It's always good to get back home again, especially after being on the road for three and half months. Sleeping in my own bed, fast Internet, bumping into friends on the street - there are so many things about Ottawa that I love. But I also love traveling, meeting new friends and enjoying (or sometimes enduring) new experiences. The three months I spent in Seychelles were a great experience, as were the past two weeks staying with friends in Rome. Let me fill you in on a number of the highlights of the past few weeks before signing off. You'll recall [View Full Entry]

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It’s hard to believe that I’m in the final month of my three month placement here in the Seychelles. Time has passed quickly especially since my family, Guylaine, Jonathan and Michelle joined me here one month ago. My time off is time on for them as we tour the beautiful beaches, forests and waters of these wonderful islands together. We are now living on the island of Praslin, 40 km from the main island of Mahe, where I am replacing the rector of the parish, Rev. Bryan, who is in England on a training course for three weeks. For over a [View Full Entry]

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Today's Blog is from Michelle Summer 2007: A Journal of My Trip Mon June 27, 2007 One thing I don’t like about traveling is the transportation to get to the place. First we had to take a 2 hour bus to Montreal, then we took a 6 hour plane to France. I barely slept on the plane, it’s too uncomfy. We got a day room at a hotel and we slept for four hours, then we took a plane from Paris to the Seychelles that was ten hours long. It felt like it was never going to end. When we [View Full Entry]

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How things have changed over the last ten days! The big event of course was the arrival of Guylaine, Jonathan and Michelle on June 25. They showed up at the airport early on Monday morning. As soon as Jonathan and Michelle saw me on the other side of customs, they ran out to see me, not realizing that they had left Guylaine to clear all their bags through customs for them. Peter had graciously offered to drive us, and so we bundled everything into his car and went home to the Bishop’s house where we would stay for the next [View Full Entry]

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It’s been two weeks since I wrote an entry for this blog, and tomorrow will be six weeks since I left Canada. I have an excuse for the absence of blogs - too much non-blog writing over the past two weeks. Four sermons, two lectures, and a letter for the Anglican Church people back home - it’s almost like being back at school. I’ve moved from the mountains in La Misere back to the town of Victoria. I’m happy to be back. The mountains were cooler, but where I was living was very isolated, and I was getting tired of [View Full Entry]

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It’s moving week for me here. Last Sunday I preached at the main service at the Cathedral, and the service was also broadcast on the radio by the Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation (SBC). I happened to use a coconut as one of my illustrations during the homily. Throughout this week people who were there or who listened on the radio have been coming up to tell me that they liked the coconut. Note to self: people are much more likely to remember the image you use than the words you say! On Monday, Bishop Santosh got back from his travels. There [View Full Entry]

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Finally, a full day off. I decided to take advantage of it by heading up into the mountains. Mahe Island is a granite formation, unlike most oceanic islands which are coral formations. As a result, there are mountains which rise up over 900 metres above sea level. Mostly they are covered by a thick mountain forest, but some places reveal steep granite cliff faces. I caught a bus up the Sans Soucis road which goes across the highest part of the island. The road consists of steep narrow switchbacks, and I tried to avoid thinking about what would happen if [View Full Entry]

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[url='/Videos/3440.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/3440.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'] Revival It’s been almost two weeks since I arrived in the Seychelles, and I’m sure some of you are wondering to yourselves, “is Mark actually doing anything while he’s there?” So to reassure you that I’m keeping busy, here are few days in my life in the Seychelles. On Friday, which normally is supposed to be my day off, Christine and I went to the airport to celebrate a service with the firefighters to kick off their celebration of International Fir [View Full Entry]

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One of the remarkable things about the Seychelles is the diversity and uniqueness of the flora and fauna. There are a huge number of plant and animal species that are found only in these islands. It is in this way a lot like the Galapagos Islands, those remote islands in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Peru which were the inspiration for Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. It could easily have been the Seychelles that served as the catalyst for Darwin’s theories. On these 100 plus islands are found flightless birds, bug eating plants, the mythical Coco de Mer [View Full Entry]

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Jonathan, my 13 year old son, chose the Seychelles for his recent school project. Here's his introduction to this amazing country: The Indian Ocean dominates the Seychelles whether we are talking about the immense drops in depth off the coast of the islands or merely the size of what seem to be little specks of islands compared to the big blue bed of water extending for thousands of miles. Very few people know about the Seychelles islands. I was among those people who had no particular idea where or even what was the Seychelles until a couple months ago when [View Full Entry]

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