5/4/06
4/2/06
3/16/06
1/1/06
10/3/05
9/3/05
8/17/05
7/19/05
7/12/05
7/1/05
6/13/05
6/9/05
5/10/05
4/15/05
3/17/05
3/6/05
2/17/05
10/13/04
Well, April was busy, but tons of fun. Among other groups, we had the Aalen church here from Germany, which is always a great group - they're very enthusiastic about the ministry of the Chateau (it's the church that Steffie is from - so we're excited about the possibility of future interns coming from there again). They come to the Chateau every Easter, and one of the new traditions that Marlin had started here over the last few years is a community Easter Egg Hunt. We had lots of people from the village come up to the Chateau, as well as people from Macon. Some of them were a bit too old to actually join in the easter egg hunt (we didn't think to have any hidden for the 40-65 age group) but everyone enjoyed the refreshements and just hanging out and talking. Steffie went home with the Aalen church, so we're down to just four of us, and Melody is only here until the end of May, so things are slowly getting quieter around here.
The Cave remodeling has also advanced quite a bit this month. Warren and Nancy Zellner came over from Winona Lake, IN to help us get started on the tile floor, and also did a ton of work up at Montceau with the Hoberts. We've finished the floor, built some furniture, and are now out of project money for it, so we'll have to wait to finish it up, but we got further than we expected with the money we had, which usually doesn't happen. We've actually already used the cave several times - the Aalen church, movie nights for the GBC youth work camp, and of course, a B-Day party for me :) To finish it, we'll need to build the cafe tables & stools, put in the cabinets & sink for the kitchenette, purchase the fooseball table, and possibly one more computer someday (we have two) for the internet section of the Cave. Probably no more than 3,000€ ($3,600) more will be needed.
mixing and pouring the floor leveler
Warren and Jay laying the first tiles
Pam and Steffie helped lay the tile as well, since there was around 700sq feet, there was plenty to go around.
Melody and Jay finishing up near the door
Finished (for now)
The two days we had with the GBC youth who came for the work camp were also very fun. We had 7 youth who came from the Chalon, Montceau, and Dijon churches, along with Dave and Susie Hobert who were here to help as well. It was a neat to be able to be able to see them again, since they had all been at the ski camp we helped at a few months ago. We were able to not only tackle a bunch of upkeep projects around the Chateau, but also spend some time just hanging out and getting to know them, as well as some daily group study time in Nehemiah. It was just a great time. One of the guys who came, Timothé Suzuki (on the right in the pictue below) is actually out of high school, has his BAFA certification (allows him to be a camp counselor, or the equivalent), so it was nice to have him there. He's even going to be coming back next week, for a whole week just to help out since he has a free week. It's really exciting to see people who are obviously enjoying being a part of what goes on at the Chateau.
The youth repainted the playground equipment - using approximately twice as much paint as should have been used, but they sure had fun!
We took advantage of the extra help to clean all the windows in the Chateau
The Library is now short some wallpaper, and hopefully we'll get it repainted this summer.
Dave and Simon working on the rock pile by the garage.
The last morning we cleaned up an area where we store stone - it really looks nice now with all the stone stacked, and a lot of old wood and debris cleaned out.
Prayer Requests
- We're just about finished with a REALLY busy time. We had about 4 weeks without a free day, so we're thankful that we made it through that - thanks for your constant prayers.
- Grace Basketball Team, Youth Camps, sports day, etc - lots of good stuff coming up really soon. Continue to pray for our team, that we would be welcoming, encouraging, and an example to youth that come through here.
- Future plans - lots of talks and discussion going on, please continue to pray for Debbie and I as we pray about options for the next few years.
Cool - Pizza vending machine, definitly something that needs to catch on in the U.S. It dispenses 8 different types of pizza 24hrs a day, with only a few minutes of time to wait while it bakes. The pizzas are very good, if a little different from U.S. pizzas. I really miss pizza hut's deep dish pepperoni and pineapple pizzas.
Pas-cool - Automatic sliding doors. Not that the doors themselves are un-cool, but the accepted distance at which the door opens is dangerously different from the accepted distance in the Indiana. In the states it's about 5-8 feet most of the time (I'm guessing) which means that if you just keep walking at a normal pace, you usually don't run into the door. Here, it's usually 2 ft. I'll let you imagine what happens to me at grocery stores, being accustomed to the U.S. automatic doors.
April 2, 2006
Bon Soir! That supposedly means "good evening" in French, but we've found out that if we say it to a French person in the evening, they invariably say "Bon jour" back to us, and if we say "Bon jour" to them in the evenings, they say "Bon soir" back to us. So I've decided that I can say it to you, since I'm writing this in the evening, and since it seems to be a rather flexible word, regardless of what time of day you receive this email, we'll just assume it's appropriate.
Not a whole lot has happened since my last update - this is a catch up one to get back to my usual beginning of the month schedule. We planted the first spring flowers, and the Chateau looks much more cheerful - and started mowing the lawn. We've had a couple of groups here, actually we've had them here pretty constantly. The latest being a group of women from the TEAM mission here on retreat. We also had a great time this weekend with Florent Varak who came up to the Chateau for the day to talk on the subject of "Who are the Evangelicals?" - we even had a few non-evangelicals here.
Sunday afternoon, with a group of young families who come to the Chateau on a
yearly basis - just to enjoy being together and studying the Bible together.
