PJ Spencer Just another weblog Bonjour touts le monde,
Wow what a first couple of weeks this has been. As most of you know I am in Canada now studying French. The process it took to get here was a story in itself (with all the paperwork and things like that.) God is good and as of last Friday the last piece of paperwork was finalized and I am now set to be here for a year. I came up the 3rd and as soon as I crossed the border I saw all the signs were in kilometers. My car only has a few marks on the speedometer for kilometers and none of them were the ones that were on the road signs. I am sure I must have broken the speed limit a couple of times. Oops. When I got to Sherbrooke (which is the city I am in) I drove around for at least an hour trying to find the French school. The road signs and signals have different meanings so I am sure I broke some more rules. I finally got to Parole de Vie (Word of Life). It is a great school where most of the staff here are missionaries themselves. The first day was testing to see where I was going to be placed. After the test results they said my speaking and comprehension was on an intermediate level but my grammar and spelling was that of a beginner. They placed me in intermediate but I had to do some catching up on grammar. The classes are small so that helps when a certain “person” needs help. The school also has bible school for French speakers in Quebec. Most of them are teenagers. I eat lunch with them in the dining hall and hang out with them in the lounge so that is a help to my French.
After getting settled in my apartment I went to town to do some shopping. It is so weird here because you see a modern US looking city but when people talk to you it sounds funny. I find myself thinking why they don’t just speak English. After finding the grocery store (another long story of one way streets) and going inside I was literally hit with culture shock. People in the store would bump your cart to let you know that you needed to move faster. Trying to read labels in French at the same time makes you kind of flustered. In the end I ended up with a lot of ground pork instead of hamburger. When I went to check out all the “checkout lines” (if you can call them that) were backed up. On top of that you had to bag your own groceries. I have never bagged groceries before and I had a lot of them. I knew it was going to take a long time . God must have seen my predicament and made me the last person to go through that check out. It took me long time to bag my groceries but nobody was pushing me.
I am so excited to be here knowing that this is the last step in getting to Guinea. I know that the time will pass by quickly. Thank you for your partnership with me in prayer and support in reaching the people of Guinea. Someday soon I will be writing from Guinea telling more stories of God’s goodness. I will try to keep you updated as much as possible but the emails probably won’t be this long. Below is my address. You just send mail to the school with my name on it and they will put it in my box. Another thing too is that my cell phone does not work up here so if I get a phone I will let you know the number. God bless.
In Christ
P.J. Spencer
