the Good News

When I first started teaching ESL I prayed that I’d be a good teacher and that the ladies would be good learners. But as the weeks went by I found myself praying almost and only for God to give me opportunities to tell them about Jesus. If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ve noticed that I’ve had some open doors and some interesting discussions. But tonight was nothing in comparison with the other nights.

We had our second last lesson today and yesterday I was wondering how I would be able to tell them plainly and fully, the Good News of Jesus Christ. I thought I could tell them my testimony on the last class and was trying to find how I could tell it in such a way that would reach to them. I’d be talking to a little bunch of Muslim ladies from 35-60 years old you see.

At break time tonight I brought the coffee upstairs where the ladies started chatting and after telling them again that I disliked coffee, I walked toward the classroom. A lady, that I consider to be more like the “leader” of the group made a few steps after me as she asked, “You Evangelists, are you Protestants?” I just thought to myself “Hmm where is this coming from? We were just talking about coffee!” So I turned and we started to talk. Well, not just her and me, the whole group were waiting for a response. There is actually one lady who is from the Middle East but is a Catholic, so as we talked, she explained to the people that the only difference between Catholics and Evangelicals was their beliefs about Mary. Ok… She then said, “Right Gabriella?” (lots of them call me Gabriella). Instead of comparing Catholic and Evangelical beliefs, I simply told them what I believed.

Starting with our only foundation, I told them that we believed in the Old and New Testaments. I explained that all the prophets pointed to a coming Messiah that would suffer and be rejected by the people, who would die for the sins of the world. Then I told them why God was sending a Messiah, because we were in deep need of a Savior. I reminded them that God was holy and great and couldn’t be in the presence of sin just as we couldn’t tolerate a dead mice in our house. No matter if the mice was our beloved pet, we wouldn’t bear to keep it in its cage, lying there, dead, rotting and stinking. I told them that God who is just couldn’t simply allow us into His presence as long as we remained stained by sin. I explained how doing good deeds, praying, reading the Bible and etc. could not make us right with God, could not purify us. Like putting perfume on the dead mice, it wouldn’t help. We are helpless sinners in need of a holy Savior and that’s why God sent Himself, His Son, on the earth, and became a little baby, Jesus. I told the ladies that Jesus was more than prophet. He was God Himself. He died on the cross for the sins of the world and rose again on the third day. Jesus had satisfied God’s justice by dying on the cross for us. The Messiah had come. I ended by saying that now God desired all people to come to Him as helpless sinners, knowing they couldn’t do anything to earn His favor and trust in the only work of Jesus Christ on the cross to be saved from sin and find eternal life with God.

They all listened very quietly. Depending on what I said, some looked very interested, or agreeing, or understanding, or uncomfortable or just there. The break was over now. I brought the milk downstairs and couldn’t believe that God had opened to me such a great door. I praise Him. I praise Him.

Out of Food

Hey. So I’m out of food. Well, not because I don’t have money but because I’ve had no time to do grocery shopping.

“That was harsh!” these are the words that came out of my mouth after reading John 5 today. I had never noticed it before, but Jesus is “cru” (French for “raw”) with the truth, he tells it “raw”, without polishing it or serving it with some “but…” or “you know…” The context is that Jesus healed a man who had been ill for 38 years on the sabbath (0bviously!) and the Jews were not happy with that and the fact that Jesus called God His own Father, so making Himself equal to God. Here’s a portion of John 5.

You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved. John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light. I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has Himself testified concerning me. YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD HIS VOICE NOR SEEN HIS FORM, NOR DOES HIS WORD DWELL IN YOU, FOR YOU DO NOT BELIEVE THE ONE HE SENT. YOU DILIGENTLY STUDY THE SCRIPTURES BECAUSE YOU THINK THAT BY THEM YOU POSSESS ETERNAL LIFE. THESE ARE THE SCRIPTURES THAT TESTIFY ABOUT ME, YET YOU REFUSE TO COME TO ME TO HAVE LIFE.

Harsh. It seems to me that by saying this, Jesus implies that He has heard and seen the Father. Plus, Jesus tells them that the Word of God DOES NOT dwell in them because they do not believe in Him. It does not matter that they THINK they can find eternal life by the Word of God, they remain blind to Its truth, pointing to Jesus as Messiah and God. It must have been hard for the people to hear that. They probably became even more enraged. Well, I haven’t read chapter 6, well I have but it’s been a while.

