My Easter Adventure - Part Deux
Dana and Andy have been attending Logos Baptist Church in Mississauga for the last few months. When I was calling them to plan my trip, Dana warned me that the church was "different", but wasn't any more specific than that. Well the congregation of LBC is Chinese. They have Mandarin, Cantonese, and English services. I don't think I had ever experienced being a visible minority before this weekend. But being one of a handful of "whites" in a crowd of around 250 Chinese people I was definitely a visible minority.
The Good Friday service was a joint service in Mandarin and English. Probably the strangest thing for me was having Mandarin and English sung at the same time during the congregational singing. But in the end it didn't really matter since both languages were synced to the music. A pretty cool experience. They also did their responsive readings in both languages at the same time. Otherwise it could really be any Baptist church in Ontario.
The speaker for Good Friday was a Messianic Jew who explained all the components of the Passover meal and how it has evolved since the days of the Old and New Testament. The imagery of the Trinity and Salvation is quite strong in the Passover meal. The speaker of course asks the question, "With all these parallels how can the Jews not believe that Jesus was the promised Messiah?" The meal holds a lot of truths about God's nature, but I think you'd have to be wearing the Christian-shaded glasses to make the jump to say it points directly to Christ. The service ended up being quite long... well twice as long as normal since the message was basically given twice. A few lines in English, then a pause as it was translated into Mandarin. But it was pretty interesting so it didn't feel overly long.
Nathan is such a sweetie. He's two now and starting to communicate with words. Hearing him answer, "Yes please" to a question is pretty adorable. Trucks, buses, trains, and planes have to be his favorite things in the world. Whenever one goes by he shouts out what it is with big eyes and a wide grin. He also has an uncanny radar for finding buses on the horizon. We'd have to look for a minute sometimes before we'd see the bus he was pointing at because it was far away and mostly hidden behind some buildings. Pretty amazing. I had a lot of fun playing with Nathan. They had some balloons left over from a party so Andy and I were bombarding him with them. At first Nathan would just stand there, not moving, just kinda staring at the floor. Then he'd burst out laughing and squealing, chasing after the balloons. One time he was sitting on the couch so I started to bury him in balloons. He'd sit still until I piled them all on him, then he'd knock them all away in a flurry of glee. It's definitely fun discovering his personality.
Dana worked on Saturday so Andy and I had some time together. In the morning we took Nathan for a drive and went to Chapters and TigerDirect.ca. I had no clue TigerDirect had a physical store so I had to check it out. It would be like walking into an Amazon.ca. Plus well TigerDirect is a computer geeks dream so Andy and I tried to keep our drooling to a minimum. We then went and had lunch with Dana and her parents and left Nathan with her parents so Andy and I could go see a movie. We went to see "V for Vendetta" which was pretty good. Having read a little more about the movie and the comics it was based on since I got back I can see why a lot of Americans have a problem with the movie. It definitely pushes a left-wing, anti-Bush message.
The Sunday service had a separate English service and spoke of the hope we all can have because of the Resurrection. After the service I got to meet some of the congregation and chat a bit which was nice. We even got to talking about the differences in Chinese culture. But mostly they asked about Sudbury and what it's like "living so far North". That always makes me chuckle when talking with people in Southern Ontario considering Sudbury is not all the far away. Especially since I've been to the real South now. ;)
Sunday night Dana and Andy had their families over and a few other friends for Easter Dinner. It was fun, but as always I'm not the greatest in crowds. I knew everyone there but I still mostly sat and listened. Before bed Dana and I had a deep conversation, mostly about what I want to do with my life. She's one wise cookie. I miss all three of them very much. Hopefully we can visit again during the summer.
Matthew.
The Good Friday service was a joint service in Mandarin and English. Probably the strangest thing for me was having Mandarin and English sung at the same time during the congregational singing. But in the end it didn't really matter since both languages were synced to the music. A pretty cool experience. They also did their responsive readings in both languages at the same time. Otherwise it could really be any Baptist church in Ontario.
The speaker for Good Friday was a Messianic Jew who explained all the components of the Passover meal and how it has evolved since the days of the Old and New Testament. The imagery of the Trinity and Salvation is quite strong in the Passover meal. The speaker of course asks the question, "With all these parallels how can the Jews not believe that Jesus was the promised Messiah?" The meal holds a lot of truths about God's nature, but I think you'd have to be wearing the Christian-shaded glasses to make the jump to say it points directly to Christ. The service ended up being quite long... well twice as long as normal since the message was basically given twice. A few lines in English, then a pause as it was translated into Mandarin. But it was pretty interesting so it didn't feel overly long.
Nathan is such a sweetie. He's two now and starting to communicate with words. Hearing him answer, "Yes please" to a question is pretty adorable. Trucks, buses, trains, and planes have to be his favorite things in the world. Whenever one goes by he shouts out what it is with big eyes and a wide grin. He also has an uncanny radar for finding buses on the horizon. We'd have to look for a minute sometimes before we'd see the bus he was pointing at because it was far away and mostly hidden behind some buildings. Pretty amazing. I had a lot of fun playing with Nathan. They had some balloons left over from a party so Andy and I were bombarding him with them. At first Nathan would just stand there, not moving, just kinda staring at the floor. Then he'd burst out laughing and squealing, chasing after the balloons. One time he was sitting on the couch so I started to bury him in balloons. He'd sit still until I piled them all on him, then he'd knock them all away in a flurry of glee. It's definitely fun discovering his personality.
Dana worked on Saturday so Andy and I had some time together. In the morning we took Nathan for a drive and went to Chapters and TigerDirect.ca. I had no clue TigerDirect had a physical store so I had to check it out. It would be like walking into an Amazon.ca. Plus well TigerDirect is a computer geeks dream so Andy and I tried to keep our drooling to a minimum. We then went and had lunch with Dana and her parents and left Nathan with her parents so Andy and I could go see a movie. We went to see "V for Vendetta" which was pretty good. Having read a little more about the movie and the comics it was based on since I got back I can see why a lot of Americans have a problem with the movie. It definitely pushes a left-wing, anti-Bush message.
The Sunday service had a separate English service and spoke of the hope we all can have because of the Resurrection. After the service I got to meet some of the congregation and chat a bit which was nice. We even got to talking about the differences in Chinese culture. But mostly they asked about Sudbury and what it's like "living so far North". That always makes me chuckle when talking with people in Southern Ontario considering Sudbury is not all the far away. Especially since I've been to the real South now. ;)
Sunday night Dana and Andy had their families over and a few other friends for Easter Dinner. It was fun, but as always I'm not the greatest in crowds. I knew everyone there but I still mostly sat and listened. Before bed Dana and I had a deep conversation, mostly about what I want to do with my life. She's one wise cookie. I miss all three of them very much. Hopefully we can visit again during the summer.
Matthew.
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