A very formal tea party

In the last month or so, Ang has been able to get to know two girls in their mid-twenties who live on the first floor of our apartment building. One day last week, Ang made some scones (one of her specialities) and brought them down to the girls (Vicki and Anna). While they were chatting, Vicki and Anna invited us to join them for a tea party on Saturday afternoon. The more that the three of them talked about it, the more formal that the tea party became... until the attire for the tea party was to be evening gowns!

My first thought was "oh my goodness... I don't have an evening gown!", but it turns out that Rachel does, so she lent me a couple to try on. :)

Saturday arrived, the day of our "very formal tea party", and Ang and I got ourselves ready and into our evening gowns, only to discover after we were all ready that Vicki and Anna needed to reschedule the tea party. Oh dear, what are two girls in evenings gowns going to do on a Saturday afternoon without anywhere to go? We decided to have a tea party of our own anyways and take some pictures as a memory of the humour of the whole situation.

Here we are... we actually look pretty good, eh?



It was actually quite a funny situation, so we had a good laugh and sat down to our tea party. And apparently, God had some other plans for the day, of which we were quite unaware...

First, we were able to follow through on bringing homemade cookies to the members of our local fire department. Ang had made some cookies for the tea party so, after we each ate a few, we decided to bring the rest to the fire department (a much better idea than us eating all of them ourselves)! I think that the fireman who greeted us at the door (not the good looking one, just in case you were wondering) thought we were absolutely nuts but, nonetheless, he took them and said "thank you". Rachel said we should have taken the girls with us to soften him up, but it was a spur of the moment decision and the Lacey's were not home at the time.

Then we went to Stephane's house to drop off his mail. Stephane lived in our apartment before we moved in, so we still get some of his mail from time to time. Fortunately, he only moved five or six blocks away, so it's just a short walk. Although Ang had met him when she picked up the keys to the apartment when she first arrived in Montreal, I hadn't had a chance to meet him yet. We all chatted at the door for a little while and then he invited us in for tea.

It might sound like an unwise decision to accept an invitation into the house of someone you barely know, but I think it was a God thing because I didn't even think twice about it! While I was still in Victoria, I had talked to him on the phone so often to discuss the details of the sublet for the apartment that I almost felt like I did know him a little bit and it actually seemed quite natural. And... it was a God thing!

Anyways, he introduced us to his kids, we drank tea and chatted while the kids played, and we ended up staying for almost two hours! As we were leaving, I invited him and his kids to join us and the Lacey's for dinner sometime and he seemed happy to accept the invitation. I just need to give him a call to confirm a date, but hopefully it will work out sometime in the next couple of weeks.

In the last week, our weather has gone back to normal spring temperatures, with much cooler days and quite a bit of rain. After living in Victoria for so long, I had actually forgotten that rain is to be expected during spring. :) I think that I associate winter with rain and spring with sun, but spring in Montreal seems to be more rain than sun. And winter is all about snow, of course. Oh, the weather has me all confused and I forget what month it is half of the time these days! :)

Because the weather was not very good on Sunday afternoon, we weren't able to go back to the park for another game of soccer, but Rachel, Ang, and I did start running. We have all decided that we need to get into better shape and running was the exercise of choice. A couple of years ago, I took a Learn to Run clinic through the Running Room, but eventually stopped running for some reason, so we are following the same program to gradually increase the distance and time we are running each week. We've penciled our running days into our schedules for the next few weeks and hopefully we will be able to keep each other accountable and continue running for many months!

This afternoon, Graham (a friend of Guy and Rachel's from South Africa) arrived and he is going to be in Montreal for most of the month of May (and in Toronto for the LTT), so Victory Heights just got bigger by one for the month, after which Colin will be with us. I'm sure that Guy will enjoy having another man around, after leading a church of only females for the last two months!

I am continuing to look for a job and God continues to direct me one step at a time. Sometimes the steps seem awfully small, but I have realized that it is a good thing, because the very thought of the many directions in which I could go to look for a job never fails to overwhelm me. I have also realized some questions that God is asking me almost every day as I look ahead to the job search... Who do I say that He is? Do I really believe what the Bible says about who He is? Do I trust Him? Or will I choose to worry?

I was reminded this morning of what a friend told me about her recent job search. It took her three days... one to submit the resume, one for the interview, and one to hear she got the job! It was a much needed reminder for me that I need to expect big things from our great God, a supernatural hand at work in my job search, instead of just expecting a long, agonizing process.