Warren & Nancy Zellner from Winona Lake GBC will be coming over here late this week, and Warren is going to help me tile the cave floor - or at least get me started on it. Yesterday we somehow convinced ten men to stay after Florent's discussion was finished, and help move the old billiards table out of the cave. I'm still not sure how we did it. The thing was a monster, and if anyone is into restoring antique billiard tables, let me know. I'll check on UPS rates to your state (just kidding, you have to pick it up yourself). If any of you have ever seen the movie (or read the book) "A Year in Provence" - I felt just like Peter trying to move his stone table. Actually, we feel like we're living that story quite often. If you haven't seen it, your public library probably has it.
Last week the entire Chateau team took a day off between groups, and went to Italy as a goodbye celebration for all of us, since Steffie is leaving this month, and Melody the month after that, and we don't have very many days that we all have free. It was a ton of fun, even if our plans didn't quite work out. We were planning on spending the day in Torino, but had car trouble and had to replace an axle. You would all have enjoyed watching me try to describe to the first Italian mechanic what the problem was. Between the 5 of us, we spoke English, French, German, Spanish, and Sango - non of which seemed to mean much to the mechanic (although I was surprised that he didn't catch any of my Sango). When he offered us a snow tire to fix our problems, we decided it was time to find a new mechanic, and mercifully, the next one spoke some French (although not enough to spare me from trying to reproduce grinding sounds to communicate our problem). So we spent most of the day in a small Italian town, which was quite interesting, and really enjoyed our time. The mechanic had the car fixed by 4pm, so we were able to at least make it to Torino, and say we've been there. Actually, if we word it right, people probably won't know that we weren't actually there for the olympics.
The Italian town that we broke down in had a cool castle
at the top of the hill. We climbed up to take a look at it -
but it was closed for repairs.
Cool et Pas-Cool
For this month l, I'm reverting back to an item I've already used, but it couldn't be helped - this car was screaming to be included in the pas-cool. Check it out. It's a "T-Shirt" trim level. Not a "Sport" or a GLX, XE, SE, or anything like that. I'm completely lost as to what "T-Shirt" would actually refer to. I can't even guess.
On a positive note, my parents no longer need to send me Oreos. I've found something even better. Stereos. Need I say more - this is the epitome of "Cool" - although I'm sure such things exist in the U.S. as well, I've just never had the need to look for them.
Sorry it's been so long since my last update! I'm almost two weeks behind on this, but we've been very busy - and I actually haven't even had a free day to work on this in the past two weeks.
Ski Camp
We're so glad we were able to participate in the ski camp this year. Debbie and I both really enjoyed spending a week with the 49 young people from the Grace Brethren churches, and getting to make a few friends there. It was also really encouraging to spend time with, and just watch the French youth workers - it was very clear to us that they have a heart for these kids. All my pictures are actually from the skiing (which was fantastic, other than a few unfortunate accidents) but we also had a great time at the Camp des Cimes in the evenings with group activities, games, and a nightly Bible study on the topic of friendship by Florent Varak.
Groups
We've had a ton of people at the Chateau in the past 2-3 weeks - and it's just getting started. We had a group of young campers from a church in Macon (something like a cross between Awana and Boy Scouts as best I could tell), Famille Je T'aime (kinda like a French version of Focus on the Family), a group from all over France - Christian field leaders, the RIME (a church planting conference) group was here, and I believe I'm forgetting something... Melody keeps track of the calendar - we've been so busy that I'm losing track of who's been here and who is yet to come. However, we did have some excitement with the RIME group (over 60 people, so a REALLY full dining room). The power went out in the entire village, about half an hour before we were supposed to serve dinner.
Pam bravely finished preparing dinner with my Petzl headlamp, and we lit about 40 candles to eat dinner by. At 7:05pm, right after everyone sat down, the lights came back on... a groan swept over the group... apparently they all liked the idea of a candle-lit dinner... so we turned the lights off, and ate by candle light (actually WE didn't do much eating, it was more like squeeze between tightly packed tables serving large amounts of food to 60 men who had been stuck in meetings all day) Anyway, it was fun, and it's been very interesting these past two weeks - one of the best parts of this place is all the interesting people who come here, we get people who are involved in every conceivable ministry from all over western europe.
Work Projects
The Cave project is coming along - I finished up the electricity the week after ski camp, just before the last barrage of groups. It turned out pretty well, I didn't electrocute anyone, and didn't blow any breakers when I hooked up the power. Not bad for my first time doing any serious electrical work. Now we have all new lights and outlets throughout the cave.
We also finally finished the floor in the grande salle... and we did the floor in the room next to it just for kicks. Our original sanding job (the floor wasn't too bad, so we thought we could just lightly hand sand it and re-coat it) didn't turn out so well, so we actually rented a floor sander this time.
after a VERY long weekend - ie 32hrs - Debbie and I finished both rooms - all 700sq feet sanded, with 5 coats of polyeurothane... and both my arms and my lower back are about finished as well.
If you want to see "before" pictures, you can visit the chateau website www.chateaustalbain.com and click on the "grande salle" and the "petite salon" - both located on the "second level"
Flooding
The Weaver's told us before they left that the Saone river flood almost every year, all the way up to the town, a couple hundred yards away. Although we believed them, it was a little hard to picture. Well, now it's easy.
We are now lakefront property - we're going to raise prices, buy jetskis, and offer discounts for people who come by boat instead of making us pick them up at the train station. Just joking about all that. It is intersting though, and all the flooded fields remind me of the Nile river flooding it's banks every year and fertilizing the land... except all of the flooded fields around here are just cow pastures.
