You know you're in Marseille when...

Even the santons are supporting OM!

For those of you on Facebook, I posted the rest of my pictures there. :)

Bits and Pieces

It's been a very full past three weeks (somehow I don't think this will surprise my readers...). :) Here are a few highlights:

*Vacances de Toussaint, or All Saints' vacation, is the equivalent of fall break in France and gave me a chance to get some administrative paperwork started. I say started, not done, because after three trips to the social security office I still don't have all the documents I need. *sigh* At least I don't live very far from their office!

*Kid's Club at my French church meets every other week for an hour and a half of music, crafts and Bible stories. It's been fun remembering all the songs I grew up with and learning some new ones too. :)

Some songs we sing in both English and French (like the one we're singing in the picture--My God is so great, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing my God cannot do! Mon Dieu est si grand, si fort et si puissant, rien n'est impossible

à mon Dieu!)

*Spending time with ICCM friends has been great fun. During break, we met up twice for restaurant outings (my first times eating out since moving to Marseille!). Finding out good but inexpensive spots to eat in a city is a great part of getting to know a place. If anyone is looking to try Algerian or Afghan food, let me know... :)

*Garbage strikes stink (literally). For nearly a week the waste processing plants were blocked by strikers and no bins could be cleared from the street. Thankfully the weather was cool enough that the stench was not as bad as a summer strike would have been, but the sidewalks were often covered by the overflowing mess. (View from my window at the end of the week on the right--some neighborhoods had it far worse.) The plus side of this event is that I am now grateful for all the basic services which have not gone on strike since my arrival...

*Veteran's Day (Armistice Day). France-USA, an association ICCM has worked with here in

Marseille, hosted a Veteran's day celebration at

Park Borély in honor of American soldiers who died in France. Dan gave the invocation and several city officials spoke or (in the case of the mayor) had representatives speak in their place. Each also presented a wreath at the memorial.

They were beautiful, but after the ceremony I accidentally backed into one such wreath and nearly knocked it over--glad this didn't cause a diplomatic incident . ;)

*Armistice Day hike. Through an English meet-up group in Marseille I learned about a hiking expedition through the Calanques, something I'd been wanting to do since my arrival. So instead of sleeping in on my day off last week, I joined six other hikers bright and early to trek through the mountains between Marseille and Cassis--the trip was definitely worth it.

*Thanksgiving. Pictures from the celebration itself are posted over on ICCM's website so I won't repeat the show here, but suffice to say that it was a wonderful celebration and we were very warmly welcomed by the Lacordaire school, which hosted us. At the end of the meal Dan brought a plate of dessert to the director's office and saw a framed collage of pictures marked "Thanksgiving November 2009" hanging on his wall--sure enough, the prints were from the beginning of our dinner! Next year we will probably need to move to one of their larger cafeterias, but everything else suited the celebration perfectly, so we hope to return. Thank you to all who were praying for us!

Preparing a meal to feed nearly 80 people naturally included quite a lot of work, but it all came together beautifully under Nancy's expert direction. Another student and I had a blast rolling pie dough and making cookies on Thursday before our celebration, all while listening to Christmas music that seemed to defy the warming temperatures. Nancy also kindly saved a can of pumpkin for me so I could make my traditional pumpkin bread the next day. One other ingredient--ground cloves--was missing, however, and I couldn't find any in stores. Finally, the open air market saved me and I was able to buy some from the spice stall. Definitely a new experience for me! In addition to pumpkin bread, the list of baked goods included pumpkin, apple, blueberry and pecan pies, oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies, brownies, muffins, and spice cake (apple tarte exhibited at left). One of the apple pies actually got left behind on the day of, but we made short work of it at dinner after Sunday's service. :)

*Marhaban. As I've mentioned in my letters, the court date is this coming Friday, the 20th, so please be praying for favor and provision for classes should we need to move in the coming weeks (there are back-up locations already planned, but getting everyone moved will be a logistical challenge). Otherwise, the classes are going well and I'm really enjoying getting to know my students. Tutoring has been especially fun as I try to help two lively 6-year old boys. It's immensly gratifying to see them understand a concept that escaped them until that moment!

