Towards Reconciliation

our family's adventures in the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18-20)

10 Ways Life is Different in France than in America

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On March 10, 2014

In Culture, France

 

  • No car – no stocking up on bulk items and no once -a week grocery shopping trips. Josh does the grocery shopping 2-3 times a week, by foot or on his bicycle.
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  • Lots of French bread – we eat it with almost every meal.
  • We haven’t participated in corporate worship in our heart language (English) in 6 months. It motivates us to learn French so we can understand and worship from our hearts! The French Evangelical church is exceptionally small, but a positive thing is that practically everyone who attends church regularly is a committed follower of Jesus, as opposed to many of our churches in the States who would be classified as “cultural Christians.”
  • No greeting people when we walk by. Unlike in the Southern part of the United States, where, at the very least, most people smile at strangers, French culture does not require greetings or smiles to strangers. If you see someone you know, you are expected to greet with “Bonjour,” but if you see the same person later in the day, you aren’t supposed to say anything!
  • Going out to eat usually means McDonalds, which we never did in the States! Most restaurants do not open until 7pm, which is when we are starting bedtime routine with the boys. For the first 6 months we never made it out for dinner – it’s good for the waste-line and the pocketbook!
  • Laundry. We do our laundry on scheduled days each week, taking turns with other families who live on campus. The school has three washers, one dryer. One load of laundry = $5. So, yes, we re-wear our clothes. A lot.
  • Our evenings no longer consist of curling up with a good book or watching a movie. Instead, we eat dinner, play with the kids, put them to bed, and…..STUDY!!! French verb conjugations, grammar, vocabulary, listening exercises, etc. It’s really exciting, I promise.
  • Living in community. We live in the building with the same people we go to class with, attend church with, and share a common area outside with. Our children play together every day all day at nursery, go to church together, and play outside together after school. When we hear a child cry, we all guess who it might be, and Isaac will confirm if it is the correct child.
  • Surrounded by BIG, beautiful mountains. When language learning gets difficult, the Alps have a way of reminding us who has the power to move the mountains!
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  • Josh helps wash dishes by hand! Smile We don’t have a dishwasher, and since Josh and Kimberly are both in language school full time, the household duties have become more shared these days.

 

Chad Trip Highlights

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On March 10, 2014

In Chad, Ministry

I had a fantastic trip to Chad from January 27th to February 3rd. The purpose of the trip was to visit a town in eastern Chad where we are considering moving shortly after our arrival this Fall. Since many people have asked about the trip, I thought I would post a summary of our activities to give you a better idea of what it was like.

Sunday, January 26th

I left the house around 6AM Sunday morning and took a 3 hour train ride to Paris. I flew out of Paris in the late afternoon and arrived in Chad that evening around 10PM. Same time zone!! My other trips to Africa have started in the States, which makes for killer jetlag after changing 5-6 time zones. Spent the night with a friend and fellow team leader in N’Djamena.

Monday, January 27th

Met in the morning with a family working in the north. Wow, wish I could share more about their situation. Amazing perseverance.

Spent the afternoon having tea with some African church planters hearing about their work and their needs. These guys train church leaders among the Christian church in Chad to reach out to their Muslim neighbors with the Gospel. Very encouraging. One of them from West Africa is the son of a very high ranking Muslim leader, and has lost all contact with his family since he followed Jesus. There was a sadness in his voice as he told us his story, but he serves the Lord with great joy and excitement, leaving his family for months at a time to train church leadership in Chad.

Tuesday, January 28th

12 hour bus ride from N’Djamena to Abéché. Long day, thankful for air conditioning on the bus.

Wednesday, January 29th

Spent the night at the WEC guest house. WEC is a mission organization founded in 1913 by CT Studd. They have been in Chad for at least 50 years.

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Spent the day meeting with a couple from our organization who live in Abéché. Enjoyed fellowship with them, and they took us to see the market, various neighborhoods, the sultan’s palace (along with his pet ostrich that sticks its head over the wall when you drive by), and the area just outside of town where bricks are made. Talk about hot work!! WP_20140130_010

Thursday, January 30th

Visited the WEC Education Center where they teach English and basic computers classes.
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We had tea in the afternoon with a lady who has been doing translation work in Chad for 20 years. She’s done many language surveys among various people groups and worked on literacy programs. She speaks Arabic and one of the tribal languages fluently, having lived in a village for a few years.