Steffie, Debbie, and Pam, standing on the embankment that used to divide a road (left) from a cow pasture (right), but now only divides the river from the lake (and doesn't do a very good job of even that) Debbie was the only one of us with boots, and we had to wade a hundred yards to get out here since the road was flooded. I have never been in water that cold, and never hope to repeat it.
French Recipe
This is a new section - we'll see if we do it again, but Debbie has picked a French recipe that she has learned since we've been here (this one from Chantal Cavallaro) and we'll let you try it out - it's an easy one to start out with, yet delicious.
Cocotte Normande
7 apples; peeled, cored, sliced
2 cloves
1/2 cup raisins
3 tablespoons honey
zest and juice of one orange
zest and juice of one lemon
Combine all ingredients.
Bake in a casserole dish for 40 minutes on medium heat.
This can be served warm with vanilla ice cream, or eaten by itself.
For the cool and pas cool this month, I'm taking two items from the ski trip.
Cool - international signs - there are a lot of them here in France, many of them become rather cryptic as they attempt to describe something without the use of words. It's like free entertainment. This is one of my favorites so far. The best possible interpretation I've come up with: "Caution! If you ski into a girl they will throw a bowling ball (or a human head, it's hard to tell the difference) at you."
Pas-Cool - This will probably get me into trouble with some of you... but really, the French obsession with their dogs is out of control. You see dogs everywhere - in grocery stores, in restaurants, in the bakery (not the front where the customers are, the back, where they're mixing dough), in roughly every 3rd car you pass on the highway... it's out of control. Yes, that's a shiverring dog, freezing in this man's backpack. Yes he's skiing with it.
Overall, it was a pretty quiet month, only a few groups here, and most of our team took a vacation at one time or another during the month. Melody went back to the States for a week, Rob was visiting various cities in France, and eventually Germany, Steffie returned to Germany for a month and a half, and Pam spent a few weeks in Lyon with her family who came to visit her.
We did have our Christmas open-house before everyone left - it went very well, the Chateau was quite full. A lot of people showed up from the Macon church, and we enjoyed spending time with them, and a few families from St. Albain showed up too. Pam cooked somewhere around 500 cookies, we sang Christmas songs together, Steffie played a few songs on her violin, and Melody played a few on the piano, and all the kids built gingerbread houses. It really went quite well. Although we didn't get to meet as many people from St. Albain as we'd hoped, it still gave us a chance to meet a few, and to encourage the Macon church.
My parents and two younger brothers visited us for two weeks as well, which was quite fun! We drove up to Paris to pick them up, and since the Plasters (co-workers in Paris) wanted to do a jewelry workshop type thing, as a chance to get together with some contacts they were building relationships with, we went a few days early. Rob Plaster and I left the appartment to make room for more jewelry-crazzed women (if you'd seen the size of their appartment, you'd understand why we needed to leave) and the girls all had a great time. I believe there was somewhere around a dozen, although it was a come-and-go type of thing, so I don't think an actual number was ever established. Still, it went very well, and we really enjoyed our short stay with the Plasters.
Once we picked up my parents, we spent about half our time here at the Chateau, just hanging out, or doing odd jobs. My parents brought 5 pieces of luggage that were just for the Chateau - a new leaf blower, along with computers and audio/video equipment for the cave project. So we spent a day cleaning up leaves (we were a little behind on leaf duty) and setup and tested all the equipment they had brought. Joel, John and I worked down in the cave one day, and finished tearing out the old ceiling, and got some temporary lighting wired in so we can see while we work down there.
The view from the ski slopes was beautiful both days we went skiing - with mountain tops poking up through the fog that covered the valleys. We're actually just a mountain over from Mont Blanc, the highest peak in Europe. The ski resort had over 100 different slopes, some of them taking over half an hour to ski down, and 40 minutes to take lifts back to the top - a bit different from the skiing in Michigan and my brothers loved it. In case you're wondering - John definitly did NOT land the jump in the bottom picture. Oh, and Debbie wanted me to make sure to let everyone know that the yellow snowsuit is NOT hers, she borrowed it :)
We all enjoyed ourselves very much, except for a mishap near the beginning of their stay, when my mom slipped on a couple of steps and broke her foot. Not fun. We figured out how the emergency room works - that's the positive side of things. The negative side is that she had to spend 3 days in the hospital, and had surgery on her foot. She was feeling well enough to still want to go on our trip though, so the second half of their visit we spent up in the alps, at a small cabin, right next to a ski resort. Mom wasn't planning on skiing anyway, but she did get to ride a sled down the hill from the road to the chalet - unfortunately, I don't have a picture of that. We all had a great time up there, enjoyed the skiing, the cabin, and just hanging out and playing games together.
We did have one group here during December - Dave and Sue Griffith celebrated their daughter Jennifer's wedding this summer by having a New Year's Eve reception for her and Cory. It was quite a feast, with a dinner lasting from 7pm until after 1am - I'm told that this is pretty normal for a French New Year's Eve party.
Now we're back to work - Marlin Weaver arrived the first week of January with a group ten people from Lancaster Bible College - it's nice to have a group of people to hang out with who are closer to our age.
