Almost Over...

Sadly I only have 8 more days left.  I know I've said this multiple times already, but I am really thankful to the Lord for placing me in Montreal at this point of my life.  My experience here has been so precious.  Over these past four months, I've never felt so nourished, cherished, and supplied from the Lord and all the saints.

The Lord has been showing me more of His heart's desire, which is to gain the church as His Bride, which is also His Body.  In the Body-life, we cannot live as individuals.  We need the vertical fellowship with the Lord, and the horizontal fellowship with all the brothers and sisters.  Our experience of the Lord will be limited as an individual.  But as Ephesians 3:18 says, "may be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints what the breadth and length and height and depth are."  Our Christ is so vast and immeasurable that we need one another to enter into a deeper and higher experience and enjoyment of Him.  I believe this verse sums up my experience here quite well.  My being immersed into the churchlife and living with the brothers afforded many opportunities to know and love more of this wonderful Christ.

I've finished 2 exams and I have 2 more left.  I'm still studying as hard as I did in Vancouver, but thankfully I'm not as stressed.  The Lord is the best study buddy I can have, and being with the saints in the meetings is one my favourite types of study breaks!!  

I am looking forward to seeing some of you at the winter training and back in Vancouver!!  Enjoy some of my photos:

My last night with Ethan in the brothers' house.  I will miss his piano playing!!
He is also the culprit who started this strange pose. 

A couple weekends ago, I took a bus to Toronto to visit one of my former vital companions, Timothy Chung!  He used to live in the brothers house in Montreal and he had a good reunion with Naifu and Joe through video chat.

My time in Toronto was short but very sweet.  The saints treated me for every meal.  After doing plenty of traveling this year, I wasn't that impressed with the city of Toronto itself..  But what I enjoyed the most about Toronto is being with the saints enjoying the Lord together!

Mayer, Jon, Moi, Timothy, and Mike.  Had a good time blending and fellowshipping with these bros from Toronto.

The following week, Jon decided to visit me in Montreal!  Here he is playing pingpong with some of the young people.  Yes, we have an official pingpong table in our meeting hall :D

Jon actually behaved quite well this weekend.   In Toronto, he spent 4 hours driving me around the city and I learned that he has a soft side.  We had plenty of good fellowship together!!

My spiritual grandparents in Montreal - the Pans!  I'm actually sleeping over at their place tonight because it is closer to campus and I have a final exam tomorrow.  They are so sweet!  Brother Pan is very active for his age.  He still does push ups and he has cooked me many meals this past semester. 

The brothers house invited ourselves to Allan Yeow's place last Lord's day night.  He has a son named Joshua.  Not sure if we should had taught him the Ethan pose..

A good night of fellowship sharing some of our testimonies!

Michelle!!

Frère Acheille!

Weekly love feasts after the Lord's table in Montreal.  17 years and counting.

Babies!

22 Days Left...

Hey everyone!  I have 22 days left in Montreal.  Here's what I've been up to recently:

One of the must-go-places in Montreal.  
Sidney and I took Vincent here for one of our weekly appointments

Loooong line ups to eat in store.   The take out line was a lot
shorter, so we took it to go and ate at Vincent's dorm

One sandwich like this cost $7.
The best sandwich I ever had!!  I had two of them

My sandwich and I with the famous Montreal brother's house pose :)

We bought Vincent a New and Old Testament Recovery version bible.   He was really happy to receive it!  He even asked us to write him a message inside the cover of his bible.  He is growing in the Lord and even asked us to pray for his family's salvation.

Afte eating our sandwiches, we had some sweet fellowship on the Word of God.  We enjoyed 2 Peter 1:21, that no prophesy was ever borne of man, but rather men spoke from God though the Holy Spirit!  And as we take in the Word by means of prayer, we receive God Himself because all scripture is God breathed (2 Tim 3:16).

Brother Achille's super cute 2 year old son named Yohan.  He is from France and only speaks French.  

