Montreal

My husband has to have 4 semesters of French and a cross-cultural experience to graduate from the university. When he started back to school a year and a half ago, I'm pretty sure that his advisor saw that he had half of the French already so didn't make scheduling French a priority. A problem with it is he took it over 30 years ago. When he realized he needed to get the language requirement, he tried to get the university to let him take a Hebrew course, but they denied it and he started auditing elementary French this last semester so he can take the intermediate French he still needs to take. That would make it so he graduates in May of 2007, but everything else would be fulfilled he needs to do in December of this year. He found out he could take an immersion French course that would take care of the intermediate French in a few weeks. The university offered a trip to France that would fulfill the French requirement and also the cross-cultural requirement to graduate. He got excited about the idea and then just did not have peace leaving his family for almost 6 weeks. Then we started searching online for immersion French courses and found something in Canada that looked like it would work. After much research and footwork on campus, he is approved to take the course for credit and have it fulfill the remaining 2 semesters of French and his cross-cultural requirement. It is an immersion French course where he will have 4 hours of class per day and 2 hours of lab plus opportunities to be involved with interacting with the French-speaking people of the area. The real blessing is that we can all go along, so the whole family is working on learning French this year and we are switching into high gear now. Doing this will enable him to graduate in December of this year, which he will be very glad to do.

We plan to leave for Montreal at the end of the semester and take a week to get there (Rick starts the French school on May 8). We will go through Virginia, possibly Maryland (depending on the route we take), Pennsylvania, a corner of New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont/New Hampshire before we get to Canada. We hope to meet online friends along the way, plus on the way I will see where my husband grew up in West Virginia. We will stay 2 more weeks and camp in Quebec after the school in Montreal is done so we can practice our French and Rick can complete his cross-cultural independant study. Then we will travel through Ontario to Sault Ste. Marie and reenter the US at the upper peninsula of Michigan. I grew up the first 20 years of my life in Michigan, but never got to the Upper Peninsula and would love to see it. We will be camping or staying with online friends on the way back (we are hoping to stay with relatives and online friends on the way up - it'll still probably be a bit cold to camp). We will then go to my home area - Jackson - and I hope to see my brother who I have not seen in about 16 years and introduce my husband to my home area. I really hope we can make it to the Muskegon area, too, since that was one of my favorite places to go while growing up. We went camping over there several times. We then will come through Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee on the way home. If any of our blog friends are in these areas and want to meet us, please email me using the email on this site. One of the real highlights of the trip is the possibility of meeting online friends in person. (One of the people we are really hoping to meet, if his schedule will cooperate, is Billy D.)

Our lease is up at the time we go to Montreal. We have had problems with mold here and with one of our neighbors and feel it would be best to move when our lease ends. Since we plan to be gone for 2 months, we are just going to put our stuff in storage and rent something when we get back. We can always camp until we find something and are trusting G-d to work it out. It will save us quite a lot of money that we could better use on this trip. So we will become vagabonds as our daughter, Joelle, has done. LOL!

We are excited about the trip, but I also have to say I'm a bit nervous, too. Rick knows much more French than we do and I feel like an infant with mine. I helped resettle refugees with World Relief in Florida in my single mom days and now I will know what it was like for them. I'm using lots of different resources to intensify our study for the next 2 months. I will get very tired of seeing "The Jesus Film" in French as well as Babar, Barbie Rapunzel, The Rugrats and whatever else we will still get. We also have some learning song CD's, and I have found lots of resources online. We have been studying "Le Francais Facile," a French course for homeschoolers. I wish I had more than the demo version of Rosetta Stone as it really helps but it is out of our price range to get. I'm finding the more varied resources that we have, the better. I also have links to public radio in Canada in French and also found a christian station to listen to. I have found the public radio to be a little more helpful, though.

Now, if you don't see me posting and saying as much on your blogs, you will know why. We have lots of French to work on, sewing to do so I have some decent clothes for the trip (I need to use the fabric that I have been carting around with me hoping to get a "round tuit"), and packing to move. It is a good thing that Spring is springing, because it is my favorite time of year. I seem to have more energy in the spring and will surely need it for all I have to do. Please pray for us. We have seen so much come together for this already, but still have lots of details to work out. Then please email us if you would like to meet this crazy family while we are on "La grande aventure." (If you email us, I will give you specific routes we have in mind to take, but don't want to put them on here.)

Love and shalom,
Serena