They've already gotten a ton of work done - they're focusing on the prayer chapel, and the day after they got here were already at work sand-blasting the walls and beams, and now have all the sand-blasting done, have pointed all the stone, varnished the wood beams, put up studs for drywall, and have begun installing drywall. Some of them also helped us in our hallway/stairway project, and we now have most of the ground floor section close to being finished. We have a lot of it painted, and only a little more texturing to do on some ceiling sections.
We're hoping to have some time with either this group or with the next work team which arrives next week, to sand-blast the cave, so we can get some more work done in there.
Cool et Pas-Cool
Once again - the categories for this month are completely unrelated. Actually, I was having trouble coming up with a "cool" for this month, not because there aren't any cool things, but because a lot of them seem to be the things that everyone thinks are cool - and I was trying to be different. Oh well.
Cool - Castles - there seems to be a castle in every town. It's really cool - and they look really pretty in the snow (everyone told us it rarely snows, but we've had snow on the ground for a total of around 10 days, and up to 6 inches of snow, so I guess we hit a good year)
Pas-Cool - Even some of our French friends down the street told us that there are some pretty awful displays of Christmas lights around here. Some of them actually make you laugh out loud. There is one yard that Rob Saunders is sure was decorated by bunching up a string of lights and wingin' them up over the trees in the front yard. Seriously. It looked awful. Some people do it nicely, I'm not trying to say that all French people are horrible at putting up Christmas lights, but overall, there are some people with weird tastes. For instance, the city of Macon puts up lights in the shape of fish, sailboats, and bullrushes - I mean, I understand that it's right beside a river, but still - it's just not very Christmas-ish. This particular photo though, is of a house right down the street from the Chateau - We've decided it's a kangaroo in a sleigh pulled by a camel.
A lot has gone on in the past month - my parents stopped by on their way back from meetings in Sweden for a visit, we picked up Stephy, the fifth member of our team, we finished a few projects, and had groups here every weekend.
Early in the month, we were invited by a couple from the Macon church (Joel & Martine) to go for a walk with them, and they introduced us to the French GR trails, thousands of miles of marked trail that criss-cross the entire country. We had a great time with them, and really have appreciated the people in the Macon church, and the opportunities we've had to spend time with them. On our walk, we also ran into a couple of goat herders, with a new herd. They were coming up the hill as we were going down, and since the goats didn't feel any particular attachment to their new owners, most of them decided they'd rather follow us down-hill instead of continuing up. It took a while to sort out the confusion (the picture is of Martine chasing the goats back up-hill)
The groups this month have been mostly Grace Brethren churches, coming for a weekend retreat. We've had the churches from Macon, Chalon, and the largest group of the year - Lyon - with 130 people. Pam did a great job organizing the cooking, even if we did end up with a few extra bags of grated cheese at the end. With so many people, we couldn't eat in the dining room which only holds 60, so we made a buffet style line, and served people on trays - rather chaotic, but we survived. We actually served breakfast in the dining room, 60 people at a time, and as soon as someone was done we'd wash their dishes and give them to the next person to come in.
The Lyon church organized a giant game of "Clue" on the Chateau grounds, complete with a few costume-wearing Macon church volunteers. I believe the pictures below may represent Mr. Green in the living room and Miss Scarlet near the wine-press (the French version has different locations than the Parker Brothers version) Overall, everyone seemed to have a great time.
Projects
Let's see - some of the projects from this month. We replaced the breadboard - the health inspector had asked that it be replaced since it was pretty worn, and made of particle board - meaning you had a good chance of eating small pieces of wood along with your crust - but hey, who could tell the difference anyway? But since we always aim to please, we fabricated a new board (pictured at right), and honored the old one by burning it on it's own funeral pyre - saluting the board on which so many famous people's bread was cut over it's two decades of life. And since we all hate to waste a good fire, we roasted hot dogs on the fire too.
We finished cleaning the garage this month. It was quite the project, with lots of re-arranging, shelf-building, and organizing. It didn't help that we kept pulling everything out of the garage to get organized, then have to shove it all back in before the next group saw the mess we'd made. But it's done now.
Our long-term team is now complete - we picked up Steffie J. Musselwhite from Germany who will be with us until the beginning of next summer. So it's now 4 girls and Jay. Luckily, it looks like Rob Saunders will be coming out to work for a month or two, so I'll finaly have some male companionship - and with 6 of us working here(which much be a Chateau record) we'll probably be able to tackle a bunch of projects, despite a pretty full schedule of groups. Here's a picture of the new Chateau team - from left to right - Steffie, Jay, Debbie, Pam, and Melody.
Prayer requests - yet again, we'd like to ask you to pray for team unity, especially as we make adjustments to having another person on the team, and as we get ready for Rob to come out.
Continue to pray for our testimony to our neighbors, and the relationships we might build with them. Today we were able to join a bunch of our neighbors in the annual town trash pickup day - and it was another good chance to just touch base with all of them, even if we ended up getting rained out, so didn't have a whole lot of time to talk.
And a big prayer request - pray for the future of the Chateau - the Chateau Committee would like to discover a European Chateau Director, as well as other staff to help with the responisbilities that result from the opportunities currently available at the Chateau (as well as some new ones that may not be too far down the road).
Before I get to the "Cool/Pas Cool" section, I'd like show you the view we get every morning out our bathroom window - I hesitate because you might all decide that the view is so nice that we don't need your prayers, so I've strategically placed this photo AFTER the prayer requests. However, it's just too beautiful not to share, so I hope you enjoy the picture even 1/10th as much as I enjoy the real thing.
