Salut!

After my last post I hung out all my washing and that was the last I saw of the sun!  Typical!

Anyway, I’m off early tomorrow to seek the sun…it’s been promised so I have high hopes!  I’m spending a week at a christian retreat centre.  I have 5 books and I’m ready to go! 

I’ve had blood tests this week which have shown I’m deficient in iron, amongst other things…which explains a bit.  I’ve got pink pills and fizzy orange pills and hopefully I will be on top of things again soon!

Bye for now! 

the sun is shining!!!  Yeah!  I’ve got loads of washing on - quick - make the most of it!  There is a lovely warm wind too.  Wonderful!

I’m busy doing a lot of preperation work at the moment.  Life kicks into full swing at the beginning of September, so I want to be as organised as possible.  There is the Sunday School, youth group and young adults group to plan and coordinate, because they all can’t happen the same weekends.  We are having a BBQ for the neighbourhood on the 15th so that’s quite a bit of planning too.  I’m trying to get the displays at the back of church up to date - somthing I like doing becuase it involves sticking and gluing!!  There is a mission team coming for the UK in October and I will be doing 2 different training courses this year - so I’ll be away quite often.  I’m also trying to do some free English teaching as a way to make contacts in the community.

I went for another rollerblade lesson on Sunday and it was fun fun fun again!  At one point I was flat on my front!  (It’s quite tricky to get up too!)  Once we get to September I’m going to start on the Friday night outings round the city - I’m really looking forward to it. 

So that’s the news!  I go away on Saturday for my ‘official’ holiday!  It’s with a Christian group in the south of France near Toulouse.  Please pray that I relax and make some good friends.

This is what the weather has been like for the past 2 weeks…

Blah!  It has been very disheartening…after the heat wave of last summer I was all prepared for melt down…I had to turn my heating on last week!!!

Anyway, with all this greyness I have been able to get down to some serious catch-up:

I’ve been trying to get in as much Bible study as possible, catch up on all the books I was supposed to read and make some headway into a translation project for a fellow missionary here in Orleans.  It’s not been the most active of weeks but I have achieved a fair bit…

Tomorrow morning I am leaving for 3 days by the sea with a friend.  Her family have a house up in the North, I was there last year too.  It is fun; all the family are there throughout the summer so I’ll be meeting up again with aunties, uncles, grandparents, neices - the whole crowd!  The weather is forcast for rain so I’ll be taking an umbrella and scrabble rather than a swimming costume!

So, do you remember the Nigerian refugee family I told you about?  Living in the horrible, horrible 1 room in a condemned police station with a new born baby and 1 kitchen a 1 bathroom to share with 5 families?  Well, they have been granted a temporary flat until Christmas!!  It’s a lovely big flat on the 9th floor with amazing views of the city.  They have 3 bedrooms and a lounge!  Praise God!

Today and yesterday I have been loading up Fifi and trying to get their stuff moved across the city.  You know all the photos of kids in Africa who gather round and jump on you and stuff…well it was going on in Orleans, it was surreal!  Each time I drove the car in about 15-20 kids ran after me waving and banging and then they all wanted to see the car, climb inside, jump on me.  They had no idea who I was!  It was all quite surreal and I realised that I was very grateful to be called to France becuase Africa just seems a bit too stressful for me!! 

Anyway, please pray for Ester, Emanuelle, Samuel and Daniel as they settle into their new place.  Samuel is 3 and is VERY clingy.  Out of neccesity he has slept in the same bed as his parents all his life, so I think it will be hard for him to finally have his own room.

I just found this on youtube….it is SOOOOOOO funny!!!  If you have ever learnt french at school, this one is for you!!

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=FUVagbFcSUU&mode=related&search=

Do you remember how the canoing thing didn’t work out?  People not very friendly, boring etc.  Well, in a new attempt to make friends I went with my shiny new roller blades to my first lesson. I was really nervous because I knew no one and I thought it would be all kids plus me. 

It was 35 degrees and we were on the top storey of a car park…you can imagine the heat!  Anyway, we got under way and I wasn’t the oldest by a long shot…the people were all very friendly…I didn’t fall over too much , although my ’shiny’ new boots are not that shiny any more!…and afterwards they invited me for a beer!!!  Hurah!!  I’m making friends!  I have a new hobby! It’s fun!  I’m feeling very happy!!

The only thing that is dampening my spirits is the burning on my back where I couldn’t reach to put the sun cream…

I’m feeling all sad now because my sister and brother in law where here for a week and now they’ve gone home.    It was nice to have the company and to do things together that I can’t really do on my own.  We had a guided tour of the cathedral, went to the zoo, went loads of bike rides.  It’s fun having friends! 

Everything here has shut down for August.  It is like a ghost town.  Most of the church members are on holiday so there is not a lot to do.  I’ve got some translation work from a church group that want things in English.  But apart from that I will be using the next 2 weeks to really get to grips with the reading that I haven’t had time for all year.  It’s a funny system.  The French seem to work on SUPER FAST SPEED during work times and then stop 100% for the holidays.  There is no slowing down, they just slam on the brakes.

Tomorrow afternoon I have signed up for a rollerblading lesson with the club here in Orleans.  Apart from the predicted temperature of 35 - ouch! - I’m quite nervous.  It’s scary meeting new people on your own, particulary when I’m going to be falling over all the time and generally looking stupid!