Had dinner Thursday evening with an American family from a different organization that has been in Chad less than a year. Great time of fellowship and learning from their recent experiences.

Friday, January 31st

Met with another family recently arrived in Chad. They arrived when their youngest child was 2 months old! I was able to talk with the husband about solar power, buying a vehicle and other practical matters that we’ll be facing before too long.

Visited a Chadian association that provides a place for street boys to come a few times a week and have a meal, wash clothes, learn skills,etc. There are many street boys in Abéché who have no family, little or no education, and no one to help them.

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The leadership of the association. Go Colts!

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Saturday, February 1st

12 hour bus ride back to N’Djamena. The bus had TV screens that featured a wide variety of programming: Sudanese music concerts, WWE professional wrestling, Jackie Chan movie in Chinese. The Chadians especially liked the wrestling. Not one of my proudest moments to be an American.

Sunday, February 2nd

Back in N’Djamena, I treated my hosts to a meal at a Lebanese Restaurant before catching a flight back to Paris at 11:55PM.

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Monday, February 3rd

Back in Paris around 5AM. Caught a train back to Albertville, home around lunchtime.

Our New Christmas Tradition: From Creation to the Manger

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On December 9, 2013

In Family

We are enjoying our Christmas season with little ones in our home this year. Josh surprised us with a tree and a strand of colored lights that we hung in the window. Isaac likes to play with the stockings each night and guess what might be in his on Christmas morning.

Our favorite thing this season has been spending each night doing a Jesse Tree devotional with Isaac. We’re reading Bible stories and learning about the family tree of Jesus. Each night, Isaac has an ornament to hang on our Christmas tree that corresponds with the story we read. Isaiah 11:1 and 10 says, “Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot – a new branch bearing fruit from the old root…in that day the heir to David’s throne will be a banner of salvation to all the world. The nations will rally to him and the land where he lives will be a glorious place.”

We want to remind ourselves, and help Isaac understand, that Christmas doesn’t begin in the manger. We want him to know the whole story of God’s redemption plan. So far, we have studied Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Rahab. Eventually we will make our way through the Old Testament stories and spend a few days before Christmas talking about how Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promises and prophecies from the Old Testament. He is the ONE we are waiting for this season! We are excited about this new family Christmas tradition. It is something we can take with us anywhere in the world, even in a place like Chad where Christmas is not celebrated – where we won’t have trees and pretty lights. We pray this tradition is an eternal blessing to our children in the years to come.

Speaking of Bible stories…in French class each Friday, we are beginning to learn Biblical vocabulary. We started with pronunciation of the books of the Bible, but quickly dove in to learning how to communicate stories from Scripture in French. We are trying to write up a small summary of the stories in French to have our teacher correct each week. By the end of the year, our goal is to have a completed Creation to Christ set in French to use in Africa. Many people in Chad are illiterate, so one important way we hope to be able to communicate the gospel to our Chadian friends is to share stories, similar to a Jesse Tree style, showing through Scripture that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the fulfillment of all prophecies, and the Sent One to take away their sin and shame.

Isn’t it encouraging to think that stories simple enough to share with a 2 year old are the same stories that encourage our faith and can be used to bring others to salvation? Thank you, God, for the blessing of having access to your life-changing Word!

Thanksgiving in France

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On December 9, 2013

In Family, France

Since we had exams on Thanksgiving day, all the students agreed to celebrate Thanksgiving the following Saturday. We woke up to a beautiful snow falling, and Isaac helped make a snowman with his friends!

 

Since we couldn’t get our hands on any Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup for green bean casserole (my favorite Thanksgiving dish), I decided to take on the challenge of making a green bean casserole from scratch using The Pioneer Woman’s recipe. It got lots of complements and was much tastier than the traditional mushroom soup recipe!

 

Judah got in on the celebrations with his turkey attire 🙂

At our Thanksgiving feast that evening, we had about 60 people to feast and give thanks with, and about 6-7 different nationalities were represented.

Isaac playing with his friend, A, before the meal.

 

Our Thanksgiving spread (notice Isaac in the bottom right corner checking out the food!)

Our Thanksgiving in France was perfect for making special memories, spending time with our family, and remembering all we have to be thankful for!