And here you go - on to a new category this week - "buttons"
Cool - a lot of the toilets here have two flush modes - a smaller button for a quick water-saving flush, or a larger button for a normal flush. Very enviromentally friendly!
Pas-cool - The horn button on several of the vehicles I've driven is located on the end of the turn signal lever. It works fine I guess, but just seems wrong. A horn is supposed to be something big you can lean on when you're angry, not some little button you have to push with a single finger (and it's not the easiest thing to find in a hurry). I guess it just doesn't have the same image as the more macho horn buttons
Today there's going to be a wedding reception at the Chateau, so since we can't really work over there, since we'd be in everyone's way, I'm catching up on some stuff at home, which includes getting an update out. The reception is for the next door neighbor's daughter, so it's been a good chance to get to know them a little. On Wednesday I helped them set up the tents (they have five), and they've been working on decorating everything and preparing food since then. Looks like it's going to be very nice this evening.
Since we haven't had any groups here, we've been able to work on projects around the Chateau. Mainly, removing old wallpaper from the stairwell/hallway in the main building, and cleaning and organizing the garage. Neither project is finished, yet, but we're getting there. I'll post pictures of the garage project when we're finished, but here are some of the stairway in progress.
We did have a group here one day last week, it was all people from Saint Albain, a kind of appreciation dinner for people who had been involved in a fundraiser for the school (at least I think that's what it was), so we got to meet lots of people from the village, which was really neat - we've even seen a few of them since then, so it's nice to have built a little bit of a relationship now.
 |
While we were eating lunch with them, we met the volunteer fire department (well several of them) who as it turns out, are also in charge of bee/wasp removal. I suppose with a town this small they probably have time to do more than just put out fires). We actually had a bee hive halfway up the tower, right by a bedroom window which needed to be removed. |
So the next evaning the Saint Albain fire van pulled up and three firemen helped us solve our problem! They did it at dusk, since I guess the bees are less active at that time.
So these last two weeks have really been pretty easy going. A good time to get some work done on projects, and get to know our neighbors a little better. Mrs. Cavallaro has also been visiting us once a week, just for a chance to chat in French, and ask questions about the language. A little hour long practice session for French which we greatly appreciate.
Cool: The Yogurt - this is a picture of HALF the yogurt at the local grocery store. They must have around 100 different variations. It's awesome. And so far, it all tastes good! I'm really going to miss this when I go back to shopping at the super Wallmart in Indiana - it just doesn't taste the same (although I do like the plain Danon yogurt in the U.S.) - Also not pictured, is the very cool CHEESE section, with as much space devoted to it as to yogurt.
Pas-cool: The ice-cream section. In this picture you can see all 3 brands of ice cream, and none of them are good. Patty Moris put it best when she said "There's just something weird about an ice-cream that doesn't melt when you leave it out on a hot day" - okay, that might not be an exact quote, but something like that. They do have Hagen Daas ice cream here, so we're not completely out of luck, but at around $6.50/pint, we haven't splurged on it yet.
First update from France! Sorry it's taken so long, we've already been here over 3 weeks, and I haven't put anything on this site. We're still on AOL dial-up, and hopefully once we get the DSL situation figured out so we're not all sharing one dial-up connection, I'll be more motivated to post updates more often.
The last week in the U.S. was rather crazy. The Saturday before we left we were $5,000 short of our budget needs, by Monday we'd reached our goal, Tuesday we bought tickets, Wednesday through Friday we packed and ran last minute errands, and we left Saturday. But we made it, and are now pretty well settled here in St. Albain. Here's a map, to give you an idea of where we are in France, about an hour north of Lyon.
We were busy the first few days with the Weaver's, trying to learn everything we could before they left, as well as cleaning for the group that was here for that first week. They were a group of people focused on ministry to north Africans living in France, very outgoing. In fact, they were able to share several times with a young woman from St. Albain, and she even came up and asked us for a Bible later on. Very cool.
As soon as their week was over, they had a wedding on the Chateau grounds - a guy and girl who had met last year during the same conference. It was very interesting, the wedding was in both French and a form of Berber Arabic.
After they left, we started the two weeks with a small group from Child Evangelism Fellowship - about 20 people, and this time, we were cooking for them. So far though, things have gone very well - this is a very friendly group, and even though the days are rather long, since we start at 7am, and don't finish cleaning up after dinner until around 9pm, but we're enjoying it. When this group leaves on Friday we'll have a whole week with no groups, so that will be a good chance to catch up on all the things that need done around here, and catch up on some time off.
This is a small lake we visited on our day off, just after the Weaver's left. Rosie's from Enlgand (sitting behind debbie), and had been here for a few months before we got here, but we only overlapped with her for about a week. Pam is our cook, from New York. We actually were trying to go to Geneva for the day, but Rosie forgot her passport, so we wandered around small roads until we found this small lake, which we ended up liking better than Geneva anyway.
Debbie and Pam painting the fold-up chair I installed in our handicap accessible bathroom.
Jay - picking berries on one of the back walls of the property.
Cleaning the roof of the gatehouse. I really like how everyone uses tile roofs here, but when they don't have a steep slope, they really accumulate a lot of dirt and plants. I was planning on using a power washer to clean this one off, but the stuff is really stuck on there. I ended up having to scrape the whole roof. My "oh I'll just climb up there and spray it off real quick" project turned into a 5 hour scraping job (+ nice farmers tan). I ended up with 5 wheelbarrows piled high with junk from off the roof.