It can be touchy to deal with people who read the Bible, use its texts, claim it to be the Word of God, but don’t see Jesus as the Messiah. Sometimes people say that the Jews and the Christians make no sense because they use the same Book but don’t believe the same things. It does sound as if again you can interpret the Bible in many different ways and there’s no ultimate truth. People can easily think that. BUT. Jesus says that one can read and preach and teach the Bible and think to be on the right path. As long as one doesn’t believe in Jesus as Messiah and God, that’s wrong thinking.

Any religiosity and piety means nothing without Jesus as your Savior, Jesus, Son of God.

La Gare Centrale

Two situations happened to me yesterday. Both were somewhat similar, but my attitude was really different in each of them.

1. I worked from 10 to 5. We always stay an hour or so after the store closes to clean up and etc. It was 6:30 and we were done, standing around waiting for our supervisor to get out of her office and lock up and let us leave. We waited until 7:15. The supervisor was doing some paper work and we had to wait for her.

2. I picked up my friend from the train station and her train was supposed to get to Montréal at 11:55pm. It was delayed and delayed again. Finally she arrived around 12:50am.

In both situations I had to wait. But my attitude was very different. In situation 1 I got frustrated. Why did we had to wait so long, locked up in the building, waiting for the supervisor to be done some paper work? I didn’t feel it was right. I had no clue when we’d be able to leave and I wanted to leave. In situation 2, the board was telling us the departure times and the arrival times, so I was told when I should start to “hope” for my friend to come. I didn’t mind to wait a whole hour for her, I didn’t get frustrated or upset. I just sat there and read.

At the train station I liked to look at the people. A certain lady was obviously upset because the train was delayed. She was walking all around, moving quickly and sighing. She tried to find comfort in talking about the situation to some strangers. A family was getting their camera ready to catch the first sights of their daughter. They were ready and waited in expectation. And there was me. Watching them. I wondered about the coming of Jesus Christ. I was reading about it actually and as I looked around, I realized that people were waiting for loved ones. Now what’s my atitude when it comes to wait for Christ to return? Am I frustrated? Am I getting my camera ready? Am I joyfully expecting Him? Hmmm.

Why oh Why

I taught ESL today.

One of my students arrived quite early so it gave us the opportunity to chat a little bit. To me, she appears to be the most “religious” one. Simply by the way she dresses and the way she talks about God, calling Him “Le Dieu” (The God). I asked her what she does during the week and it led us to a conversation about the Koran. She took a little booklet that contained portions of the Koran and she started to explain to me how she was trying to memorize the entire Koran. We kept talking about the different stories in her little booklet. Obviously, I couldn’t read anything since it was in Arabic, but she told me a few stories about Moses that I found interesting but that was it. Stories that I had never heard before. Some other stories were found in the Bible though. All the “new” stories she told me about Moses sounded like they could be found in a religious book, but really, the God who led Moses here and there and did this and that in the stories, did not remind me of the God of the Bible. So anyways, we had good little conversations about the Koran and my student seemed to be really happy to explain everything to me. I was asking questions and such, but really THE question I wanted to ask her what the following: “Those are interesting sroties but how do you know they’re true?” I’m sure she has an answer, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be an answer for me.

After class when I got into the metro, one of my students happened to sit in the same wagon as me. We usually take the bus together, but it was the first time I saw a student in the metro. So I changed places and sat beside her. We talked for the whole time until she had to get out. She’s the one that’s been on my heart for a while now. And when she left I told God, “Why, oh Why!” Why do I love these ladies so much, why do I want them to know that their Creator loves them so much? Why do I keep having windows open here and there to talk one-on-one with this one lady who seems to be opened to me? Doesn’t God see that there’s so little time left until the classes are over? Doesn’t God see that I don’t know how nor when to speak about Him to them? I’m tired of nodding and keeping my questions and comments to myself. The “religious” lady asked me today “You won’t forget us eh….?” when we talked about our last classes. I told her I could not forget them. Why do they want me to remember them? Why oh why.

