Final Thoughts from Pat and Elaine

Our final thoughts were recorded at Montreal Trudeau airport during our layover.

His Words:



Her Words:

Thoughts on Amsterdam

It feels like the week came by and went. I can still remember stepping off the bus and coming to the church that morning ready to play worship and beginning our mission's trip. I'm left shocked how much God's love and prayers are needed for this church. The need for a role model is huge. The people there are so awesome, and open to talk. I wish I had a bit more time to chat with them.

We had a chance to do workshop/study on worship which may have been to advance for the fellowship. The feedback from the older members was that we needed to interact more with audience. A very humbling but true assessment. More than anything else, they need someone who cares for them. Something I'm not the greatest at. Even thought I felt I did everything I could, I'm left with a rather bittersweet feeling. I'll probably get over it, but for now it feels as if I have unfinished business here.

It's amazing how quickly and glaring your weaknesses and inexperience shows up when you're put on the spot. Equally amazing is how everything has changed from this experience. It's been a wild ride that I'll never forget.

Day 2 at St Maur - is this what rejection feels like?

I understood Pastor Nguyen correctly. Today I did something that I never thought I would do: stand at the corner of the Metro and hand out Christian literature. I survived! It's not nearly as frightening as I expected.

The background:
The St Maur church is reaching out to the chinese community by inviting people to come to the church for one night to watch a chinese film made by actors/actresses who became Christians. The film has a Christian message to it.

The task:
Hand out the Chinese Christian newspaper with the film invitation to restaurants owners and Chinese students on the univeristy campus and around the metro in 28 C weather.

The audience:
Mandarin speakers, or people who can read chinese (there aren't too many cantonese speaking people)

First of all, I had to identify the asian looking people. I then had to approach them to figure out if they speak mandarin. I learned how to say "Hello, I'm giving you this newspaper for you to read" in Mandarin. I can barely speak cantonese, let alone mandarin. I felt myself hoping that the person can speak french. Second of all, I need to learn to detect if the person is Chinese. I approached a Korean by accident and a few second generation people who can't read! What I noticed is that the females tend to be more receptive, asking questions, and just being polite enough to listen. The restaurant owners recognized the pastor because I guess he comes by often to invite them to church events. The Pastor indicated to me that perseverance is key with the restaurant owners. If they get used to you coming by, and one day you stop coming by, they will start missing you.

Sure we got a few rejections of people saying that they don't want our stuff. I even found one of our newspapers in the garbage outside of the metro. However, this was surprisingly easier to do than I expected. Is this why God placed me in sales.... to train for this: approach strangers and handle rejection?

I asked the pastor if he is open to having more people come for short term missions and he said Oui! (YES!). Here are the needs:
1. He needs a few people to come for max 10 days to teach the 2nd generation how to lead worship (Only need to know how to speak french and english)
2. He needs someone to look after the 2nd generation full time - long term, for a French Service (need to know French)
3. Likes the idea of exchange of ideas, observation, and stuff so a group of maximum 7 people for a max of 10 days (kind of what I am doing right now - you learn from them, they learn from us)
4. They need mandarin speaking pastors full time, long term and a lot of the churches in Paris

At this point, St Maur church is really looking for people to disciple the second generation.

That's it for me. Tonight I'm heading out to Montparnasse with the locals.

Day 1 at St Maur Church with Pastor Nguyen - observation

Today I went to St Maur church strictly for observation. I arrived and there is a group of old people that meet to study Purpose Driven Life at 11 am. I like watching their interaction because people are speaking in french, cantonese, mandarin and cambodian and they're all joking around together.

We started off by singing two worship songs in mandarin. Then Pastor Nguyen did a lesson from PDL. Afterwards, the old people went to the sanctuary to do some exercise. Afterwards, we all proceeded to have lunch together, followed by a walk outside along the water. When they came back, it was time for tea and biscuits. Then we went back to the sanctuary to watch Showers of Blessings. We again returned for fruit snack and finally everyone went home. All in all, it lasted from 11 am until 3 pm. I love it. They interact like they are a family.

I asked the Pastor how all of this came about because I think it is a genius idea to target the seniors during the weekdays. It turns out that they have a goal to create a retirement home targeted at the chinese seniors. Unlike Toronto, there are no retirements homes strictly for the chinese community, despite the fact that there is a 500 000 chinese community in Paris. Another way that they are reaching out to the community is that they hold a chinese school on wednesdays where they teach mandarin (the kids don't have regular school on wednesdays).