Debbie, teaching some of the kids who came with the CEF group how to make jewelry. There wasn't really a child care program, so they really enjoyed getting to make jewelry for a few days.
Cookout with the CEF group - I have a feeling I'm going to become pretty good at grilling out while I'm here. Surprisingly, I never really did that in the U.S.
David McDairmant, a friend from Indiana, came and visited us. He's been studying here in France, and took the train down to visit for "le weekend". We took him up to Solutre, where you have a pretty nice view of the area.
Here's our team - from left to right, Pam, Jay, Debbie, and Melody (who arrived back from her visit to the U.S. about two weeks ago, but has been here for months and is our resident expert on the traditions and workings of the Chateau)
Typical foggy morning, down across the highway from the bakery where we buy bread every morning.
And this is a section I've decided to tag onto the end of every update. I'm going to call it "Cool et pas cool" - something I've found in France that I think is neat-o, and something that I can't figure out why people put up with it.
For the moment, I'm on a "stuff you find in grocery store" theme.
milk is definitly cool here. You don't have to refrigerate it, and so you can buy 68 one-liter bottles if you want, and store them in your cupboard. How handy! I'm a big fan of stocking up on stuff (I suppose it goes back to growing up in Africa), so this is definitly on the "cool" list. Some genius should sell this in the U.S.
French marketing, on the other hand, sometimes seems stuck in the 80's. Take this package of toilet paper. "buy 11 rolls get 1 free!!!". Apparently they used to always sell packages of 11 rolls. When they started throwing in the free one though, people started buying them like crazy. Kinda like a baker's dozen, except one less than a dozen, instead of one more. I guess maybe a selfish baker's dozen. Not really sure, just a theory.
July 19
Well, we made it! We reached our goal and had a great time at the art sale at the same time. A ton of people camer (probably because they heard about the Nutella & strawberries we had there. In case you're wondering what Nutella is - there's no way to describe it. At least not in English. you'll have to go pick some up at your local grocery store - I even found some at our local super Walmart (which is kinda sad to me). Look for this:
Anyway, back on subject - the sale went well, we were so encouraged by the MANY people who came. It's awesome to see so many people who just showed up to support us. We sold well over $3,000 of inventory - to our utter amazement, and were approved to buy tickets today - which we promptly did - at a great price even! We'll be leaving on Saturday, which is even hard to comprehend sometimes. Tons of little odds and ends to do, which isn't made any easier by the fact that this is the middle of family reunion for GBIM (when all the missionaries in the U.S. get together in Winona Lake), and youth conference is starting this weekend, so everyone's already frantic around the office, and me getting ready to leave is not helping matters. I'm sure it will work out though, and we're SO excited that we'll be able to spend just a little time with the Weaver's after all. I guess the French have narrowly escaped eating grilled cheese sandwiches every evening for the next year - we'll probably have a chance now for Sue Weaver to show us where the cookbook is at least.
Next update should be from St. Albain!
Oh, and one other extremely random thing - I sold an old camera lens on ebay yesterday, and of all the weird things... the buyer lives in Chalon Sur Saone - only an hour or two away from St. Albain. I almost want to try to hand deliver it. I'll at least ship it from France, that'll be fun.
Our apartment has exploded. I'd include a picture, but I'm afraid my mom might check this webpage and ruin her image of her oldest son's habits of tidyness. However, it's not all bad. We're working on getting stuff ready for our art fundraiser this next weekend, and the mess from that is what makes up 90% of the mess. I'm now a professional mat cutter, so if anyone needs any pictures framed & matted, I've got the hang of it. I think I've cut about 80 of them in the past two days. Debbie's hard at work on jewelry, mostly earings right now, but she'll do bracelets and necklaces as well. We're hoping to have enough to draw a pretty big crowd, and have lots of chances to talk with people about what we'll be doing in France. Maybe even find partners for the last 25% of support we need, which would be awesome, and would still get us to France just before the Weaver's leave (if we can find tickets quickly).
We're having fun though, and some of Debbie's artist friends are even helping out by donating a few things for the sale, which is cool, because they're really good.
Keep us in your prayers during this last stretch before we leave. As proof that we do have our visas, we took a picture outside the French consulate in Chicago when we picked them up last week.
The two guys behind us in the picture are most likely on there way up to forty-second floor to submit their own packet of papers, dutifully filled out in triplicate, to begin their own visa application process. Actually I have no clue who they are, and since they don't have a large briefcase to hold the 28lbs of paperwork, they probably aren't applying for visas at all.
Feel free to stop by the art sale if you're in the area on Sunday or Monday afternoon!
Our visas have been approved! We just have to pick them up in Chicago as soon as we get a chance to drive up there. Thank you so much for your prayers!
A quick update on the Chateau team: The Weavers are actually back in PA right now - Marlin's father passed away last week so Marlin, Sue, and Philip traveled back for the funeral. They will be returning to the Chateau on Sunday, but I'm sure this just makes it more stressful for them as they prepare to return to the U.S., with all the packing and preparation they have to make.
This also meant that Melody was left in charge last week, during the ACTS training at the Chateau (luckily she had Rosie there, who is helping out temporarily). She seems to have survived the week (at least I got an email who claimed to be Melody), but we'd really like to not put her through all of this on her own again, so keep praying that we will be able to join her before the Weaver's return to the U.S.
This week has been very encouraging - we've had several people decide to partner with us, and our support is now up to 67% - and the Euro exchange rate is still dropping. It's now at $1.19 US to the Euro - if it keeps this up, it will possibly reduce our needed support even more.
