It has been too long, people. Too much has happened. I might miss some significant things. And this may also be quite long.

Two weeks ago we had a speaker come in named Dave Skene. He’s one of the head YWAMCanada guys and just recently moved onto Commercial Drive in Vancouver with his wife. Cool dude. He talked about justice with us the whole week. Reminded me of a lot of the things I was concerned with in high school, like how the North American normal way of life destroys the rest of the world. The problems just kept piling up, and we all felt overwhelmed. But on Thursday he got us to think of what things bothered us the most. Out of all the problems and injustice in the world, what bugged us personally? What punched us in the gut? We were told to write them down and share if we felt so inclined. Here’s what I said made me angry:

things that cause me pain
•   when evil is done in God’s name
o   sexual abuse from religious leaders
o   colonization
o   crusades
o   rejection of homosexuals and other people with “alternative” lifestyles
o   things that throw Jesus’ name in the dirt
•   manipulation
•   organized, intentional corruption

He woke something up that was sleeping. Thanks Dave.

One night at Cremazie, he and I had a two or three hour strong conversation about cafes and the like. He had been thinking about opening one awhile back, and had piles of information to share. Made me want to learn how to roast my own beans. We will definitely see each other again. I’ll see to that.

Not much happened last week until Friday, when Nick showed up. That was awesome, hey Nick? Hadn’t seen you in a long time! I went to pick him up at the airport, but got awful directions from google maps, and ended up at the Boeing and Air Canada headquarters instead. Ended up in the middle of nowhere at some bus stop by a mall when Nick called me and said that he had taken the bus to Station Centrale and where does he need to go now. I kind of told him what was going on (there were a lot of loud teenagers around, so I couldn’t really properly speak to him) and to meet me at the metro station named “Sauvé.” Twenty minutes after he got there, I showed up and we hugged and grabbed his stuff. After getting him all nestled in, we went out and had our first public beer together as brothers. A good bonding experience.

What did we do on Saturday, Nick? I don’t remember. It was so long ago now. Right. We went walking around Le Plateau. I showed you where Matt Gee lives and then we went to some cool record shops. That punk one was especially cool, with it’s fair trade coffee. We talked shop with the owner there. He advised us to stay out of the music retail industry. I’ll think about it.

On Sunday, Bado and I were singing in the choir at church, so we had to be there early. Nick went with Julia and her boyfriend Michael and we saw them from the stage. In case I haven’t said this already, Bado and I joined the gospel choir at the church we’re going to, River’s Edge. We heard them at Christmas, and immediately both of us wanted to join. They were low on men and were asking for some to step up, so that’s what we did. During practices, I found it difficult to get into the spirit of it all, but once we got on stage and were actually praising the Lord with it, I couldn’t contain myself. I got really into it. More than I usually do. It was a great experience. And the sermon that week was awesome, too. Another butt kicker. Apparantly I need a lot of those.

Other things Nick and I did before Evelyn showed up on Thursday: we went walking around Old Montreal, found a cool gallery where people were painting black and white cartoons all over the walls, we walked up Mont Royal and took some pictures in the cloudy weather, watched a couple movies, drank some more beer, ate at Frites Alors!, bonded. All in all, a good week. A memorable week.

On Thursday I had volunteering to do. I’m helping teach a little girl how to read Braille, and for the first time she started reading words. I didn’t even understand how incredible this was until her teacher found out and went nuts and got all teary-eyed. It was pretty exciting, I must admit. Oh, and I brought my saxophone to play for all the kids. The little girl (I’m not supposed to give them names on the internet) got to come into the class I’m in when I’m not with her and listen. It was pretty fun.

Afterward, I went to Cremazie to pick up some laundry I had done earlier in the week, when I saw Nick busking in the metro station there. So naturally, I put my stuff down and joined him for a couple songs. Then some guy came by and showed us the hidden schedule, so we sang a few more while he waited for his violinist, and then ran off home to talk to Glenn Davies on ichat.

Glenn is Darrell’s best friend Drew’s dad. He’s planting a church and starting a cafe/bookstore in Squamish. He wants a few young people to join him and help get the new student community there to feel comfortable in his space. Nick and I want to go help him out for a couple years. We have this crazy dream of owning our own cafe/book etc. shop some day, and think this is an awesome opportunity to gain some experience. I’m excited about it. It will give me a perfect way of using what I’ve learned here. Glenn and his son seem pretty keen on it too. God is tying up loose ends, giving us direction.

