If you are the slavishly devoted follower of this blog that you SHOULD be, then you remember that one of our sojourns last year was in Saguenay, Quebec. We returned this year to continue to help Jean and Anne Grenier and the church there to complete work on the old barn ---> diesel mechanic's shop ---> Saguenay Church of Christ building conversion project.
Irene had really wanted to return to spend some time edifying Anne. This would include L-O-T-S of beading. Anne loved it when she and Irene did it last year, so a "deja vue experience" (how about that - a little French Lingo in the midst of this French Quebec sojourn report) was in order. So, last October we signed up to head the sojourn once again.
It ended up that Irene and I were the ONLY sojourners that signed up for the sojourn. Theoretically, we could have "called it off" for "lack of workers", but we felt that Jean and Anne really needed the emotional support of knowing we wanted to come to visit them again. Obviously, with the lack of workers, we knew that a great deal couldn't be accomplished work-wise on the sojourn. So we made it our aim to be more "supportive" of the Greniers and the church.
When we arrived we were happily surprised to see how much had been accomplished in the last year and how close they were to being completed. Praise the Lord! Jean's brother, Yves (pronounce EVE), is a private general contractor and he had spent a great deal of time there over the last year. They had also had a large group (over 20) that had come from one of the churches that supports Jean to help for about 2 weeks earlier in the summer. Another group had also come up to help from another church.
So, we will be the FINAL group of sojourners that goes to help the Church of Christ in Saguenay, Quebec transform and old barn into a wonderful meeting place for the church to gather and worship the Lord as they edify, exhort, teach and admonish each other in songs, hymns and spiritual songs; pray together; gather together to remember the sacrifice of Jesus by partaking of the Lord's Supper; Receive an exhortation through the preaching of the word and Gather an offering to reach out into the world with the saving gospel of Christ. This realization is a little bittersweet. Kind of like knowing you are raising your children to not need you anymore. At the time you long for the day that it occurs -- but you loath it when it is upon you.
For the record - Irene did a great deal of paint scraping and wood staining on the sojourn. For some reason some of the paint that had been applied by the ladies last year (Sue Hughes, Lineta Grimes and Irene) didn't adhere as advertised. So this year on about 8 panels, Irene had to scrap off the paint to prepare it for repainting. Also, on the front of building she stained many of the wood planks to give them more "pop" - so they all didn't look exactly alike.
Since both of her tasks were outdoors, they were weather dependent. Unfortunately (or REALLY, REALLY fortunately if you want to do a bunch of beading, too), it was very rainy during the sojourn. In the 10 days of the sojourn we only had 2 or 3 days were it didn't rain at least sometime during the day (often in the afternoon and into the night). So, Irene and Anne had a lot of beading time on their hands which they were MORE than willing to fill. Also, one of the other sister's in the congregation Corinne came over and beaded two days also. Heck, even her two sons - Raphael and Matthew - got into the act and really enjoyed it. Yves 11 year old daughter Lilyrose was with him also, so she got to learn to bead.
And what was poor, little old Jim (sniff, sniff) doing while Irene was knee deep in beads? Well, my part of the work wasn't weather dependent! In fact, they had tasks to do if it was nice outside (get the windows installed in Jean's office area and install the steel on the back of the building) and tasks to accomplish if it was raining outside (frame out the windows inside and insulate and frame out the area around the door that had been installed to the outside from Jean's office).
On the spiritual side of things the MOST significant thing that occurred on the sojourn was Irene teaching a class for the children (Raphael, Matthew and Lilyrose) the Sunday during the sojourn. Anne and Jean Phillipe (Jean and Anne's 17 year old son) translated and helped teach the class also. She taught the VBS lesson on John the Baptist and his baptism of Jesus. She also has left the other 4 VBS lessons and crafts (Ruth, Mary, Paul and Silas in Philippi and Jesus) there for them to continue to teach the kids. For my part, I preached the Sunday during the Sojourn - The Christian and the Word of God Powerpoint presentation that I've made, which I had "translated" into French. To translate it I used the French Geneva Bible from my Accordance software on my computer for the verses and Google's English to French translator on the internet for the questions. Then I had Jean Phillipe make the necessary corrections to the Google Translator. As I preached that Sunday, Jean translated into French.
We also had the blessing of visiting in the home of Daniel and Corinne and their sons the Sunday afternoon of the sojourn. It was a lovely visit.
We have now bid "au revoir" to Saguenay and Quebec, if it is for the final time since they will not need another sojourn to help finish the building, only God knows, but for now I am putting my non-existent French dictionary and phrase book back on the shelf.
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