The only thing we are waiting on is the last 33% of our support - pray for our continued faith that God will provide it! We'll be visiting several churches this month, and would appreciate your prayers for the contact making involved with that as well. Have a great 4th of July weekend!
Since I don't have any pictures to go along with any of this, I figured I'd share something fun with anyone reading this instead - here's a really cool page that allows you to check what time it is in various time zones - www.timezonecheck.com
This week we're going through GBIM's CORE TRAINING, the one week training program that appointees go though, to give us a better understanding of the core ideas and values behind GBIM (hence the cool name).
Here's a picture of the group of us who are in CORE this month - From left to right - Tim & Jessica Robertson, who are heading off to Cambodia for a year probably early in the fall - Trish & Dave Holabeck - also looking at Cambodia, but probably not for another year and a half. Jason & Doni Weimer will be leaving for the Philippines at the end of this month, and Rachel Oliver will also be heading to the Philippines - and Debbie and I are on the right, in case you were wondering.
So far, the first day has been fantastic, and it's been really good to learn more about the heart of an organization that I've been working in for the past three years. We'll appreciate your prayers as we attempt to process all that we're hearing, and just trying to sort though how it applies to our lives.
So what have we been up to lately? We're completely moved out of our house, the renters are in, and we're in the residence. It's a huge relief for us to have that taken care of. Here are a few pictures from the last month - Debbie working on tiling the small bathroom where we put in the new shower:
And here's a few pictures of us taking down the tree in our front yard. Since everyone asks why we cut it down, I'll go ahead and answer - yes Debbie's from Oregon and usually is one of those organic-all-natural-tree-huggers, but this tree had a large half-rotten section hanging over our house. Besides, we already have two smaller trees that have been planted to replace it.
My dad and I rented a lift, and cut most of it down ourselves (without hitting the house even!), but in the afternoon, lots of friends showed up to join in the fun.
Thanks for praying for the meeting at WLGBC, it went very well, and we had a good number of people (although that may have been due to the creme brule). We've also been able to share with several small groups in the area during the past few weeks, which has been very good, and very encouraging to see people who are excited about what we're doing.
The two major prayer requests we'd like you to focus on -
1. visas - we should hear back about these from the Chicago office in the next week or so.
2. financial partners - please pray that we will discover the remainder of our financial partners soon - the Weavers will be returning to the U.S. on August first, and we'd really like to be in France before then, to allow for some training time.
Although we've had a tremendous response from individuals, we still don't have any churches supporting us. If your church might be interested in partnering with us, please let us know, since there is still time for a few visits before we leave to explore possible partnerships.
Thanks so much for your prayers!
May 10
Due to a lot of problems with the web/email host that GBIM uses, I've had a rather busy last seven days. We've ended up switching to a new provider, and I will probably be moving this site over eventually too (so if it's down for a few days, you'll know why. But on to more positive stuff.
Debbie and I drove up to Chicago about 10 days ago, and dropped off our packet of info for a visa application. Everything submitted in triplicate, along with a French translation, also submitted in triplicate. All together over 120 sheets of paper for the two of us. I pity the person who has to sort through all those applications. Please be praying that the visas will go through.
We think we have renters (again). For the second time, our renters who "definitely" wanted the place had to back out, and for good reasons, but it was still a little stressful for us. However, we already had someone who wanted it if the first two didn't work out. So we'll see how this works out. We're busy moving out of our house this week, and moving into an apartment at the missionary residence. I'm working on replacing a shower, and several other house projects that need to be done before the house is "rentable", so keeping pretty busy. Hopefully, after June 1st we'll have the house fixed up and ready to be rented, which will allow us to focus more on support discovery.
We will be presenting our ministry to a Sunday School class at our home church (Winona Lake GBC) this Sunday, and next Sunday will be hosting a dessert night, where we will also be able to share about the ministry of the Chateau, and our role there.
Well, we made it back! For those of you who didn’t know, Debbie and I left on the 31st (Thursday evening) for a trip to Oregon to visit her family and home church, as well as to drop off our cat Nadia who will now be a city cat, living in down-town Portland. We got there on Saturday evening, after 48hrs later – a long drive without much excitement other than an incident with a kitty bladder. However, I’ve decided never to take the northern route to
You feel like you’re in those two states forever. Maybe if they changed the state name half-way through it would help…
Anyway, we had a great time visiting friends and family in Oregon, and had a French appetizer night for Debbie’s home church & friends, complete with fondue, crème brule, chocolate, and cheeses to go along with a short presentation of the ministry at the Chateau and what we’ll be doing there.
We also visited the
We left on Thursday night for the drive back, arriving in
We stayed with some friends near
We’re now back in
A couple of current prayer request –
1. We’ll be applying for a visa in the next few weeks – pray that the process will go through without a hitch
2. We need to find renters for our house
3. Pray that we would stay focused, and rely on God not on ourselves during the next few months especially.
We have potential renters for our house! Thanks for your prayers, and keep praying that it all works out. We've never been on this end of renting before, so trying to figure out what paperwork and what inspections is going to be fun. We're just excited that we might already have renters.
We've begun to get some responses back from people who are interested in partnering with us, and already have several prayer partners as well as 10% of our financial support necessary to leave in July. Unfortunately, July is coming up REALLY quickly, and with only 15 weeks to go, that's not alot of time to find all the partners we'll need. Please pray for us, that we would continue to be confident in God's plan for us, and that we would find those people God has already chosen to partner with us in order to make the ministry at the Chateau possible this next year.