That evening Evelyn showed up on our doorstep. A great moment: I get a call, asking for a reminder of what my address is. I say, “6979″ and get an, “Aw crap,” on the other end of the line. By this time I’m heading toward the door as I correct myself, “Sorry no, 9679,” I say, as I look at Evelyn through the window of the door, open it, and give her a big hug as she waves off her relatives and says, “Merci.” The three of us laughed about it for a little while, got her settled in, and went back to that micro-brewery that Dan and I went to when he came in December. It was super full in there, but we managed to get a table and had an awesome time there catching up. Apparently she and Fiona are going to Guatemala as soon as I come back? That kind of sucks. But you guys are going to have an awesome time serving. I really believe in this trip of yours. You will bless and be blessed more than you know.

Friday we DTS students inconveniently had to help out at the food bank. From 8:00 to 4:00. Evelyn and Nick spent the day shopping mostly, from what I was told, but I ended up having a great time filling big boxes with small boxes. No really, it was surprisingly fun. It was like building puzzles all day long. Plus they have thrift clothes there and I got a new cardigan for $5. It is pretty cool. The lady that was telling us what to do all day was awesome. She had this cackle that’s still ringing in my ears and the strongest Quebecois accent I’ve ever heard for an extended period of time. Pretty awesome.

Friday night was an adventure. Nick heard of this “A Gogo Lounge” from Elliot, so we went out to find it. We had looked it up on Google Maps, but obviously didn’t pay enough attention, because we made every wrong turn we could have. We had called Matt earlier so he could join us, so we had to text a couple times to make sure he wasn’t waiting for us. Once we got there someone (I won’t mention names) realized she forgot her ID at the apartment. So we went all the way back, Nick ran and got the ID while Ev and I stayed back at the metro station, and went back, only to be ushered without glance by a different bouncer. The place was just like how Elliot and the internet had described it, except with less old music than I was hoping for. It was pretty packed, but we noticed a few people getting up to leave, so we quickly snagged their table. There was a lot of people watching/outfit critiquing going on while we chose our drinks and waited for Matt. I get a text saying that he had been waiting in a nearby gas station and that he was on his way, and finally we see him out the window, waiting in line. Ten minutes later he calls me. I can’t hear a word, so I go to the closet-sized bathroom, only to hear him say that the place only lets people 21 and older in. He gives me a message for Nick, and as I sit down he waves goodbye through the window. It was a sad moment. I kind of felt bad for not just leaving and finding some other place, but he left kind of quickly. One thing we did realize, though. If we had been ID’d the second time, Nick and Evelyn wouldn’t have made it in either. We decided we would take advantage of their blunder and order another round.

Saturday morning, Nick woke me up at 6:30 to say goodbye. I got up, helped him carry his stuff to the door, we had a good hug, and he was off. I went back to sleep.

I had been noticing a cold coming on Friday night. By Saturday morning it was a pretty drastic sinus infection, but that didn’t stop Ev and me from going out for breakfast at the Chez Cora, did it Ev! Yum. That’s all I have to say. That morning was one of the best. Great food, great company, great conversation, just awesome all around. It’ll go down in the books, despite the stuffy nose. Afterward we head the the Musee des Beaux Arts to see some awesome, Dutch art from Vandogen. If you don’t know (I didn’t) he was a good friend of Picasso. It doesn’t really come out in his paintings, but they were buds. Most of his stuff revolves around women. Some of it was simply amazing. The guy could paint. There were a few moments where we both kind of questioned his view of women, but you couldn’t deny the gift. Pretty awesome.

Afterward we were both pretty pooped, and I was feeling a lot worse, so we just came back to the apartment, cooked/burned some turnip fries and watched “The Darjeeling Limited,” one of my favorites. I love that movie. Such a feel gooder. We enjoyed ourselves tremendously.

Sunday morning I woke up super early (we had gone to be at 9:45 or something) and read before making coffee. Ev woke up at 5:45, we drank our joe, and headed out the door with her stuff. Did the big hug-off at the bus station, and I went back to the apartment to sleep off a really bad cold. I woke up just in time for a sermon, so I went to church. Just around the corner from the church some lady tried to get a parking spot and ended up getting stuck on a piece of ice. I tried to help her, ended up in the driver’s seat (hadn’t done that in almost six months) and then two other guys came by and we got it out of there. I saw her later at church. After the service, I talked to one of the guy’s I’ve seen drumming there, along with his friend, and then of course Julia and Michael. We went to a cool cafe a block away from the church that we had been wanting to go to. Pretty cool place. And they had all Jack White’s music playing on shuffle, which was a bonus.

That was pretty much it. I went home and slept after that. The cold is gone now. It’s already been almost a week since then, but I’m tired, and if I went into this week too, I’d have to call this a book and get an editor and everything, and I’m just not in the mood.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 28th, 2009 at 1:49 am and is filed under Montreal, etc.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.