Seeking a homeland

From Bible study this evening:

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. ¹⁴For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. ¹⁵If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

--Hebrews 11:13-16

And a few pictures of the city my pilgrimage is passing through at the moment:

Doesn't the sky make you want to wander? Autumn seems to reinforce the feeling of only passing through...of longing for a home that I've never actually seen before, but I know is my destination.

Herbert on prayer

PRAYER. (I)
PRAYER the Churches banquet, Angels age, Gods breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth ;

Engine against th’ Almightie, sinner's towre,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six daies world-transposing in an houre,
A kinde of tune, which all things heare and fear ;

Softnesse, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse,
Exalted Manna, gladnesse of the best,
Heaven in ordinarie, man well drest,
The milkie way, the bird of Paradise,

Church-bels beyond the stars heard, the souls bloud,
The land of spices, something understood.

--George Herbert

HT: KFG

A Less Busy Heart

"The quest for a contemplative life can actually be self-absorbed, focused on my quiet and me. If we love people and have the power to help, then we are going to be busy. Learning to pray doesn't offer us a less busy life; it offers us a less busy heart. In the midst of outer busyness we can develop an inner quiet. Because we are less hectic on the inside, we have a greater capacity to love...and thus to be busy, which in turn drives us even more into a life of prayer. By spending time with our Father in prayer, we integrate our lives with his, with what he is doing in us. Our lives become more coherent. They feel calmer, more ordered, even in the midst of confusion and pressure." - Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life

A few pictures from this week

Cooking Day 5: ratatouille, gratin dauphinois and roast chicken

Outreach day at the Salvation Army:
Praise songs in French (and one in Farsi!)

An Algerian woman shared part of her testimony and beautiful praise songs in Arabic

During the longer part of the afternoon (a testimony by the son of an imam), I watched the kids in a room nearby. Most of them knew me already, either from Marhaban or Saturday kids' club. We had a great time singing, drawing and playing games, all while trying to keep our noise level to a dull roar since the walls were far from sound proof...

Don't you love their smiles? :-)

On hospitality

Practice hospitality.

--Romans 12:13

Thank you to those praying for the conference this week! Today I had a lot more energy to work, plus another set of hands during part of my prep time, which made the day a lot less stressful than yesterday.

With all my meal-making this week, I've been thinking of Mary and Martha again--especially since my tendency is to focus more on tasks, like Martha, rather than people. In contrast to Martha, though, I don't like asking for help. :P Particularly this week, when it meant taking someone away from conference meetings. Part of the problem is also my reluctance to acknowledge my limits, in this case where I'm attempting complicated meals for a large group of people. :) Thankfully, my wonderful office manager saw past my attempts to handle everything on my own and volunteered to help this morning. The companionship while cooking was wonderful--she gave me all sorts of tips on cooking for groups and estimating how much to buy for large quantities of food. She also properly chided me for attempting complicated dishes for the first time at a conference like this... I couldn't help it--all the recipes in Nancy Painter's famous Gourmet cookbook looked so good! :-) The best result of the time was the ability to sit down and have lunch with everyone else and enjoy conversation with our guests. (I had even been able to make myself soup on the side as I'm still recovering from my cold.)

As important as making guests comfortable and seeing that they are well fed may be, conversation and plain old building-of-relationships are also vital parts of hospitality. I'm reminded of this thanks to the family I tutor for--the dad is Italian and a chef at a restaurant here and the mom makes wonderful desserts from her native Dominican Republic. Both of them talk with me all during their preparations and give advice and suggestions as they go: where to find the best coconut in Marseille (the African market), how to properly cook risotto (add the bouillon a little at at time, stir in waves), the best way to eat mozzarella (warm, not cold--you get more of the flavor). Each time I come to help Sarah with her homework, Ana has some new sweet or savory for me to try, and every other week or so Matteo makes it back from the restaurant before I leave and invites me to stay for dinner. In between attempting to read Italian children's books to Beatrice, their youngest, I hear the details of preparation for each dish, along with where to get the best ingredients. This family has a sort of reckless hospitality that I want to emulate--without reckoning, a generous giving without expecting anything in return. Isn't that the example Christ set for us?

