Canada- Week 1

We've completed our first week in Canada and it has been one very full and exhausting week. Overall, we love our new city and we are delighted that we get to spend the next 3 months here. It is an amazingly beautiful place and our neighborhood is perfect for our family. We are excited to see how the Lord will use our family during our time here. I thought I'd take a minute and share about our first week.

We flew out of Raleigh EARLY on Monday. With 17 pieces of checked luggage, we wanted to make sure that we had plenty of time to get settled. I was worried because I knew that several of our suitcases were right at the weight limit, and I really didn't want to pay any overage fees. Thankfully, Ryan had checked in on the computer and then we met a nice American Airlines employee at the curb who took all of our bags and they didn't even have to be weighed. We couldn't believe how smoothly our check-in, security, and customs processes went. I truly believe it was the many prayers so many of you prayed on our behalf!

Ready for take-off!

The plane ride went smoothly, except for the fact that we were famished when we finally arrived. I hadn't packed enough snacks, thinking we would have time to pick up lunch during our transfer in Dallas. But, we ended up having to do a really quick transfer and so lunch didn't work out. American Airlines doesn't serve pretzels or any other complementary snacks, so we were incredibly hungry when we landed. By the time we finally ate, it had been about 10 hours since our modest breakfast. We were all about to come unglued. Lesson learned, we'll have plenty for the next plane ride!

After we scouted out a Burger King in the airport, it was time to find our way home. The representatives from our training organization took most of our luggage, but we had to make our way home on public transit with one piece each. This went fine during the Skytrain ride, but when we transferred to the bus, things got crazy. It was standing room only on the bus, we had an exhausted preschooler, 7 pieces of luggage, and we had no idea where we were going. We missed our bus stop because we didn't know that we needed to pull the "stop" cord, so we ended up walking farther to our home than we should have.

We were pleasantly surprised by our house. It is perfect for us. It has adequate space, more than we've had since moving out of our house 9 months ago. We are only 2 blocks from a grocery and a dollar store. We are just a few blocks from a Pizza Hut, McDonalds, several local restaurants, a nice library, and a large park that has a year round, indoor swimming pool and fitness center. It's going to be a great area for us to build community over the next few months.

This is our new living room. Those of you who know my husband well know that he's loving the plywood over the fireplace. Mr. HGTV will find a solution for it soon, I feel confident!

Abe, finding a way to entertain himself as we unpack.

We had orientation this week which included 2 days of information regarding logistics, expectations, and getting to know the other folks in the program. The third day, we spent prayer walking in our assigned section of the city. Each family is given a section of the city, called a 7x7, that includes the area where we live as well as some commercial, residential, and community type locations that will be where we will focus our energy during our time here. As we learn different strategies, we will focus on applying them in our 7x7. This is where we hope to build relationships and attempt to push back the darkness that is so evident in our city.

Day 4 was so much fun! We were split into 6 teams and sent out on a scavenger hunt of our city. Spouses weren't allowed to be on the same team, so I had a great time dashing across the city with three other ladies. We saw some really great places that I can't wait to go back to and savor when we're not racing. Our team didn't win, but we sure had fun. Second place didn't seem too bad, since it was actually Ryan's team that beat us!

Our team in front of the Olympic Cauldron

One of the items we had to find was an octopus. This counts, doesn't it?

Do you see why I'm in love with this place? Breathtaking!

This picture is a common sight in our new world. This city is so diverse, with over 200 languages spoken. There are huge populations of Asians and South Asians all over the city. It truly is a cultural mosaic!

Today, we were assigned a church to attend from either our people group or a near people group. Ours was over an hour away and the pastor of our church is actually from the country that will be our home in West Africa. I don't know that the service was much like what we could expect in our host country, but we enjoyed meeting some folks and hearing English spoken with the beautiful accent that will soon be a part of our everyday interactions. The service didn't start until 3:00 in the afternoon, which meant we got to sleep in a bit today.

One thing that I have not enjoyed about our time here is grocery shopping! Of course, the fact that we're establishing a pantry totally from scratch for the first time in 16 years has complicated the whole thing. I've been thinking about what it is that it wears me out so much and I think I've boiled it down to 3 things.

First, it is so expensive. I mean, CrAzY expensive! I had been warned and I even know that our company will help us compensate for the cost of living here, but that doesn't make it any easier for me to think through whether or not I should actually pay $20 for 5 chicken breasts. I mean, couldn't we just go without chicken for the next 3 months? Even though that's basically the main ingredient I have cooked with for the last 10 years?

Secondly, they carry different things here. My standard items may or may not be available and if they are they may or may not look like what I'm used to. Everything involves reading, thinking, and comparing. I came to the realization last night that I have to memorize some conversions from kilograms to pounds before I go out again.

The third reason why I find it so exhausting is the whole public transit thing. To go grocery shopping, we have to walk to the bus stop, ride a bus with our empty bags and carts, then we have to walk across the shopping center, do the shopping, fill up our bags and carts, and then walk back across the shopping center to the bus bay, get all of the groceries on the bus, get off of the bus, walk the rest of the way home, and put them all away. Of course, we could go to the store that's around the corner, but the cost is really only reasonable for the items that are in their sale flyer, so that's not practical for the bulk shopping that our family requires. And yes, for those of you who are going to point it out, I do realize that this is nothing compared to the culture shock I'll face when we get to our final destination!

Here we are on our morning bus ride. We've discovered that if we ride the bus all the way to school, rather than transferring onto the Skytrain, it takes a little longer, but there is no crowd. So, when we have time, we ride all of the way there on the bus.

You can tell by the windows, it's a cool and rainy morning- our new normal!

This week, we'll start to settle into a pattern that will resemble the "normal" for our family these next few months. We'll go to class four days a week from 9-12:30. In the afternoons or evenings we will have application and engagement assignments to help us apply all that we're learning. The kids are schooled during the morning class time and then they can be involved with our work after class.

We're so thankful to be here and we can't wait to see what we're going to learn while we're here.