Joy in Thanksgiving

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On December 3, 2013

In Family, France, Ministry

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Our family’s holiday season looks different this year. Because we are overseas and in transition, we won’t decorate a Christmas tree, we won’t wrap lots of gifts, and we won’t visit all of our family. Is your holiday season promising to be as magical as the TV commercials suggest, or is the reality of life for one reason or another creeping in and taking away the “wonder” of the holidays? May we encourage you this Advent season with what God has been teaching us lately? No matter how big or small your tree is, no matter how many family and friends surround you this December, and no matter how many gifts you receive or are able to give this year, our sovereign God, in good times and bad, is at His very core, a Giving God. This is what Christmas (and each day) is all about as a follower of Jesus! God gives us good gifts in Jesus, and He gives us grace in each moment of each day. Even the difficulties are full of abundant blessings because God is using those things to make us into the image of His Son. Sometimes, it is all too easy to have a mouth overflowing with complaints, isn’t it? Ann Voskamp, in her book One Thousand Gifts, says “Complaint is the bitter howl of unbelief in any benevolent God in this moment, a distrust in the love-beat of the Father’s heart.” Our family is learning to keep a thankful heart, believing that God has sovereignly ordained our every minute. We look for God’s blessings in the ordinary things by keeping a thankful journal to recount God’s grace in our lives. This Christmas season, will you join us in practicing His presence? Give thanks to Him in everything and receive much joy in return! Is there any better gift exchange could we ask for this Christmas?

Language Partner

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On November 1, 2013

In France

One of the most helpful tools in language learning, other than the willingness to make a complete fool out of yourself (actually a requirement), is having someone to meet with regularly to speak. In a situation like ours, it is possible, even easy, to get through the day without actually speaking much French. We live in our own little community, and we can accomplish much of what we need to on a daily basis without leaving the campus. The challenge, especially for a natural introvert (both Kimberly and I), is to get out and speak. It may seem obvious (OK, it is obvious) but there are people who spend months or a year learning a language and still can’t communicate because they don’t get out of their comfort zone and practice. If left to my own desires, I would rather flip through notecards than go into the community and babble like an idiot, but we must babble like idiots in order to improve! This is a humbling (and humiliating) experience!

So, one way to get more practice is to get a language helper. This is someone who agrees to meet once or twice a week to just talk. It’s very painful at first, especially if the person speaks little or no English. But something happens, so we’ve been told, as you struggle more and more to speak. PROGRESS. Little by little, after hearing that verb 27 times, you remember what it means or how it’s conjugated for third person singular.

After being in survival mode for about the first month, Kimberly and I started talking about trying to get a language partner for each of us. We asked for help from the school staff, and they found one for Kimberly. They met for the first time last week and Kimberly was amazed that she was able to speak French for 45 minutes. Sylvia, her language partner, is very pleasant and helpful (and speaks SLOWLY for Kimberly’s benefit). As of last Friday, I didn’t have anyone to meet with.

I had just finished putting the car seats in our rental car when an older gentleman walked into the parking lot of the school and started speaking to me in French. I caught bits and pieces of what he was saying, but couldn’t really communicate so I brought him in to the school administrator and let her talk with him. I stayed around and listened, and it turns out the gentleman is a 93 year-old retired Catholic priest who spent 22 years in the Congo (formerly Zaire). He had been communicating with a former student and had come by to say that he received a letter from her. He lives in the retirement home, on a floor just for priests, about 300 meters from our school. Upon finding out that I am an American, he said he speaks some English but doesn’t have a chance to practice. Seeing this as an obvious answer to my prayer for a language partner, I asked him if we could meet together and talk – he can practice his English and I can practice French. He was delighted and gave me his email address. I emailed him that afternoon and we decided to meet the next morning.

Thank you Lord for answering prayer!

I will write about our meetings in separate posts. We’ve already had two meetings and they were great! Hopefully I can write about them soon.