Funny fact: At break, we had no coffee ready (ooops) so I took out all the different kinds of juices I found in the fridge. I even took the grape juice out. Well, I think it was like concentrated or something, it wasn’t good at all. BUT some of the ladies took some. Everybody knows that if you find grape juice in a church’s fridge, this juice is used for taking the communion. So some of these ladies will have stood in a baptistery and would have drank grape juice used for communion. Funny funny! Well, we all know that standing in a baptistery or drinking from the church grape juice won’t make you into a Christian or make you any different, but I think it’s funny to think about it.

honored - à la fromage.

Tranche de vie / Life Slice

So today around 4:20 I finished my last little test on the computer at Value Village. My result was automatically printed, I got up and brought the sheet to my supervisor. Actually, I wasn’t sure if the lady who’s been around me all the time was my actual supervisor, so I came to her and asked “Are you my supervisor?” and so she was. So we sat down in the office to check my test and then she got up and found a box with little golden pins. She took one and gave it to me as she explained that since I was done with the theory and succeeded, I had this special pin. I couldn’t help but smile, because it felt so cheesy. I asked her how long I was to wear it. She said I could wear it for a day or for as long as I wished. I think I’ll keep it on my little “apron” for the whole entire time I work at Value Village.

I was helping a co-worker and talking about my time at Bible School. We talked about the different denominations and she asked, “Do you believe in the Holy Spirit?” I said, “Yeah, God is Three in One”. She told me that all that counted was to believe in the Holy Spirit, that you were fine if you did. Hmm. I had to serve a customer and then went away doing other things, but I wonder what she meant. I’ll have to ask her sometime.

Well I hope you have a good day. Please beware, I’ll probably be venting out and telling about work this summer. Although, I want to make it a point that work does not become my life.

2 days in Canada

Hey.

So tonight I was pretty tired. Not that I worked a lot in the afternoon, but it’s just the fact of starting a new job that is somewhat stressful. THE thing that really made me feel lost was this situation:

On Sunday, my supervisor asked me twice if I preferred speaking English. I told her I didn’t mind but that French was probably better since it’s my mother tongue. I thought that the lady maybe felt better speaking English, I had no clue. So today, at the end of my shift, my supervisor said to me, “I feel that you don’t understand me when I speak to you in French.” My lower jaw was ready to fall to the floor. I seriously think there is a problem here. Then I told her again that I understood French perfectly: “It’s my first language!” So I told her, I don’t mind speaking English, it’s all up to you, if you feel more comfortable in English, then please, use that language. She told me she was better in French then in English. And then, she started speaking English to me. I kept answering in French, I couldn’t hide my smile. I just thought it was non-sense!

Tonight was the GBUC again. I really did not feel like going, I was just tired. But eh, I still left at 6:30. While I was waiting at metro station a guy came to me and asked me if he was on the right line. And yes, he was on the right line. We then started to chat and he told me that he had just moved to Canada from Irak and today was his second day in the country! Crazy. He told me he was living at a Catholic church for now, we talked about the three main religions in Irak and how the Christians are treated in his country. So anyways, we kept chatting in the metro until I had to get out. What’s neat is that I had the opportunity to tell him that I was a Christian and I was going to a Christian meeting with university people. He asked me if he could go to church with me sometime, like tomorrow. Was I to say no? C’mon. So I left him my phone number and we’ll see if he calls. I thought it was just a neat little opportunity. He told me he has almost become a Christian because he sees how Christians respect eachother…. interesting.

Please, do not worry about me! I can easily picture my mom telling me I shouldn’t leave my phone number to strangers or trust people or even worse: meet up with them! I simply could not refuse to bring him to church, c’mon. I think that if we ever go to church together, I’ll try to bring a friend with me. So you can pray for him. I don’t remember his name, it sounded way to Arabic to my ears, but pray for him.

a few random things

Saturday my two roomies-to-be and I went paint shopping. We sort of knew what we wanted for colors, but you know how they have hundreds of shades of the same color… yeah. So it took a little while. I really didn’t know what color to paint my room and I felt like leaving it white. It’d be cheaper! But we already had a 45% off on our paint and the landlord is going to pay with us so my roomies pushed me to paint my room. I seriously didn’t care about the paint color so I told them we should take the left over from the different colors we’re using for the different rooms (we’ve got… 4 different colors in all) in MY room. Esther had the idea of painting STRIPES! So depending on how much paint will be left and what color, my room will have white, blue, green, yellow and orange stipes… Very colorful eh.

