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