The weak

This past week was probably the toughest one I have had so far this summer, with many deadlines and a sick me. That is why I will call it a "weak"! But it is a new week now and things are looking better!

Some highlights of the week:
-Every year, the staff throws a party for the students, and then the students throw a party for the staff. The student party was Friday night and we had a fun time entertaining the staff- many laughs were had!
-On Saturday, a few of us went out for Korean food at a local restaurant. I have never really experienced Korean food before. One of the people I went with had taught in South Korea for four years, so she was the resident expert in what to order. I just enjoyed having this new cultural experience! I love trying new things and that was yet another thing I can add to list of things I have done for the first time here.

-Last night I was graciously invited over to the house of a friend from Acadia who lives out here. I got to hang out with her hilarious family and go for a walk at beautiful Crescent Beach. I love East Coast beaches, and I still think nothing can compare to the beach at camp... but it was one of the most gorgeous places I have ever seen. Mountains and ocean and setting sun, and even the skyscrapers of Vancouver in the background. My biggest regret is not bringing my camera.

A photo of Crescent Beach taken with my phone

BUT I was very discouraged upon attending church yesterday. You see, all throughout this past week the Scripture Use students have been presenting commissioned projects in chapel. These are projects they commissioned someone to do to present the Bible in a creative way. So all through last week the chapels have been like a showcase of people using their talents to communicate Bible truths and glorify God: people have written songs, done spoken word poetry, used stand-up comedy, sign language poetry, and even juggling. And it has been really incredible. It has opened my eyes that church does not have to be boring. So I was disappointed to attend a large local church and see how similar it was to about four other churches I have been to here. The schedule is roughly the same: The worship time, followed by the preaching, with announcements, offering and coffee break peppered in there somewhere. The demographic is roughly the same: upper middle class white people.I don't know why! God's kingdom is SO much more expansive and exciting than what church here in North America is.

Anyway, in the end church is more than the show on Sunday. It is a group of global believers, using our gifts and talents to serve our Savior and worship our King.

Why Acadia does not need a revival

It was a typical Monday in autumn. A few of us were gathered for our weekly Bible study in the basement of my residence. My good friend Shelby was leading the study on 2 Corinthians, and, as always, we shared some good discussion and laughs. We then somehow had the idea:
What if Acadia experienced a revival?
OK, I have to be honest here. I was imagining a scene somewhat like this one:

And so the coin was termed "Revival on the grassy A!" as a joke.
You see, in the middle of our football field there is an enormous red "A" in the middle. We had this image in our minds of just a bunch of people in the middle of the football field, praying and worshipping Jesus. Well, at least that was the image I had. I wanted to see the Holy Spirit show his power on campus. I wanted to see everyone repenting and I wanted to see the numbers at prayer meeting and Bible studies skyrocket.
Well.
I wanted the wrong thing.
Yes, that would be a wonderful thing to see! But it should not be our primary goal.
I think I wanted revival because I wanted Christianity to be popular and exciting. But what I did not realize was that Christianity will never exactly be "popular." It is for the weak and the humble. If I am excited about following Jesus because everyone is, that is not truly seeking him, is it?
And I forget how exciting following Jesus really is in the everyday life, even without hordes of people and amazing miracles happening. His compassion is new every morning!

The grassy A

 So, I think I was wrong. I don't think Acadia needs a revival, even though I would really like one.
I do think, though, that everyone at Acadia, as with the rest of the world, needs Jesus. I want to be the Christ's ambassador there, relying on him and leaving room for him to work without trying to push my ideas or plans of how I think things should be done. Nobody needs a revival. What we do need is to know God.

I will close with the words of Jesus himself, as paraphrased in the Message. What freeing, liberating words!

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."

The summer of dreams coming true

Empress Tea Room

Although the program here is a lot of work and sometimes I feel very overwhelmed, I forget how awesome it is to be out here. There are so many blessings every day! I realized how blessed I was this weekend, when I had the chance to go over to Vancouver Island and spend some time in the beautiful city of Victoria. It was a whirlwind weekend of staying in a hostel, exploring the downtown area, spending some time with relatives, and trying to track down an old friend of my mother's.
I was standing in the Empress Tea Room on Friday night when I realized how many of my dreams have come true this summer. You see, my grandmother traveled to Victoria a few times when I was small and for some reason, I always wanted to as well. It is a weird dream, but it's always been my dream to go to the Empress Tea Room and the Butchart Gardens and all the other places in Victoria. Well, I never made it to the Butchart Gardens... I have decided I will have to return to Victoria someday! But I went to the Empress Tea Room, Chinatown, the Legislative buildings and much more. And this was all a dream come true. SO. Here are my dreams that have come true this summer:

-Going to the Empress Tea Room
-Eating the best waffle ever (http://www.wannawafel.com/)
-Celebrating July 4th in the USA.
-Getting to see friends who live on the other side of the country as I do

-Being among mountains
-Seeing a seqouia.