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Saturday night I went to my dad’s church to bring something there. When I came back the metro stopped at Villa-Maria and wouldn’t leave the station anymore. There was an accident on the orange line somewhere. After three different messages, the actual operator took the mic and told us to “Allez en surface, évacuez” (Go ‘in surface’, evacuate). Ok then. Dozens and dozens and dozens of people evacuated (is that a word?) the metro station and we all waited in line for bus 24 that was going to lead us… somewhere. Finally the bus came and it was packed. It was not going in the direction I needed to go, but eh there was nothing else I could do for a free ride. When we were around McGill metro I recognized the area and so got out and took te metro from there to St-Henri. Oh by that time, the metro was working again. So instead of getting home in 30 minutes, it took about 1:30.

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Hello! So here’s my new tag.

You can imagine how proud I am to wear it.

Today I spent my first four hours at Value Village. I read stuff for about two hours and then I helped out putting clothes on hangers. Very fun I must say. Hmm. I’m being sarcastic here. Oh yeah, did I tell you? I work at Value Village now. I don’t like to say that. It sounds too… humble. People are all very nice to me. I’m looking forward to the time I’ll know how everything works though.

the BAPTISTERY

To be honest I had no clue what was the translation for “baptistère” in English. Viva Interneta. Anyways I found myself in a baptistery today. I mean, literally.

I taught English this afternoon and it was pretty warm on the second floor of the church. So I said to the ladies that the church should have a swimming pool somewhere outside. Then I told them as a joke, that we could use the baptistery. I am so funny you see… So they asked me if they could check it out (not for swimming of course). At the break we went across the hallway and I opened the door marked “Private”. We found ourselves into a narrow but pretty wide room. In the middle was the baptistery. They were pretty impressed. I told them it was not a “holy” place or anything like that and I went down the stairs explaining to them about how they filled it and etc. A lady realized that they actually used tap water, so she said, “So they bless the water after it’s filled?” I told them that the water was not blessed and pointed out that in the Bible, people got baptized in lakes, rivers or anywhere they found water and the water was obviously not “blessed” itself or by anyone. I told them that there was nothing magic with baptism. That it was simply a symbol of the old life without Christ being “buried” and then the new life with Christ, that it was a public demonstration of one’s desire to follow Christ. The water did not save or purify from anything. They asked me how they did baptism with babies. I explained to them that we believed that the decision to follow Christ had to be taken by the person herself, a baby cannot make that kind of decision, it had to come from the heart. A lady asked me how they actually baptise, she thought that people simply had to walk from one side of the baptistery to the other. So I explained, they were really interested.

At the end, we were all standing in the empty baptistery. I thought that it was an interesting picture. It’s break time from learning English, the ESOL teacher and her Muslim students are standing in an empty baptistery, discussing about baptism according to the Bible.

At the end, ladies said stuff like:

1. Every religion brings good things to people.

2. I think that we would have all killed ourselves without religions.

3. Faith is important. It gives you something to hang on when you have nothing else.

What did I reply? Hmmm. Nothing, I simply smiled and nodded. I never have much imagination you see so I didn’t know what was proper for me to say. But obviously, all these statements are altogether wrong or in need to be more detailed. Many religions bring good things to people, otherwise, they wouldn’t follow any. But these good things are good things according to this world and usually won’t pass through God’s refining fire. Now I don’t know what the lady meant by statement number two. Although… many religions and sects have killed their members (literally) and all of them kill them spiritually. So, I don’t know. Number three… it’s true. But it really depend on something: what is it or who is it that you put your faith in? What’s the object of your faith. Because if it’s in the wrong thing or person, then your faith is totally useless since that thing or person has no power.

So anyways. I thank God for the opportunity to speak about baptism, IN the baptisery to Muslim ladies.

Poverty?

Tonight was the GBUC d’été (university and cegep people getting together for singing, fellowship, discussions, bible studies…) anyways, tonight we talked about the issue of poverty here in Québec, well more here in Montréal and a wee bit on poverty in the rest of the world.

