Benin Bulletin #8
“One More Month”
August 1, 2017
Prayer
Requests
1) Dad’s
Wedding – Praise the Lord that Kathleen and I were able to attend my Father’s
wedding in Alberta. It was a very short
but memorable time with friends and family.
2) Finances
– Praise the Lord that we have recently had some cheerful givers join our
financial support team. We are now only
about $100/month short of our financial goal!
3)
Benin Visas – Praise the Lord that we were able to receive visas from
the Benin Embassy in Ottawa. This allows
us entry into Benin for 3 months. The
next step will be to apply for residency once we arrive.
4)
Plane tickets purchased – Praise the Lord that we were able to book our
flights to Benin. We will be leaving
Canada on September 8th and arrive in Cotonou, Benin the next day.
5)
French school completed – Praise the Lord that Kathleen and I were
successfully able to complete our French courses! Pray that we would continue to learn and grow
in our knowledge of French.
6)
Last month in Canada – Pray that our last month here in Canada would be
a time of rest and a time of fruitfulness.
There is still much to do before we leave. Pray that we would have time to complete it
and have time to recharge our batteries after a difficult 10 months of language
training.
Introduction
Greetings to all from beautiful Geary, New
Brunswick! Yes, we are in fact back in
the Maritimes after 10 months of studying in “La belle province” Québec. It still seems a bit surreal to me. All that has happened and is currently
happening to me in my life. God
definitely had more planned for me than I could have ever imagined. If you had asked me 15 years ago that I would
be married and heading to a French speaking country I wouldn’t have believed
you. And yet, it is happening. I suppose this is what the Jesus meant when
he talked about “having life abundantly”.
Though I am merely a sheep following the Great Shepherd, he has led me
to a life more abundant than I would have thought possible. I pray that all of you reading this letter
are experiencing that abundant life as well.
And if you aren’t, I pray that you would find your way into the fold of
the Great Shepherd. That you would
experience the grace that can be found at the cross, and that you would meet
Jesus there. And then buckle up, because
you never know where the Shepherd may lead you if you are simply willing to
follow him. Wow, I feel like I kind of
took a tangent there for a moment.
Forgive me, what were we talking about?
Oh yes! I was going to tell you
more about what has been happening in our lives these past 2 or so months. So, let’s get to it shall we.
Trip
to Alberta
Those who know me well will know that my
mother passed away back in December 2013.
Afterwards my Father and my sister’s family built a new house and moved
in together. Not long after that my
Father started inviting a lady he met at church to the house for dinners and
such. Her name was Juanita Bennet. I had met her before, at my good friend’s
Greg and Shannon Thornhill’s wedding.
Juanita is Shannon’s Mom. As time
went on the friendship blossomed into something more and about 8 months ago my
father and Juanita were engaged. The
wedding was set for May 20th, one day before our 1st
wedding anniversary. Kind of a strange one year anniversary gift,
huh?
Flying to Edmonton
from Québec and back would not be cheap, but the Lord had things covered. For those who may remember, Kathleen and I
went to Athens, Greece for our honeymoon.
When we arrived in Athens, we discovered that our luggage did not arrive
with us. We spent over 2 weeks in Athens
without our luggage. Our luggage finally
arrived back in Fredericton 3 weeks later.
Air Canada, out of its good graces, provided Kathleen and I with $1000
in Air Canada gift certificates to use on any Air Canada flight. When Dad and Juanita told us about their plans
to marry in May, we were very grateful that we had those gift certificates as
it covered almost the entire cost of the trip.
It was a small but special wedding ceremony. The ceremony was held in the backyard of our
family home in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. The ceremony was attended by family except for
Pastor Jim Paulson and his wife Anne.
Jim officiated the ceremony and Anne played some special music. It was great to be back in Alberta with my
family (old and new!) and a pleasure to have my good friend Shannon become my
step-sister!