But, by far the biggest dream that has come true this summer is studying linguistics. I cannot be thankful enough for this school, and for the ways I am intellectually challenged. I have not doubted once since I've been here that is the exact right place for me to be.

Sequoia tree

Economics and Linguistics

Yes, it is true. I usually study economics. For the past couple of years, I have been immersed in Keynes, Pigou, and Cournot. I have sat through many-a-lecture on inflation or indifference curves, and drawn, I am sure, hundreds of supply-and-demand curves. 
But this summer, it is different. I have not only crossed the country, I have also crossed disciplines.
Now I am immersed in Chomsky and Trubotskoy. I am sitting through lectures on vowels, grammar relations in a language, diglossia. I have done hundreds of phonetic transcriptions.
The truth is, I really enjoy both economics and linguistics. They also have a lot in common.
They both try to make sense of this world in systematic ways. I love being able to understand language more fully. I also love being able to understand scarcity more fully. Also, both economies and languages are concerned with efficiency: in terms of economies, in both microeconomics and macroeconomics, the goal is to get the most benefits out of the least resources. Languages, meanwhile, have the goal of communicating an idea the most clearly using the least effort. Personally, I love efficiency and am always trying to do things more efficiently. I think it's cool how economic systems and languages have evolved over the years as people have used their ingenuity to make things the most efficient.
Analyzing things systematically makes me feel secure. I guess that probably is a tendency for ISTJs like me (Myers Briggs anyone?). So that is why I love both economics and linguistics.

Halfway through

This week was the halfway mark of the summer session here. So, on the 14th of the month, here is a  list of 14 things I know now that I did not know before June 11th.

1. [ai no hau tu rid ðɪs sɛntəns.] (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet )

2.  I understand this quote more fully:  "Linguistics is shear servitude and drudgery until we have the joy of seeing order emerge from chaos."- Robert Longacre. 

3. Canadian English and American English is much more different than I originally thought! For example, the American students here had never heard of a toque or of poutine. And they have funny expressions as well: like one girl says "I might should do that," and things like that, and considers it to be perfectly standard. 

4. Man does not live on peanut butter sandwiches alone.

5. The translation for "two yellow tortillas" in Tlapaneco, a language of Mexico

6. Blackberry phones do not survive rainy, muddy hikes at Golden Ears.

A rainy hike

7. "Some languages are crazy"-my phonology professor.

8. Five large pots is WAY too much rice to feed forty people.

9. Always go into the right lane at the border crossing.

10. Not locking your dorm room door could result in a late-night conversation you have no recollection of, as you were asleep for the entire conversation.

11. The best music for doing a mini grammar sketch is a mashup of dubstep and classical. 

12. Arrested Development is a hilarious T.V. show! 

13. I don't think I could ever be a language surveyor. 

and finally, I now know...

14.  Why peasant men can't get wives.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4166971

Sunday Update

Hi all! This has been a busy week for me. I've done a lot of traveling around B.C. and even ventured into Washington State. Here is now a week in review:

Sunday: Canada Day. I celebrated this in Kamloops with my uncle, aunt, and their friends. I tried bannock for the first time and got my photo taken with a Mountie. It was very cool to spend Canada Day in a part of Canada I had never been in before!

Trying some bannock in Kamloops

Monday: I travelled back to the Lower Mainland on the Greyhound. It was a stressful trip. The bus I wanted to go on was full, and so was the next one (which was the last one of the day). So I had to buy a standby ticket and hope that not everyone who had bought a ticket showed up. Thankfully, I was able to get a spot on the bus. It was a slow trip because of the traffic back to Vancouver after the long weekend. It was one of those trips where I wonder if I really like traveling as much as I think I do!

