Salut!

It’s December tomorrow - It’s just sunk in!  Only 3 weeks until I go home for Christmas!  Jingle jingle!!

Yesterday I did Sunday School and Abraham was on the agenda.  I couldn’t think of any crafts of games associated with him…and then I read about Sarah making bread for the messengers…tenious link I know, but we made bread cookies!!  Ha ha!  The kids enjoyed it! 

Then it was time for JEEP, the young adults group.  We ate together and then went for a walk along the river as it was so nice and sunny.

We returned to the church and spent the afternoon playing silly games with an aim to building more team spirit.  It was quite an eye opener becuase I really think the French take themselves more seriously than the English and it was quite difficult to get people to take part and just laugh.  AND which church do you know where lads out number girls 2-1?!  It’s all new for me here! 

  (We are standing in hight order  - I’m crouching!…just to explain!)

Today, in supermarkets all over France, there was a collection for the national food bank which supplies food to those in need.  I helped hand out plastic bags at the entrance to the supermarket and asked people to fill them and hand them to us on their way out.  Can you imagine all the people shopping on a Saturday morning.  I spent 2 hours saying ‘hello, would you like a bag for the food bank’ CONTINUALLY!  After a while I started getting tired and my sentence got all jumbled…hello, would you like a bank for the food bag’.  I got some weird looks!!

 

Sabina and her husband had to flee Algeria becuase of their Christain faith about 13 years ago.  They ‘camped’ in the church for 9 months with their 2 young children until they could get a place to stay.  This afternoon Sabina invited me and a group of ladies from the church for lunch.  It was lovely!  we ate North Afican food and drank copious amounts of mint tea. 

I find it so interesting, and also encouraging, to see how Sabina can mix her Algerian culture with her Christian faith.  France has a 10% muslim population, and where I live it is a lot higher than that.  It is imperative that I learn how to communicate into this culture and I’m really greatful for Sabina and her friendship.

I was talking with a guest in my flat this afternoon and this THING was flying around my flowers, seemingly drinking from them.  As those of you who know me can imagine, I wasn’t that calm!  Anyway, I was brave enough to take a photo.  Does anyone know what it is?  (Click on picture for bigger view.)  It was about an inch and a half long with a long curly tongue that it dipped into the flowers.  Ewwww!!

I’m EXHAUSTED!

Friday I set off on the train to Nantes.  I attended the Alpha training weekend there.  Here’s proof…  Yes, man back to front!

The weekend was really useful and very encouraging but totally exhausting.  There were 200 Catholics and 50 Protestants.  The Alpha course is really a ‘Catholic tool’ here in France which is quite surprizing considering its protestant roots.  This is the French Nick Gumble:  After a long weekend I travelled with Jan, another ECM missionary to her flat in Le Mans and spent the night there.  The next day, Monday, we travelled over to Tours for the ECM team day which turned out to be not very relaxing.

Off on my travels again, by car this time, with Susanne and Fritz and their baby Kevin.  We arrived back late in Orleans in time for a good meal and off to sleep at 10pm.

 

Tuesday was spent in a LONG meeting all day with the baptist pastors of the central region of France discussing our next move in terms of church planting. 

Phew! 

Tomorrow morning me and Jean Marc have been invited to lead a 2 hour discussion / class at the local Catholic high school.  Our theme is eccumenicalism…I can’t spell it or pronouce it, so I’m sure everything will go great!  Please pray for this and the seeds of the gospel we will sow in the students minds.  Also please pray for energy for me to keep up the pace, we seem to be speeding downhill towards Christmas now!

I was vegetarian in the UK.  Arriving in France I realised that it was going to be difficult…  One day someone offered me a quiche they had made especially for me and they pointed out that they chopped the meat up very small!!  I lose count of the number of meals where I have simply eaten green beans.  Vegetarians and France don’t mix.

Check out this meal we were presented with today:

 

Apart from digging out the salted turnips and feasting on them there was nothing else to do apart from tuck into the sausages!

Hmmm.  I won’t be cooking meat any day soon in my kitchen but I’m going to have to get to grips with eating what people offer me. 

(Incidently the meal was very tasty.)

That may be…but I miss treacle toffee!!

Hello there!  I’ve had quite a busy but very enjoyable few days!  On Thursday a French missionary here in Orleans arranged an interview with a local Catholic radio station and invited me along too.  It was a great oppertunity and she was very interested in what was going on at the church and even promised to advertise our English Christmas Carol Service!

 

Then we had the cooking afternoon - yum!  I have some photos but I, annoyingly, can’t get them to load.  A shame because we made what the lady called ’simple’ cakes….but for the rest of us they were anything but simple!  It took quite a while to make any that looked half decent.    There was another young mother there…which took our number of children to 3!

 

After the cooking I went with Jean-Aime, the French missionary, and one of the youth group to Chateauroux…1.5hrs away by car!…to watch a football match of Metz v Chateauroux.  Metz won 1-0 but to be honest I was so cold I didn’t care!!  Here is a rather unattractive photo for you to laugh at!

 

At lunch time I went for a walk around a lake.  I wanted to make the most of the lovely autunm sunshine.  It was quite serene. 

 

Then I spotted a mushroom forager with unique dress sense…she made me smile!

 

On Sunday we had our young adults group and there were 4 new people.  Guess how many of them were girls….4!!!!  How amazing is God!?  Prayer is SO powerful!  Anway, we ate together and there was an awkward silence but then we just played board games for the afternoon and people got talking.  The great Aberystwyth classic of Rummikub went down a storm!  We also had a little 80’s throw back with a game of Cluedo!