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| My Dad with my new step-mother Juanita |
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| From friends to family - my new step-sister Shannon with her husband Greg |
Financial
Update
We’ve had some great news recently
regarding our monthly finances. We have
had a few cheerful givers join our financial support team! Presently, that means we are only $100/month
short of our financial goal! Praise the
Lord! Please pray that the remainder of
our funds will be raised before we leave for Benin in September.
Departure
Date Set
Speaking of leaving for Benin, we have
indeed officially set a departure date.
We will be leaving Fredericton on September 8th and arriving
in Cotonou, Benin the next day. We are
excited to be leaving soon but would appreciate your prayers as there is still
much to be done between now and September 8th.
Benin
Visa Story
One thing that we had asked prayer for
earlier was for our visas for Benin.
Benin is a little different than Botswana. In Botswana, you just arrive in the country
and you will usually receive a 3-month visa.
In Benin, it’s a little different because you have to have your visa
before arriving in the country. So, we
were told the best way to do this was to apply through the Benin Embassy in
Ottawa. Since Ottawa was only a 4-hour
drive from Sherbrooke, Québec, Kathleen and I decided to make arrangements to
travel there in person instead of wait for visas in the mail. We were told we could get our visas processed
the same day if we did it in person so this seemed like the best option.
Our plan was to drive to Ottawa, do a
little visiting in the city (it was my first time there), then head to the
Embassy the next day to process our visas.
Well, the first part went very smoothly.
We drove to Ottawa, did some visiting and then stayed at a very nice
place we found on Airbnb. The next morning,
we headed to the Benin Embassy. We were
told the Embassy opened at 9am, however, we arrived at 9am and nobody was
there. Thinking that it may be running
on “African time” we decided to wait and see if anyone showed up late. We waited an hour. Nobody showed up. This was bad.
Our plan was to have the visas in hand in the afternoon and then drive
back to Sherbrooke because I had school the next day. Seeing as it was 10am and we haven’t
progressed at all with our visas, the hope of having them that day was
diminishing. Then I had a brain
wave. The Benin Embassy was nothing more
than just a residential house in an old neighbourhood of Ottawa. Some may think that is peculiar but the
Vietnam Embassy was just down the road so it appeared normal for Ottawa. So, the Embassy had neighbours on either
side. I thought it may be possible that
the neighbours would know something about the Embassy, specifically when/if it
would be open. I tried the neighbours on
one side of the Embassy but there was no answer. So, I tried the other house. I got more than I bargained for. An older woman, in her house coat no less,
came and answered the door. I
immediately felt bad as I had obviously woken her up. I apologized and asked her if she knew
anything about the Embassy next door.
The lady was very friendly and very chatty (she reminded me of myself) and
told me all sorts of things about her African neighbours, her travels to the
lake, and a recent fall she had were she, in her own
words, “flew through the air like Superwoman!” Long
story short, she agreed to keep an eye on the Embassy and call me on my cell
phone if she saw any activity.
With that done, Kathleen and I headed over
to visit her uncle. We never heard from
the friendly lady next door so we decided to drive back and see for ourselves
if anyone was at the Embassy. Sadly,
nobody was there. At this point (it was
around noon) we decided we needed to make a decision. Should we just head back to Sherbrooke and do
the visas through the mail? Or, should
we stay another night hoping that the Embassy will be open the next day? We decided on the latter. I called my teacher back in Sherbrooke to
confirm that it was ok for me to spend another night. He agreed that the visa was important so he
excused me from class the next day.
Kathleen started looking up places to stay online. I had yet another brain wave. In fact, I had two. The first one was to say a short prayer to
God. It went something like, “Lord, give
the ambassador a reason to come to the Embassy today. We just want to know if they’ll be open
tomorrow.” The next was to check in with
that friendly old lady and see if she had any information on where the
ambassador might live. I thought perhaps
we could visit his residence just to see if he would be at work the next
day.
