Cloud Shadows

Doing a little catch up blogging here (you know as a child I never thought I’d use a word like blogging, how technology advances!). This is a conglomerate of trips, my second flight from Paris to Cotonou and my visit to Quebec.
I did get to go to Quebec on Sept 18-20. It was just before the fall colours come out, so that was too bad, but it was still a really neat time. My great Aunt and Uncle came from France. My uncle is a retired Pastor of 35 years and shared 2 messages at a rally for greater Quebec on Sabbath in Drummondville. This was my first time in Quebec (I know shame upon me, thirteen years living in Ontario and never gone farther east than Kingston!). Later in November he is going to do a Revelation seminar at the Sherbrooke SDA church for a couple weeks. I stayed at my good friend Roland Scalliet’s house, his dad invited my uncle to come, so it was a two for one deal, well three for one deal. Visiting Quebec, seeing my college roommate, and my aunt and uncle, oh and don’t forget the ride in the new Impala rental car, okay maybe that wasn’t so exciting, but it was nice and spacious. It was a bit of culture shock, pleasant culture shock though, to be in a place that looked like Canada yet everyone, even little kids spoke French. I do speak French with my mom and grandma in Ontario, but up to that point for Canada was to English as French was to Africa (take that SAT). It was pretty stellar being in a familiar country and getting to speak French, I have to admit I’m getting partial to French it flows nicer, so my Anglophone brethren. My eyes were opened more to the mission field that is Canada. I was amazed to hear that in Quebec 5000 Adventists, but only 500 are native Quebecers, the rest are either out of province or country. Excluding Montreal (where the large percentage of immigrant Adventist live) Quebec has about 6 million people. That means the ratio is 1 in 12,000 people are Adventist. That’s the kind of statistic you’d expect of an unreached place! The conference has started a project called Project Maple to reach Quebec. The Maple is a slow growing tree, but a very excellent wood for its strength and syrup of course. The conference realizes that reaching Quebec will be slow and take patience but they know with time it can hold a strong and loving (sweat like syrup) group of Adventist. I was impressed by the youth. Though a few they are growing up and staying in the church. A group from the Sherbrooke church was putting on an evangelistic series while we were visiting.
Jumping time, I am writing (the typing is happening later) while flying over the Sahara desert. As we flew over Algeria (I followed by the handy progress map in the screen in the back of the chair in front of me), I looked down on jagged hills and valleys with shades of tan, green, and brown. That country was the setting of Lilias Trotter’s life (her life is written about in Patricia St. John’s “Until the Day Breaks…”) a woman who gave a promising art career in Europe to share Jesus with the Muslims of Algeria in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. As I looked I could see dark spots on the ground, weird, I thought. Then I realized I was seeing the shadows of clouds. What upon the ground is shade blocking the sun, up in a plane is a shadow, mind boggling. Brings my mind to how God sees our lives. On earth a cloud may block out a warm sun, but up here it is just a passing shadow. Trials and dark times to us seem to block God out, to cut us off from Him. But He always sees us, He knows the dark is just a passing shadow, and that someday, sooner than we think, there won’t be any clouds anymore, for the Son will be our sunlight. It is very powerful for me. I tend to think catastrophically, if something is not going well my mind almost immediately jumps to the possible disaster ahead and the complete ruin of my life. But this perspective helps me so much. I just need to remember that God sees the cloud shadows, even when all I see is darkness.