A few prayer requests

• --For strength: The past week was incredibly busy, and this current week is just as much so, if not more. Please pray for strength to make it through the rest of this week, which includes a big conference in which I am cooking for 15+ people each day.
• --For health: It may be allergies or just a cold, but I've been fighting something since last Friday that makes life especially difficult when there is a lot to do. Pray that I get enough rest to heal in the midst of this busyness.

And a praise:

• --I have a ticket home for Christmas! :-D Lord willing, I'll be back December 21st to January 3rd.

A Pilgrim's Homecoming

As my alma mater celebrated homecoming this weekend, I attended a very different such celebration in Marseille.

The funeral was for a young man I'd never met, but his story was a testimony of God's grace, touching all those who knew him or his family. Last Saturday, after a ten year battle with cancer, he went home to heaven at the age of 17. He had been in home hospital care since March, waiting for the end of the sickness that had plagued his body since the age of 7. In those last few months, his visitors were struck by the peace with which he and his family faced their situation. I am told that his French teacher, an atheist, visited every week, drawn by the incredible sense of peace he felt there and nowhere else.

It was a privilege to commemorate his life today alongside the rest of his community. Nearly 400 people attended the memorial service and burial, hearing the words of truth and hope that he professed. Church family, friends from scouts, from school, from English camp, parents of other children at the hospital where he was treated--all came together to celebrate his arrival home.

Requiescet in pace, David

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.

[1 Corinthians]

Pictures from the Cévennes

Highlights from the ICCM retreat

--watching the stars over the mountains after living in the city for a month
--discovering a stash of magazines from the 1890s and 1900s, including articles on the Russian royal family and British MPs I remember studying in history
--Dan's croissants and pain au chocolat for breakfast
--my very patient audience going through the Musée du Désert
--lunch at La Rocaille under a gorgeous blue sky
--hiking up to the cave in record time, with a new youngest climber ever, Miss Furaha M., age 3!
--wading in the Gardon river after the hike
--a chocolate run at the Anduze Super-U
--stories from Craig and Leeanne about growing up in Zimbabwe
--praise songs in Chinese sung by Liu and Cynthia
--needing 5 laptops to play a single DVD
--watching Traitor and being able to identify where the Marseille scenes were filmed (a good counterterrorism film if you haven't seen it yet)
--a new hike up to Sainte Croix and the overlook
--signs of fall--leaves and chesnuts scattered all over the forest
--group pictures with the tradional 15 cameras
--a wonderful Sunday evening service and farewell party for Courtney
--surprise birthday party for Nicodemus.

All's well that ends well--I returned from the retreat probably more tired than when I left, but it was worth every minute. :) Pictures to come, probably on ICCM's FB account or the website (marseillechurch.info)

Notes on a musical evening

No pun intended. :-)

Tonight I visited a neighborhood choir as part of my attempt to become more connected with the local community. Pro Musica has been around since 1981 and happens to meet within walking distance of where I live, so I decided to give it a try. While the director was away this evening (which means that I will return next week to witness a more usual rehearsal), I was struck by the sheer lopsidedness of the choir: 15 altos, 9 sopranos, 3 tenors, and 2 basses. Ouch. I'm told that usually there are a few more men present, but it's still pretty bad odds.

On the plus side, tonight re-introduced me to all the French terms in music, especially random words we use in choir practice like "off" or "pick up to..." It's all words I know already, just not in the musical context, in the same way that a non-singer would get used to musical lingo after joining a chorale. The terms for notes are quite intuitive: black notes, white notes, round notes and pointed notes. You do lose the advantage of labeling each note with its relative value (quarter, half, etc.), but it's easy to learn quickly. And to think I went through this process backwards 12 years ago! I particularly remember wondering why "do" wasn't called "A" instead of "C," since that was the "first" note. Now I almost have to translate from "mi" to "E" and back again.

Overall, I enjoyed getting to sing Mendelssohn again tonight, but we'll see if they really need another soprano or not in the coming weeks...

