Salut!

I started my ‘interim’ work today.  I am helping a church in North-East Paris with their out-reach to the refugee population.

I set out at 7.50am amid the commuter rush.  (It’s an hour’s commute.)  It was fun!  I got to dress up and behave like a normal person my age.    (Normally my mornings are either free or preparation time.  Afternoons: visits and activites.  In the evenings I invite people or have church events…all of this while wearing jeans.) 

I expected a class of 5 beginners, in a separate room.  Instead, I got 15 beginners in the same room as the more advanced class.  Slight panic.  The ’school’ doesn’t have a photocopier and I had to do lots more copies on the printer - nightmare!

Anyway, we had fun - or at least I did!  We did parts of the body.  La tete, le pied, les yeux.    It was a mini-disaster trying to remember all the kids names.  In the class there were students from Tibet, Napal, China, Morocco, Ethiopia, Nigeria and many more…so you can imagine they weren’t called Sarah and John!

I’m back there again Friday and I hope to be a bit more prepared. 

I’m praying that we can build a relationship of trust.  I’m there to help these kids through a difficult and scary part of their lives.  If they simply accept this help for what it is, good.  If we get to talking about Jesus and my motivation for helping them, good.  I pray that the Holy Spirit will have his way and bring light into the darkness.

Some of you might know / have met my friends Jean-Aime and Myriam.  They are going to move to a new area outside Paris and join a church planting team.  They have just bought a house in a little village near Melun.  I say a house - but really it’s a shell!  They have to re-do EVERYTHING!

Today I spent 5 hours stripping wall paper and I only did one tenth of the work!  The boys have been smashing walls for the past week.  It is certainly crazy.  I’ll keep you up dated as it comes along.

  Downstairs

  The tasteful wallpaper upstairs!

So I went to visit the French class today before I start on Wednesday.  I was very nervous, but in fact I don’t think it will be that bad!  The lady who teaches it is from Cameroon, and teaches in, what I can only imagine, is her own personal style.  There are no photocopies, no props, no games, just copy down what I write on the board. 

Afterwards I asked her what resources she had that I could photocopy.  She showed me one sheet for learning parts of the body and told me that there was no photocopier!  Arghh!  I went straight over to the bookshop area of Paris and stocked up on French teaching materials!  From my English teaching I have files and files of worksheets and games, which makes it so much easier, not to mention fun.  I got the 2 most exciting books I could find…but even they didn’t seem that exciting! 

There is a HUGE market just round the corner from my flat and I didn’t realise!  A friend from the town has been promising to take me, and for months there has always been something to stop us. This morning, however, the sun was shining, the trains were on strike and we were both free.  So off we went!  Wonderful - so much to see and lots of bargins!

I was also ripped off by a man who sold me ‘free range eggs’ which in fact as I opened them at home and read the number on them, are in fact battery eggs.  Ewwww.  I HATE that.  I also bought a mint plant foe 1€, except I think it’s just a weed - it has no minty flavour at all!

I was on the metro, minding my own business, when I look out the window and see this chirpy chap being very rude but with such an endearing smile…!!  It made me laugh out loud!  I wonder if they have these same ads on the underground…I somehow doubt it!

I was babysitting my little god daughter today and we went to the park to feed the ducks.  Her mum is pregnant and we were talking about where the baby was.  I said, "The new baby is in you mummy’s tummy, isn’t it?’  She replied, "Yes, my mummy has a baby in her tummy.  I have a poo in mine."

HA HA HA HA HA!!!!  Classic! 

In half an hour I’m off to a church in Paris which gives French lessons to political refugees.  The pastor has asked me if I would like to be a part of this ministry while I’m sorting out what my next placement will be.  I think it could work out well, using my teaching skills and befriending these people who have often fled horrendous situations.  I’m going to speak with the co-ordinator of the program.  I think it’s quite ironic, I meet with her at 1.30pm about giving French lessons and at 3pm I receive a french lesson! 

(Just realised that won’t have made much sense unless you get my monthly updates.  If you don’t, you won’t know that things have unfortunatly not worked out here in Arcueil-Cachan and I left the church in mid-february.)

Hey all you who do the talking to God thing…do it for K.  He lost his job because of the recession and is having a tough time of it.  Tonight he came to an intro to Christianity course with me at a church in Paris.  It was really good and we both enjoyed it.  I’ll leave it with you and let you get talking to our Dad!

The pastor from Orleans and his family invited me to go skiing with them last week.  We didn’t get much skiing in but we sure saw a lot of snow! 

Monday and Tuesday were so foggy that you couldn’t see more than a metre in front of yourself.  I stuck to cross-country skiing, sledging and knitting!  Wednesday the fog cleared and me and the pastor’s wife had a good day of skiing.  Fun fun fun!  Thursday and Friday it SNOWED!  But not just a bit - a whole metre’s worth of snow!  It was incredible! 

 This was the way out of our challet!  Waist deep in snow, Crazy!

HURRAH!!!   

I drove to church in Paris!!!  DOUBLE HURRAH FOR STACEY!!!

I ate lunch with some friends in the subberbs, say 3 on the face of the clock.  We all wanted to go into Paris for the evening service.  So instead of driving back down to 6 and then taking the metro into the centre, I DROVE!  However, it was no one-man-band!  I held the steering wheel, Matthieu read the map and acted as the SatNav, Vanessa was in charge of spotting the viciously placed red lights and Theci was the speaker of calming words as I went through various stages of panic!

We made it in one piece, parked parisian style and drove back.  (Had to bump the car in front and behind me 4 times to get out!  There was about 3cm of room in front and the guy behind was already touching my bumper!)

Hurrah!  Hurrah!  Hurrah!

Tomorrow I’ll let you know how the skiing went.  Goodnight! xx