Aaron and Phoebe's civil marriage!  We're going to miss Aaron in the brothers' house.  He gives us words of wisdom 

I told him to get into this pose

A very happy couple.  They are going to buy a house by the University of Montreal.  May the Lord bless this couple to be useful for His move in Montreal!

One of my favourite meetings in Montreal - the college meetings!! I'm going to miss these..

Joe, Ethan, myself, and Naifu shouting hallelujah!!

Last night together as a whole brothers' house.  Corporate living has taught me so much.  There were lots of opportunities for me to experience the cross :)  

Blending Trip to New York

11 saints from Montreal, 7 students and 4 serving ones.  Many of us testified that what we enjoyed the most in New York was just enjoying the Lord while we were together.  During our sight-seeing day, we stayed in the enjoyment by singing hymns on the streets, preaching the gospel, and reading the ministry book, "The Heavenly Vision."  We came to New York to see the REAL scenery, which is simply Christ and the church.

Beautiful skyline of New York from New Jersey,
which is directly across the Hudson River.
New York's skyline is about 10 times the size of Vancouver's

The same view at nighttime.  Absolutely amazing!
Which one do you like better?

Roommate Joe and I at the Apple Store

Caught a glimpse of the Statue of
Liberty on a ferry ride to Statin Island.
It lights up at night

My spiritual companion/housemate
Naifu and I at Times Square.
This place is always busy, even at 1am.

An almost perfect photo of me in Times Square,
minus a brother who walked in front of the camera :P

Naifu and I with the famous NYPD.
We preached the gospel to a few cops here

Times Sqaure again!  Minus that brother. haha

One point I recently enjoyed from our Morning Revival is that we are becoming the New Jerusalem.  Moreover, we enter into what we enjoy today.  The walls of the city are 'adorned with every precious stone' (Rev. 21:19).  One example of these stones is pearl, which is formed when sand particles lodges in the wound of the oyster, and the oyster secretes its life-juice around the sand to produce pearl.  The oyster represents Christ, who as the living One came into the death waters, and was wounded by our transgressions.  Through His death and resurrection, He could secrete His life over us to make us precious pearls for the building of God's eternal expression.

We must be those like Paul, who aspire to know the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death (Philippians 3:10).  To be produced as precious stones, we have to pass through a tremendous amount of pressure and heat.  This means that when difficult times come, the Lord does not want to take those situations away, but rather He wants to remain in the oyster so that he can secrete His life to us so that we can be transformed.

Midterm season is finally over and I have lots of free time to spend with the saints now.  I've attended the French home meetings/prayer meetings, Chinese home meetings and they have been great times of blending.  I still plan to visit Toronto before I leave to see my old spiritual companion Timothy Chung! 

As for my ankle, it is still swollen and is painful only when I do hard movements, especially jumping.  The doctor looked at my X-rays and found nothing wrong with my bones.  They suggested it could be  partially torn ligaments in my ankle joint, and that I get an MRI done.  Other than that, they said if it doesn't hurt throughout the day I don't need to worry about it and I can still continue with other light exercises.  Perhaps this could be a prayer request for me.  The doctor said it could be another 1-2 months before I am fully healed.  I am not really bothered by it, except for the fact that I really miss playing basketball and tennis.  Instead of playing on Fridays when I planned to, I join the full-timers coordination.

Thanks for reading and I miss you all.  Can't wait to see you all at the training or back in Vancouver :)

Adventures in the East Coast

Here are some photos in pretty random order of my adventures in Montreal so far!
I apologize for the strange formatting but "Blogger" isn't as user friendly as I thought and I can't get things perfectly lined up as  I'd like them to be.

This weekend the college students are going on a blending trip to New York, so I'll post more photos/updates sometime next week.