Tuesday: This is what can be described as a typical day here for me. I woke up a little bit after six (I really like waking up early), and went to my classes in the morning, then went to the gym before lunch. After lunch, I had a couple more classes before finishing for the day and skyping with a friend from back east. Then, it was supper time. We eat supper communally and have a system of buying food, making food, cleaning up etc. So that is always a joy, to spend some time with others here. After supper, there was a speaker from Wycliffe NextGen, and I went to learn more about that. You can find out more at http://www.wycliffenextgen.com/
Then, I got back to my room and was going to go to bed when the fire alarm rang. This happens quite regularly, probably about once a week.

Wednesday:  This was another typical day here, except I played Ultimate before supper. Then, after supper was quite different- it was Independence Day, so a few of us girls went across the border to Bellingham, Washington to watch the fireworks. We ate kettle corn, walked along the waterfront, admired the rising moon and oohed and aahed and the spectacular fireworks. It was late getting back, but it was a wonderful evening for the first Fourth of July I've spent in the U.S.

Fourth of July on Bellingham Bay

Thursday: A friend from Nova Scotia currently living in Edmonton was in the area to visit family and I got to hang out with her Thursday evening! It was truly enjoyable. However, by the time I arrived back at the dorms at 9:30pm, I still had quite a bit of work to do on my assignment that was due Friday. There were over 200 sentences in a "mystery language" and their English translations, and we had to create a lexicon of the language. Clearly a daunting task. Four of us gathered in my room and suffered late into the night together.

View on the Sea-to-Sky Highway

Friday: I had a lovely Friday. I tried a deep fried Mars bar for the first time at a pub in the quaint town of  Fort Langley, and also watched as much of the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice as I could without falling asleep (that is a LONG movie). Very nice night!

Saturday: I saw a part of B.C. I have never seen before: the Sea-to-Sky Highway. We drove to Squamish where a bunch of people from school were having a camping trip. We stopped at the stunning Shannon Falls on the way, and I spent the afternoon exploring the forest near the campsite (did you know British Columbia has a temperate rainforest?), and relaxing on the shores of Brohm Lake, and going out in the canoe as well. After a delicious supper over the campfire, we returned back to school. What a delightful day!

The King's Speech

It is a muggy day in late June, typical for BC's Lower Mainland. It is on the most ordinary days, it seems, that the Holy Spirit appears. It was a normal day at the summer school, and we chatted with each other before chapel. The service is held each Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and it is held in a classroom: two classrooms, rather, with the wall between them removed for the occasion. It is not mandatory to attend chapel, but most students do- this is, after all, what one friend calls 'missionary school.' The worship team, led by the lovable tech expert Doug on guitar, plays a few songs, and we sing along, raising our hands in worship. Then it is time for the sermon: a video is played showing a village in Africa who got the Bible in their language. Then, a middle-aged woman, one who works in the administration offices upstairs, comes to the front of the room. She instructs us to imagine we are on a grassy hill. Then she says "In the words of Eugene Peterson...." It is at this moment that Kent comes to the front of the classroom. I remember him- he also works upstairs, humbly, in an office with cartoons pinned to the bulletin board. He is a quiet, unremarkable middle-aged man with glasses and salt-and-pepper hair. To my surprise, Kent begins reciting the Sermon on the Mount from memory. But this is not recitation: it is preaching. He is saying each phrase as if he means it. And I, like the others in the room, am captivated. Never have I heard the Gospel told this way: in the original fashion. It is fresh, new, and though I have read it dozens of times before, radical. I think back two millenia to the people, sitting on the hillside in the hot sun, just to listen to this Teacher. They must have had other things to do, the business of life, but instead they lay that aside for a while to listen to this new Teacher. Listening to it on this muggy June day, I realize that Jesus was not kidding about what he said- and what he said was radical. It is radical, even two thousand years on.

So often we read the Bible, and it just seems like another book, or we listen to a preacher read it out loud, but the preacher drowns out the Scripture with his own sermon. What if, like Kent, we just said the Scripture, said the Word of God, and let the Holy Spirit do its thing? The Word of God is still relevant today- Jesus' words are revolutionary. Listening to the Sermon on the Mount and letting the truths soak in, letting it affect your life, that could lead to a radical life. Things Jesus said like:
"Love your enemies."
"When you help someone out, don't think about how it looks. Just do it- quietly and unobtrusively."
"Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met."
"Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them."

There are millions of people in the world who may never get a chance to hear the life-changing words that are found in the Scripture. I think the most selfish thing is just to stay home and have Bible studies and potlucks when there are so many who do not know Jesus. As much as I would love a comfortable life, I do not think it is worth it if I do not lead anyone to know the Son of God.