This time when I rang the doorbell the nice
lady was fully dressed. When I asked her
if she had any information on where the ambassador lived she introduced me to
her husband. He believed he had some
information in his office so he disappeared into another part of the
house. While we waited for him she asked
where my wife was. I told her she was in
the car looking up places to stay on the internet. When she heard that she said, “Why don’t you just
stay with us?” I was shocked. This woman was a complete stranger and she
was offering to have us stay with her for the night? I didn’t know what to say, so I called over
Kathleen. We all talked for a short
while and she insisted that we stay with them.
They lived in an older house that has more height than width to it. On the top floor was a fully furnished suite
that their kids used to live in. She
told us we were more than welcome to stay up there. I asked her how much she would want and she
told us she didn’t want to be paid. Seeing this as a gift from the Lord, we took her up on her offer.
So, having just met them, Bill and Marni
Price warmly welcomed us into their home.
The top suite was beautiful. More
than we needed really. Bill and Marni
were fabulous. We wanted to do something
special for them so we offered to take them out for dinner. They politely apologized and said they already
had plans with friends. Then we had
another pleasant surprise. The
ambassador showed up at the embassy!
Bill was outside working in the yard when he saw them pull up. We quickly raced out of the house to meet
him. We discovered why the Embassy was
closed. The ambassador is a Muslim and
it was the last day of Ramadan so he had taken the day off. He just stopped by the office to check the
mail. He told us that he would be in the
office tomorrow and that we should have our visas processed in a few
hours. Thank you Lord for answered
prayer!
So, after that Bill and Marni headed out to
meet friends and left us alone in their house.
They even offered us their laundry facilities as we were short on clean
clothing. Cool, eh? The next morning, we were able to sleep in a
bit longer because, well, we slept right beside the Embassy! We headed over to the Embassy where we were
warmly greeted (in French of course). We
were told to take a walk around town and by the time we got back we should have
our visas. So, we did exactly that. In total, I think it took about 2.5 hours and
we had our visas in hand. Praise the
Lord! We went back to Bill and Marni’s and
told them the good news. They were so
happy for us. So, with that business
done, it was time to return to Sherbrooke.
We were so thankful to Bill and Marni for taking us in under what some
would consider, weird circumstances. I
said to Marni at one point, “Being a bigger guy, I know some people are
intimidated by me.” Marni took a quick
look at me and said, “No. You’re
harmless.” So, in case your reading
this, thanks again Bill and Marni. If
you ever find yourself in Parakou, Benin, you have a place to stay!
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| Kathleen and I visited Parliament Hill while we were in Ottawa |
French
School Finished
My last bit of news is something that
should be very apparent already. We are
finished French school! After 10 long months,
we are finally finished. For those who
are wondering, Kathleen and I were both A students during the course. I will admit that Kathleen is much better at
speaking French than I am. We both took
a test at the end of the year called a “LAMP test”. It’s an internationally accepted
standardization test in French. You are
marked on a scale between 0-5. Zero would
be, well, you basically know no French. 5
would be completely fluent including cultural fluency (not exactly sure what
that means). Anyway, Kathleen scored a 4
out of 5 which basically means she is bilingual. I scored a 2 out of 5. That sounds like a fail, however, at a level
2 I am considered to be the equivalent of a 4-year-old French child. And that my friends, is something I am very
proud of! Of course, the true test will
be to use the language in Benin. We will
definitely need your prayers with regards to that.
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| Parole de Vie Béthel Graduation |
Conclusion
So, I think that is all for now. It’s weird to say it, but I imagine our next
letter will be coming to you from our new home, Parakou, Benin! So, until then, have a great summer!
Blessings,
Graham & Kathleen <><
SIM Contact Info:
SIM Canada
10 Huntingdale Blvd.
Scarborough, Ontario
M1W 2S5
Canada
Tel: 1-800-294-6918
E-mail: info@sim.ca
(Our missionary number is 024460)
The opinions expressed in this letter are our
own opinions. They are not necessarily the opinions or views of Serving
In Mission (SIM).