...and happy birthday Lou!  Expect something in the mail soon :D

Some recent portion of Christ that I’ve been enjoying is that as the holy anointing ointment (1 John 2:27), we will spontaneously ‘paint’ others with our paint that never runs dry if we abide in the anointing.  Lord, cause us to remain in the mingled spirit.  In this all-inclusive ointment, we have everything.  All the processes You went through were to be compounded as the Spirit.  In Your Spirit, we can experience and apply Your precious death and powerful resurrection

Roomamate Joe and I with Brother
Emmanuel  at the Church in Ottawa

A few saints visited Nancy,
a BFC recipient from Ottawa. 

My poor attempt of being a rock star

The Nemtseva brothers!
Try to find the one with fake hair ;)

Dennis and Heidi's little one, Tirzah!

Goodbye dinner for Brother Fred
(in the middle).  He moved to Anaheim
where he will continue to serve the Lord!

Vania, myself, and sister Ria
handing out bibles in Fredericton

Dennis, myself, Vania, and James at
the "world's longest covered bridge!"

               

Basil Chicken, recipe courtesty of Pa

                       

Asparagus with parmasean cheese

Salmon with about a hundred
spices on top - an explosion in your mouth

                         

One of the 'must go' places in
Montreal apparently.  Long line
ups for delicious but unhealthy poutine

Kamakazie poutine - suggested by
housemate Naifu.  It was great!

                     

My spiritual son, Vincent!  It's been
such a joy to shepherd him this term.
May the Lord gain him fully for His economy!

Skyline of Montreal from Mount Royal

Hospitality with saints in Ottawa

Young people from Montreal - got to love them!

Never a dull moment with the YP!  This
is what it looked like when I turned
around as I was driving them
back home from Ottawa

A beautiful day for gospel preaching
at the Parliament buildings.  The young people
all gave out at least one gospel tract - how encouraging!

Montreal YP are so precious!
Most of them are trilingual.
Pray for their going on in the Lord

College Retreat - God's Need and God's Goal

This past weekend we had a college retreat in Palgrave Ontario, just an hour north of Toronto.  It was an awesome and enjoyable break from all my busy midterms!!

The topic was on God's need and God's Goal.  The point I was touched on the most was that God needs man more than man needs God.  Every dissatisfaction we have in our human life is an echo of our Saviour's dissatisfaction as well.  In John 4, the Lord was thirsty because the sinner was thirsty.  When we lack joy, peace, or righteousness, the Lord is dissatisfied because He wants to become our joy, our peace, our righteousness, our everything.  Our pursuit of the Lord is not to make us better individuals, but as Psalms 110:3 says, that in our consecration we become those who satisfy Him.  In Matthew 9:13, the Lord tells us to go and learn what this means, that 'He desires mercy and not sacrifice."  The principle of mercy is that the Lord works Himself into us.  Sacrifice is us working for the Lord.  The Lord simply wants us to 'come and dine, for all things are now ready,' as seen in Luke 14.  He has prepared everything for us.  As God, He is complete, perfect, unlimited, yet He still has a need for man to come to Him as open vessels, just as we are, for Him to fill us with his life.

It was great to be reunited with some good friends again (from left to right, Jacob, John, Tim).  As usual, I got a big warm hug from John :)

Midterms and assignments are finally starting to cool down.  These past 3 weeks have been really busy for me so I haven't had a chance to update much.  This weekend, I'll be going to Ottawa with the young people.  The following weekend, the college students will be going on a blending trip to New York.  I am really thankful to the Lord for all these opportunity to blend with other saints in other localities.

Hard to believe it, but I only have a month of classes left.  I've made friends with some varsity athletes.  Please pray for Hubert who plays on the McGill hockey team, and Tristan who plays on the basketball team.  I would like to preach the gospel to them before the term.  Vincent is doing quite well.  We still meet with him weekly and he said he is calling on the Lord when he studies,  praise the Lord!  Well, now that my schedule is freeing up I will be posting more.  Hope you are all doing well!!