We had some good discussions about poverty, what it means, the reasons for it and such. I relunctantly wrote “good” discussions because to me it was not so good. From a non-Christian point of view, we probably had good discussions. But from a Christian point of view, I really wonder how good our time was. I mean, everything we talked about was “good” but we didn’t talk about the real reason for poverty: it’s a spiritual problem, well that’s what I believe. Apart for a few comments in te beginning, we did not talk about what Christians are called to do about poverty in our neighborhoods, in the world. We didn’t talk about God’s first goal: to bring glory to Himself and free people from sin’s curse. The solutions that were given us were good and praiseworthy, but I’m afrid that too often, we work hard on providing for physical needs of the poor while what they truly need is peace with God. It is true that when someone’s dying of thirst, we should give him some water and not start telling the person about the Gospel. We all know that.

Anyways, I was sad that we as Christians did not talk about the greatest need of human beings, salvation in Jesus Christ. I know that our discussions were not on “spiritual” poverty but it seems to me that we can’t put the Gospel on one side and feeding the hungry on the other (as Christians) we’re all seeking the Kingdom of God, and this means obedience to God, this means helping the widow and the fatherless, this means telling people about Christ. I don’t know if you understand my point of view, but Christians’ motivation for helping people and being good should always be based on a desire to see God’s standards be applied and to spread the Good News. I just thought that our motivation in talking about poverty was simply to do something about it, learn how we can help, that’s humanistic motivations. It didn’t seem that we talked about poverty because we longed to see God glorified and people saved.

I think that there is a danger that our good intentions to help the poor become what it is: good intentions. A lot of missionary agencies in the past, were implanted in many countries, to help the poor, provide schools and hospitals. All these things were good, but the thing is that overtime, these missionaries’ first focus was not to bring the Gospel anymore, but simply to help the poor and provide education. I think it is more than important that our actions to help the poor be motivated with Jesus’ motivations and be salted with the Gospel. That it’d be in our hearts to see people coming to Christ.

Ah, and I have so much to say about thhe way we view poverty here and our responsibility to our brothers and sisters in the East! We should help the poor at home first, this is true, don’t take me wrong. But anyways, if you were at the GBUC meeting you probably think I got it all wrong. Please let me know how you think and how I can clarify to you what I believe.

Ok, if you were at the GBUC meeting, please know that I, by no means, think anything bad about you, I seriously don’t! But I just think that it’s sort of ironic that after talking about poverty, the usual “let’s go for coffee” was out. I felt like telling people that we should put aside the money we would have used for a coffee and help someone in need with it. But as usual, I didn’t say a word.

Apart from that, the little ice-breaker was a lot of fun. (…) And I hear a voice saying inside of Jess’ head “Ya right Gabe”.

There’s a sort of lighting that I don’t like. Like the one in the room right now.

There’s a lot on my mind right now. I shut the door of the church building tonight after teaching ESL and I looked up to where people wait for the bus and recognized some ladies standing there with their heads covered and wearing thick clothes as if it was late november. So I got into the bus with some of the ladies I teach ESL to. One of them turned to me and told how she enjoyed our classes because she felt relaxed and it was good for her to get out and do stuff with people. She told me she was having some trouble with a divorce that had just came as a big “surprise” into her life. She’s kinda young too, so it sadened me. Then she told me she lives in a 1 1/2 and doesn’t work, she told me how sometimes she feels alone (those are my words). I was really sad to hear that.

What makes me even more sad is that I have hope that she has no idea of, but I can’t use the Bible in class anymore. I don’t know how to tell her, tell them that there is hope, not in this life, not in people, but in Jesus. I feel like I’d like to be more than a mere teacher for these ladies. When I was at university this years, I often felt like, “Hey, I like this teacher, I wish we’d be friends.” I just like people sometimes. And I feel that I’m doing the same thing with my students, I’m just being a nice teacher. But I wonder if some students would like to be friends with me. Not like tight or whatever, but just be there to share their ups and downs. That’s just something I feel strongly about. I see most of them as lost sheep in need of someone to listen and encourage them.

Why do I care so much about these ladies that are so different from me? I hate this expression, butit is true right now: I can’t help it.