Multilingual adventures

This week marked the beginning of English classes at Marhaban. Since the other teachers are all British, we had a few humorous differences of pronunciation--anywhere from how to say the letter "z" to whether the last syllable of Moscow sounds like "ow" or "oh." The students enjoyed hearing the differences in our language, especially since many of them have different accents in French, too!

We have three classes of students, and I teach the middle, or intermediary, class. Each session opens with time for tea, biscuits and discussion before everyone splits into their groups. This week one of the ladies brought sesame cakes to share, a traditional sweet from her native Syria. A few of the students are French, but most are expats from any number of countries--Germany, Algeria, Argentina, and Madagascar were all present in my class as well.

This afternoon the family I tutor for held a birthday party for their younger daughter at Marseille's beautiful "Park of the 26th Century." (Not many cites are 2600 years old!) Almost all of the other families there spoke Italian, so I had fun trying to follow the conversation between the bits of Italian my sister has taught me and the commonalites of all Romance languages.

Next weekend will be back to English again as ICCM and friends head to the Cévennes mountains for a time of fellowship and refreshment. Many on the trip are new to France or Marseille and some have never been to an ICCM event before, so please pray for growth and edification in relationships. It's amazing to see how God brings people together from so many different backgrounds to form his Church!

Bits and Pieces

After finishing my draft update letter for September, I figured it would only be right to actually update my blog as well while I'm at it... :) I blame my lack of posting on the much more regular work I'm doing over at ICCM's blog, so do please take a look to see what we've been up to. This week was full of family events, including the birth of my nephew (and an adorable baby he is!) and my grandmother's arrival in Marseille for a series of heart tests. Thankfully some of my major activities have not yet started, so I had a little extra time I was able to spend with her at the hospital.

On Thursday this week I was also able to attend a prayer meeting co-inciding with the "Night of Power" in Ramadan, with believers from all over the world. After about two hours of prayer and worship (powerful indeed!), we had a time of fellowship and refreshments, including many cookies traditionally served at the Feast of Eid, celebrating the end of Ramadan. Between those and another set of honey cakes I'd been served earlier that day, I spent the rest of the evening on a sugar high...

This afternoon I met with my new friend Marion, who started coming to the Friedland church at the same time I did. We're trading useful skills--I'm helping her with English and she's going to help me re-design some of the ICC brochures since she's a graphic arts major. Hurrah! This gives me hope after I spent three hours laboring over this Sunday's bulletin, with rather miserable results. (Next time I will remember to switch my MSWord settings from letter format to A4...) With all the international work I'm doing, it's nice to get to know a culturally French person for a change. ;) Not that I don't love the international community! It's just that I need a reminder every once in a while that I actually live in France, since I tutor for an Italian/Dominican Republican family, work in an office with ten different nationalities, go to church with people from about twelve different nationalities, and live with an Egyptian-American family. But that's what I get for living in a city where probably less than half of the population is actually of French background (especially if you keep in mind how many Corsicans are here! ;) )

And on that note, this Swiss-French-Corsican-Irish-American is going to sleep. :-D

Happenings of a week in Sanary

This week has been a good transition time, with plenty of work but also time to rest. I've mostly been becoming acquainted with the various ongoing ICC projects and helping out with a lot of the tech and web stuff. My experience with blogger here is helping me manage the ICCM site, which is great. During some of the more technical side of my work, I found the attached chart and showed it to Dan and Nancy... :-) [click for larger view]

Wednesday evening included two unusual events--a thunderstorm (the first rain I've seen since arriving in the south of France, the first in France at all this summer except for a brief downpour in Anduze in early July) and a trip to Castorama with the Painters. Castorama, esentially a French Home Depot, isn't that unusual in and of itself, but this evening they happened to be serving champagne (in plastic cups) to shoppers at the store entrance! Apparently this was a special sale for frequent buyers, which the Painters have become after all the work that has gone into the office.

