Camping Transit, Levis, Quebec, Canada (Quebec City)
Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. ~ Proverbs 6:6-8
We were hoping to worship with other believers this morning, but the only thing Blaine could find was 35 minutes away in town, and we didn’t know where we could park, and it was pouring down the rain, and we decided to stay home. Again. It’s wonderful having Pastor Mike at our disposal, but it’s not the same and we miss corporate worship. ☹
Today’s message continued in the Gospel of John with Chapter 3 – Jesus and Nicodemus.
I’ll never recapture Mike’s message, but here’s what I know.
Nicodemus was a high-ranking Pharisee. A leader of leaders in the Jewish religious community. The Pharisees were just beginning to get their hackles up about Jesus, when Nicodemus came to see Jesus one night very early in Jesus’ ministry.
Nicodemus acknowledged Jesus as a teacher sent from God because of the miracles Jesus had been performing, but Jesus knows men’s hearts. He knows what we’re really thinking, despite the words we say, and He tells Nicodemus that “…no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” After which, Jesus and Nicodemus get into a discussion about how that’s possible. Nicodemus takes the practical side “…. am I – a grown and elderly man – supposed to crawl back into my mother’s womb and be born again??”
And Jesus teaches him the spiritual meaning – “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”
I can’t possibly teach it any better than that.
Today, we visited the area of Levis called, St Romould. It’s sort of the historic section. Our first stop was a house that I’d read about that belonged to an important man and the tours were free on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, and who doesn’t like free?
We don’t know what this is, but it’s not where the tour was being given.
We had to ring the doorbell, and the guy who answered the door apparently didn’t speak English because he passed us off to a woman who spoke fairly good English, but also with a heavy French accent. Still, we got the important highlights, and she was quite humorous and interactive, often asking us if we knew what certain items in the house were used for, or what we thought of something.
Alphonse Desjardins is a very important man – that no one’s ever heard of. His wife, Dorimene, is even less known, although almost as important.
He was born in Levis in 1854, as the 8th of 15 children! He went to school at the College of Levis, (and I include that bit of information, because you’ll see the college later today), where he completed his commercial course and went on to become a journalist, and editor of Quebec parliamentary debates, and a French-language stenographer at the House of Commons in Ottawa.
On April 6, 1897, he heard Michael Quinn, a member of Parliament from Montreal, denounce loan sharks for charging interest rates as high as 3,000% per year! Desjardins set out to find a solution to the problem, conducting research until he discovered the cooperative model.
On December 6, 1900, he founded the Caisse Populaire de Levis, which was North America’s first savings and credit cooperative (like a credit union), and for the first six years, it was located in his home – which is where we are.
By the time of his death from kidney disease on October 31, 1920, he’s founded 136 caisses in Quebec, 18 in Ontario and 9 in the United States. His wife, who’d helped him run the business, took on a consulting role and as a result, gained moral authority over her husband’s work. She died on June 14, 1932 at the age of 73.
So to our understanding (our tour guide spoke broken English with a French accent 😊), this is how it worked. Desjardins convinced some wealthy investors to front him some money. We don’t know how much. The idea was that “common” people would invest money when they could into the system and then, when they needed money, they could borrow from the system.
Our guide showed us a page from the enormous ledger, most of the deposits were only $.10 – – as in ten cents, per week. If I remember correctly, they had to invest $5 before they could borrow money. At the time, that dime was a lot to people who weren’t working, or had very low-paying jobs.
It’s a pickle jar.
Apparently it was a sign of prosperity the Desjardins’ acquired to impressed their guests.
They had to eat in shifts because they had so many children . . . they didn’t know what to do . . . haha! Sorry. My mind when to “The Old Woman in the Shoe” just then. : )
And I specifically took this picture to remind me, so I know it was something noteworthy. : (
We’d never seen one before.
The bottom holds candy. The top? Flowers! Isn’t that great!?
Our guide enjoyed showing off the stereoscope, too.
But my grandmother had one, so we weren’t quite as impressed as the others in our small group. : )
There were quite a few things in this museum that we didn’t get to look at, but it was all information boards and they were all in French anyway . . . At least we got a nice tour of the house. 😊
Before we walked downtown, we stopped in at yet another gorgeous Cathedral. This one is also named Notre Dame, but it had some extra words attached. The full name was Eglise Notre-Dame-de-la-Victoire, built in 1850. And that’s all I can tell you, except that it’s getting some face work done. But it was certainly beautiful!
And then we walked. Up and down and all around. Again. I don’t think we’ve ever walked up and down so many steps in so many days! But it’s good for us. Or so I’m told.
Or as we’ve recently learned, it’s pronounced Ke-BEC. : )
We couldn’t read what it was because it was in French.
It’s the Secondary School!
Can’t they put in an escalator??
I wasn’t planning on being hot and sweaty today. . . .
And then we stopped for ice cream. But this ice cream? My, oh MY!! Worth every single staircase and step we took today! Wonderful, creamy vanilla custard, in a fresh, crunchy shell. And as if that’s not good enough? You had to choose a flavor of dipping sauce! Blaine’s was s’mores, mine was a dark chocolate (they had several degrees of dark!) with pecans in it. The longer we sat, the harder the dip became. I don’t know how they did it without the ice cream melting, but it was truly delicious!
Eventually, we drove to another area and discovered this gi-normous building!
We had no clue what it was, and were standing on the sidewalk out front gawking, when I noticed a woman who looked local (don’t ask me to explain what I mean, because I can’t). I stopped her and asked if she could speak English and she said just a little. It was enough to tell us what the building was. 😊
It’s the College of Levis. The same one Desjardins attended. And it’s still in use today. They call it “Secondary School”. She also told us to visit the library on the end of the building, so we did. The college is actually connected to a church which was converted into the town library. Nicest library we’ve ever seen! The sad thing is – – this means no one was using the church anymore. : (
The organ is still here – or at least the pipes are.
Heading back home, we noticed on the gps a road called “President Kennedy”. We thought that was a little strange. Turns out that after JFK‘s assassination in 1963, Canada renamed the street in his honor.
