time record for snowfall in a single winter. As of Thursday we had 405 cm (13.25 feet), but after last night, it’s probably somewhere around 425-435 cm. The record was in 1966 with 457 cm. Let it snow!

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.

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.

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.

We would like to begin by saying thank you to all of you who have prayed for our re-enrollment process in language school and for our friends and co-workers, Jon and Heidi Huff. To give you an update, we have completely finished the process and all of our legal documents are in order. For the Huffs, there is some good news and some news that could be good or bad. The good news is that they will still be coming to Quebec and attending language school beginning in January. The less certain news is that they still are not sure if they will be required to pay the higher tuition rates. It seems that there is a lot of “mixed information” about the many details and effects of this new Quebec law as it relates to non-Canadian students. This could be a very good thing, however, because it means that there is still a chance that they will be able to pay the lower rate. Please continue to pray with us and them about this.

During this month, I had the great blessing of spending more time than normal with Joshua doing some special “Daddy and Joshua” things. It’s hard to believe how quickly he is growing up, so we are trying to “enjoy every minute of it” as we have been advised many times. About a week ago, he attempted to tell me for the first time that he loves me “with all his heart,” a phrase that he often hears from adults. However, in his four year old rendition of it he said, “Daddy, I love you all about my heart!” While it’s probably not grammatically correct, it sure sounded great to me! I didn’t have the heart to tell him the “right way” to say it, so he’s been telling us all about his heart for the past week.

We are now half way through the fall semester in language school and we have been learning many things lately, including pronoun complements, quantitive pronouns, endless verb tenses, and many other things guaranteed to bore you if I went into any further detail! Last week he had our mid-term tests, which we managed to survive, and we’re looking forward to the rest of our semester in our “quest for fluency!”

In the next few weeks we will be making some changes to our website and in the way we communicate with all of you. Our prayer letter will become more of a concise and quick update, outlining recent happenings and some prayer requests. Meanwhile our website will still contain all of its current information, with the addition of a personal blog, photo gallery, family videos, and automatic notifications when any of these are updated. Next month we will give you more details about these changes.

Here’s a quick update for the month of September.

Recent blessings:

- French studies are continuing to go well. I am finally at the point where I usually feel comfortable asking questions and carrying on a conversation (a very elementary one) in French.

- Tiffany’s parents were able to come visit us for one week. It was a complete surprise for Joshua, and he had a wonderful time with them.

- I was able to help out a missionary to Quebec by designing a prayer card and putting together a video presentation for him.

Prayer requests:

- Please pray for Jon & Heidi Huff, who are missionaries to Togo with whom we will be working. They have been planning to come to Quebec for language studies, but Quebec has passed a new law that makes it extremely expensive for non-Canadian students to study here. They are looking for a possible way around it, but it is not looking good. This law will not affect us because we already began our studies before the new law began, but unfortunately it will affect all new students. Please pray for them during this time as they make many important decisions.

- Pray for our continued language learning.

- Pray for Joshua as he is starting some schooling of his own with Malerie. He is learning the ABCs and doing very well so far.

- Pray for Dmitry, the man I mentioned in the past two letters. I met with him a couple weeks ago but we did not have much time to talk, so pray as I see him again in the following weeks that God will give us the opportunity to speak and that He will give Dmitry the open heart to hear His word.

Thank you all for your continued prayer and support. We are so grateful to each and every one of you.

It is hard to believe that we have been living in Quebec for three months already! We are really enjoying our time here so far, and God is teaching us many important lessons. For example, when we first moved here and were completely inept at communicating in French, normal daily routines became great lessons in humility through humiliation! Since that time, God has been very gracious in allowing us to learn the basics of the French language, and we continue to learn more each day. We have been very impressed with the quality of the education at l’Universite Laval. Rather than focusing primarily on memorization and textbook French, we are learning French through a very hands-on approach, by hearing it and using it in conversation similar to how a child would learn to speak.

Without going into too much detail, we would like to ask you to pray for our registration process for the next session beginning in September. The province of Quebec changed some regulations regarding foreign students, which means that we must re-enroll into the University’s French program. So far, everything looks to be going smoothly, but please pray that all the paperwork goes through without any problems.

We would also ask that you pray for one of my classmates named Dmitry. He is originally from Russia, but now lives in Canada. Recently, God gave me a great opportunity to share the message of Christ with him, although he does not even believe that there is a God. After a brief conversation with him, he told me that he understood the gospel and how to be saved, but he said that it is “just too simple to believe.” Please pray that God will arrange another time for us to talk, and that the Holy Spirit will show him his need for salvation and the “simplicity that is in Christ.” (II Cor. 11:3)

Joshua is doing very well. He is growing up so fast! Malerie (Joshua’s nanny) has been working with him every day with his ABCs and other schooling. He is also learning quite a few French words, although he’s not always sure what they mean or when to use them!

We want to thank all of you who have signed up for our prayer letter by email. This has significantly reduced the cost of our monthly mailing. If you still have not done this but would like to, just send an email with your information to jesse@lightoftogo.com with the word “subscribe” in the subject line. Thank you for your prayer and support!

After finishing deputation, driving to Quebec, starting school, and moving into our apartment all within a three week period, we were very much looking forward to a break. In the second week of June we finished our first five week session of French at the University, and began a four week session of French in the real world. During this break we have taken the opportunity to use the French we have learned as we interact on a regular basis with francophones (French speaking people).

The church we have been attending here has many people who have a desire to help us learn French. So, even though many of them can speak English, they will most often speak to us in French; very slowly and clearly I might add!

In searching for new and better ways to increase our French vocabulary, I spent several hours one day looking up the words for household items in our French & English dictionary. Then, I printed out small labels of all the words which I taped to each corresponding item. By the of the day, we had a French labeled apartment. Everything from our socks to the toaster has a label now! It doesn’t do much for the aesthetic look of our apartment, but it sure does help our vocab!

During the first week of the break, we were very busy around the apartment, finishing the final touches in order to get finally “settled in.” Since then, we have stayed very busy helping with a remodeling project at church, and assisting some fellow missionaries as they are finishing language school and departing for Africa.

One thing that I have come to realize more than ever before is that although Quebec is the most beautiful cities we have ever seen, it is also one of the most needy mission fields we have seen. Recently, Quebec celebrated Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, which is the equivalent of America’s Independence Day. French Canadians are very proud of their amazing heritage, but unfortunately in Quebec City they choose to celebrate this holiday by converging in vieux-Quebec (downtown) and consuming as much alcohol as is humanly possible. What we have been told by several Christians here is that Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day (named after John the Baptist) is the day that all of Quebec looks forward to all year long. Although most Quebecois are very nice and generous people, it is extremely sad to see the lack of peace and purpose in their lives because of their complete disregard for biblical Christianity.

Many people have asked about our current mailing address, so I will include it in this letter with the following disclaimer; please do not send packages to us in Quebec without contacting us first. The reason for this is because of the border duties and many other possible complications based upon what is in the package. Regular mail is fine, however. Our Oregon mailing address is still valid as well, since we have somebody collecting our mail for us.

Thank you so much for your prayer!

OUR NEW ADDRESS
3084 rue des Chatelets, App#8
Quebec, QC G1V 3Y5
CANADA