Today I was able to ride into Marseille with Dan for ICCM's weekly prayer breakfast. It was my second-ever time on a motorcyle, and my first time on the highway with one, so it was quite the adventure! The end of the ride turned a bit sour when I burned my ankle against the exhaust pipe, but now I'll be a lot more careful in the future... After the prayer breakfast I was able to connect with Jean-Raymond, the local pastor and host to ICCM, who shared more details about the opportunities to connect with the church and in the community. It looks like I will be helping a new Italian family that just arrived in Marseille, tutoring their daughter as she starts in the French school here. There is also an opportunity to volunteer at the Marhaban ("welcome" in Arabic) center, both for English classes and French classes, which I'm hoping to explore. I recognize the need to keep a balance amongst all these different activities, but am really excited about the chance to help out!

This weekend I will worship with Dan and Nancy in Sanary before heading back to Marseille in the evening for ICCM's book study on Tim Keller's The Reason for God. I brought a copy with me with the intention of reading it over the summer, but now I'm signed up to explain the first two chapters and will definitely have to read it! (An excellent way to get me past the three other books I am reading at the moment to focus on this one for a bit...)

Here are a few prayer requests for the rest of this week:

• --Healing for my burn, which the pharmacist tells me is second degree
• --Favor in dealing with my French bank account: I found out this week that my card chip somehow was de-magnitized, which means I need to send it in for another one, but this can't be done until I update my address to Marseille, which will have to wait until at least Tuesday
• --Wisdom in balancing all the different ministry opportunities available in order to be a wise steward of my time here
• --Praise God that my French cell phone arrived--that's one less administrative thing for me to worry about now. :)

Prayer Guide for the Muslim World

Every year YWAM publishes a 30-day prayer guide for the Muslim world to coincide with the month of Ramadan. You can download the whole guide or sign up to recieve daily email updates this month (August 22nd to September 20th) on their website at www.30-days.net or www.30jours.org for the French site.

Harvest Time

Before leaving Corsica this week, my family stayed overnight with cousins who live close to the airport since my mom and brother had a 6:30am flight the next morning. We were pretty sure our departure time would be before anyone else was up, but that was counting without the grape harvest. Both our cousin and her husband work in the vineyards around Bastia, and the harvest is just starting. As an administrator, my cousin could start work as early as 5:30, while her husband, who oversees the actual harvesting, had to get up at 1:30 to be at work by 3am.

Having never participated in a grape harvest before, I had only vague ideas of the work involved, and definitely no understanding of workdays starting at 3am. Reality check: a harvest is hard and involves long, tiring days. But there is fruit at the end of it! Even if that fruit has to be crushed and hidden in barrels for years before it is ready, the end is a plentiful harvest, if the workers are there to bring it in. Since my time in Marseille will include both administrative work and more "hands on" opportunities, I was glad to see how both are important in the grape harvest as well. Please pray that I will have the same determination and perseverance as these harvesters in my work this year, even in long and tiring days, being a faithful steward of the harvest in which I am called to labor.

Then [Jesus] said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." --Matthew 9:37-38

Summer Reading

I've used a lot of my down time in the past few weeks to catch up on reading that I hoped to do before my work starts in Marseille this fall.

The first book, John Piper's Let the Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions, is one I've had for a while but am finally starting to read. The first three chapters examine in turn the aspects of worship, prayer and suffering in missions. I was especially struck in the chapter on prayer by the way prayer truly points to God's sovereignty and glory in missions--we recognize that it is only by and through him that the work is accomplished. It also made me very thankful for the many people praying for this year of mission!


My second read (because I always end up reading multiple books at once) is Bernard Lewis's The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years. A professor in college introduced me to Dr. Lewis's works on the Arab world, and I had the opportunity to read several of his other books for school. This particular work I found a yard sale right before leaving, so I was quite happy to complete my collection. It includes a lot of good backround material on the Middle East before the arrival of Islam or even Christianity, and then goes on to describe the years following Mohammed's life from a scholarly and fairly balanced perspective. I recommend this and any of Lewis's other works to those interested in the history and culture of the lesser-known parts of Arab history.

Welcome!

Check out the summer mission team blogs at www.mission2france.blogspot.com and
www.missionteam2france.blogspot.com.