For those of you who went to the conference, a few of the ladies left cambodia during the dark days and refuse to go back.

I spoke to Pastor Nguyen and he told me that the challenge that him and other Pastors face in Europe is that they experience "baptism by fire". That is, as soon as they finish seminary school, they thrown into the deep end without any internship. So basically, you finish your schooling, and then you are handed a church to pastor on your own, eventhough you have absolutely no experience in pastoring a church. It's quite daunting if your only background in working is restaurant or business.

Tomorrow, I think if I understood his French, we are going to be handing out pamphlets and literature at the university? I'm getting sick. Throat is sore, nose is runny............

Completed my assignment at 13th district church

For the past two days, I`ve been helping Pastor Ho with the church library. The background of the church is that it is located in Chinatown. Every week they receive around 80 to 110 people for their service. Languages spoken by those who attend are Mandarin and Cantonese. I learned that the challenges facing the Paris Chinese churches are the cultural differences: Although we all speak the same language, some of the chinese come from Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, China and Hong Kong. Also, there is a lack of `brothers and sisters willing to step up` within the church so the Pastor ends up doing EVERYTHING. In Pastor Ho`s case, the church library has been neglected in that the books are not in order and new books have not been properly labelled and placed onto the shelves. No one manages the church library. Finally, there are a lack of pastors for the Chinese churches. Apparently there are a lot of churches without pastors so the pastors end up preparing multiple sermons and travelling to different services. They seriously lack mandarin speaking pastors. So what you have are cantonese speaking pastors trying to preach in mandarin.

For the past two days, I would show up at the 13ieme arrondisments and rearrange the books or label the books for a few hours and then I had the rest of the day to do sightseeing. Another interesting thing is that I found out that Pastor Ho used to be a restaurant worker and then he saw the need for a Pastor and so he decided to study to become a pastor. He has now been a pastor for 5 years.

Tomorrow, I am off to helping Pastor Nguyen at St Maur church for Thursday and Friday.

I don`t want to return to normal life.

Hej from Stockholm, Sweden !

( For you non-Swedes, "Hej" is pronounced "Hey" and means "Hello" in Swedish! )

Felix & I arrived safely & soundly in Stockholm on Monday night with the rest of our team. Alas, the rain from our days in Paris followed us too! However, today it is the complete opposite - sunny, bright & breezy. Praise God for His beautiful creation!

It's completely gorgeous where we are staying. We're at a youth hostel that started in the 16th century as a farming community, turned into a Christian summer camp retreat site owned by the church and then sold to the city to become the hostel it is today. We're right next to the waterfront! It's a complete change from the hustle & bustle of the urban landscape of Paris.

We've all gotten a chance to SLEEP (as in sleeping in :D), rest, relax and be refreshed by the surrounding nature and each other's presence. We bought groceries from the nearby grocery store - the Swedish language never ceases to amuse me. Everything seems expensive because Swedish Kroner is the Canadian Dollar times SIX! Then we cooked (actually, more as in Head Chef Ray cooked) a satisfying dinner of spaghetti, soup and salad.

Please keep Felix in your prayers as he was feeling the onslaught of a nasty cold last night. Please keep me in your prayers as I found out that the Bible study I'll be co-leading is being advertised as in CANTONESE. (Eek!) Please keep the rest of our team in prayer as we keep learning about each other and about the Swedish-Chinese church here, as well as the youth ministry led by Pastor Billy Lo.

The key word of this missions trip is FLEXIBILITY.

We're going on a prayer walk today! Should be interesting. :)

Thank God for this experience

Hey~Ya, I haven't been posting in this blog and this is my very first time. Finally I get to go online, and able to update my part of the trip. It has been really blessed for me to be able to come to this mission conference. I have been meeting many devoted young people who are passionate about God. Through seeing them serve, talking to them, I really open my eyes and given me great strength to continue my path in serving Him, and giving my life to Him. I really appreciate the French church for their hospitality, their warmth, enthusiasm and they are so alive. U can see their "FIRE" burning~~~~ I also enjoy talking to other people who comes from other parts of the world, we are all so young and they are already have such a heart for the Lord. The conference was great, and Pastor Thomas Chan sermons on the book of Daniel is inspiring.

I have just arrived to London yesterday, and will be joining the local church @ Harrow "London Chinese Alliance Church" and participate in their ministry. Anyhow, I''ll tell u more next time. Here are some of our wonderful pictures in Paris.