Visiting the Doctor in France

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On October 25, 2013

In Culture, Family, France

Yesterday, I took Judah to get his 6 month immunizations. The process for getting shots or visiting the doctor is pretty different in France than it is in the U.S. First, I took Judah last week to have a consultation with the doctor. Thankfully, his office is within walking distance, and he speaks excellent English. He checked Judah’s weight (8 kilos – 16 lbs) and height (27 inches) and wrote me a script for the immunizations he would need. A couple days later, I took the prescription to a pharmacy to purchase the immunizations and then keep them in my fridge all week until the next appointment. The doctor does house calls during the day (minus his lengthy pause in the middle of the day) and doesn’t start seeing patients in his office until 5:30 pm. We had an appointment at 6 pm (typically, that is Judah’s bed time these days, but he did great yesterday at the appointment!). We sat in a tiny waiting room and finally the doctor called us in. He answers the phone in his office, makes his own appointment schedule, takes the payments for the visits, and makes change out of his personal wallet. It is quite a different experience from a Doctor’s visit in the States! Not wrong, just different.

Learning French…by Faith

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On October 25, 2013

In France

It is a huge temptation for me to take this whole language learning experience into my own prideful hands and try to do it in my own strength. I can study as much as is possible (with two young children!) and do my best on tests and in the classroom, but not be doing it in a manner that is pleasing to the Lord in my own heart and attitudes. We have learned close to 1,000 vocabulary words, over 100 verbs, and 4 verb tenses in the past six weeks. That is a LOT! I was convicted recently that I have been doing precisely this: studying, attending class, taking the tests, and either being disappointed in my failures or prideful in my (small) achievements with the language, but never considering the role God has in my studies. Yes, I know He has shown His gracious hand in our family and children as we have adjusted to life here. He has reminded me that He is the one who has a great plan for the people of Chad. But I forgot that He is God even over this little detail of us learning French. Please pray for both of us that as we strive to learn French well, we will humbly remember that it is God who gives us the mind and understanding for learning. We want to remember during our studies to ask God to help us and give us His strength to persevere. We want His blessing as we give our best efforts to learn. Without His grace, we would not be where we are today in our French studies.

Tips for Living in France: Never Smell the Cheese Before Eating It

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On October 2, 2013

In Culture, France

France has some magnificent cheeses, and we’re just getting started tasting a few of the hundreds of varieties. If you smell the cheese before tasting it, you may never get to the tasting. Some of the cheeses have a wax/mold crust that will wake up the dead. Sometimes you just have to fight back the tears and press on to the goodness. The best things in life don’t come easily…

Trusting God with our Children

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On September 29, 2013

In Family, Ministry

This life is really just all about God conforming us to His will and His image, whether we are in America or France or anywhere else. God allows us to go through difficult circumstances so that we learn to trust Him more. In the end, God shows Himself to be more gracious and good to us than we could have imagined or hoped for. I wanted to share about our decision to put Isaac in nursery “full time” – 4 days a week – while we are in class. I fought and fought against it. I really wanted to keep my boy with me. I did not like the thought of someone else “raising” my child. I wanted to be the one to train him up in the way he should go. It is, after all, our responsibility as parents. We realized that having him in the afternoons was not going to allow me enough time to learn the language. So, we started taking him out for naps and taking him back in the afternoon at 2ish. Every day was SO hard, I hated saying goodbye to him and he cried each time I dropped him off. 8 goodbyes in one week was a LOT. I wanted to return to part time but Josh really thought we should toughen up and leave him all day. I cried! And prayed! And talked to a few people here who said they had the same response when they realized they really needed to leave their children all day. For me, I finally realized it was the control that I didn’t want to give up. I wasn’t trusting that God would take care of him. I knew God had orchestrated us being here, but I wasn’t willing to fully trust him to also take care of the little details with my children. But in the end, after lots of praying, I was convicted that Isaac is God’s child on loan to me. I agreed to try it for a few days and see how he did. So two weeks ago, we started leaving him all day. And guess what? He did amazing!!! He slept 2 1/2 hours at nap time when at our house he has not napped longer than one hour since we have been here! When Josh went to pick him up, he hardly wanted to leave. He wanted to keep playing with some toy. He now asks to go to his school each morning! I had peace and confidence in our decision when I left him the first day and I have not regretted it. We are able to fully enjoy our time with him when he is with us and we know he is having fun and being taken care of by fellow believers. I am able to study better instead of feeling overwhelmed with how to balance all my responsibilities of mom and student. Thankfully it’s only 10 months and Isaac won’t remember it. That is comforting to me too. I thank God for how He is taking care of Isaac (and Judah, who has been a great sleeper for us). I thank God for giving me the peace I needed to let Isaac go full time.

kimberly

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