March 6th
Let me try to catch you up a little on what’s going on in our lives. I’m still working for GBIM as their network administrator, but the pottery shop where Debbie was working has closed, so she’s no longer making pottery. She has continued to make jewelry at a shop in Winona Lake, and has begun to teach a few jewelry-making classes as well. She’s also still working for a few more weeks at Head Start, in their family services office. We’re still doing wedding photography, with five weddings lined up for this spring. But the big news is that we’ve signed on with GBIM for a fifteen month term in France.
Many of you already knew that last fall we went on a short two-week trip to France, to visit the Chateau de St. Albain, an old French castle that houses a ministry/retreat center, central to the work of GBIM in France. The Chateau has been cared for by Marlin and Sue Weaver for the last twenty years, but they will be returning to the U.S. for a year as Sue finishes a degree in counseling. The purpose of our visit last fall was to explore the possibility of taking their place at the Chateau during that time, to allow the vital ministry there to continue.
Although our day-to-day work will be focused on caring for the guests and the Chateau itself, the ministry that goes on there is very significant and we are excited to have the opportunity to facilitate that ministry. The Chateau acts as a bridge between the French culture and the Christian community. It offers a neutral setting for believers to build relationships with non-believers in a country where Christianity is looked down upon, and even viewed as cultic. The Chateau also provides an identity for the Grace Brethren churches of France, and is an ideal setting for retreats and training. We’re hoping that the fifteen months we spend there will allow the ministries at the Chateau to continue, and even grow, without disruption due to the Weaver’s absence.
Melody Brickel and Pam Crane will be our partners at the Chateau, as we cook, clean, and take care of the more than 2,000 guests that use the Chateau each year. Melody will already have been at the Chateau for several months by the time we arrive, which will be a huge help when the Weavers leave, taking their “chateau-expertise” with them. Since we will have a team of four to cover the daily duties, we're hoping to be able to spend time exploring other ministries and projects. Debbie and I hope to use our interests in art and computers to develop our own connections with people and possible ministries.
We’re planning to leave for France in early July, so we have a lot of work to do before we go. Please be praying for us as we try to find a renter for our house, as Debbie studies French at Grace College (I’m going to attempt to “wing it” with my Africanized French), as we apply for visas, and as we seek out prayer and financial support partners.
We know that we won’t be able to do this alone, and because God has so clearly led us to this point in pursuing this opportunity, we’re trusting that he already has the prayer and financial support team picked out that will allow us to continue along this path.
We’re looking for fifty people to partner with us in prayer. Check out the prayer page for more info.
Financially, we need to find the people who are willing to partner with us to cover the $48,000 that we will need for the fifteen months we are there. Check out the finance page for more info, as well as instructions on how to give. W
Please be praying for Debbie and me, that we would be able to locate these churches and individuals quickly, so that we can meet our July departure date. Pray with us that God would be working in the hearts and minds of those we are going to meet, to give them not only a burden for the Great Commission but also the same excitement that He has given to Debbie and me for this specific opportunity. Please be asking God what role you might play in this ministry. Debbie and I have committed to pray for each of you individually on a weekly basis, as you consider this possible partnership with us.
We hope to have the same kind of relationship with you, as the relationship Paul had with his supporters, and to share what God WILL be doing at the Chateau with partners who are excited about it as we are.
I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you
in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and
confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me.
Philippians 1:3-7
February 17th , 2005
Officially Approved!
We've made it through the application process, and are now officially approved, ready to begin sending out letters and making visits to discover those people who will be excited to partner with us for the next year and half.
Since we have more details on what exactly our term in France will look like, I'll go ahead and share those.
Debbie and I are planning to leave in July, so that we'll some time with the Weavers before they leave, to learn as much as we can about the operation of the Chateau. We'll be there for a total of about fifteen months, to also allow for some overlap with the Weavers when they return, as we transfer things back over to them.
Melody Brickel and Pam Crane will be our partners at the Chateau, as we cook, clean, and take care of the 2,000 guests that visit the Chateau each year. Melody will already have been at the Chateau for several months by the time we arrive, which will be a huge help when the Weavers leave, taking their "chateau-expertise" with them.
Obviously, our primary role will be keeping the Chateau itself running smoothly, to avoid any interruptions to the ministries that take place there. However, since we will have a team of four to cover the daily duties, we're hoping to be able to spend time exploring other ministries and projects. Melody in particular will be focusing on possible youth ministries in the area, both with the missionary staff's children and with the youth in the French churches.
Debbie and I will be living in the house the Weaver's have been renting, located just outside the Chateau property. It's a small three bedroom house, so a little more than we really need, but because the location is so ideal, GBIM would like to continue to rent, so that the Weaver's will be able to continue living there when they return. Plus it provides a break from the day-to-day duties of working at the Chateau without being too far away. Pam and Melody will live in the gatehouse of the Chateau, just a hundred yards from our house, on the edge of the Chateau property.
We won't be completely on our own, Dave Hobert will be the leader of the Chateau team, and only an hours drive away in the town of Montceau-les-Mines. The Hoberts have been in France for almost 25 years, so will have a lot of experience to share with us. We're really looking forward to working with them, as well as the rest of the missionary team there.
We're obviously excited that things are moving along, but July is coming up very quickly, and we have a lot to do. Please be in prayer for us, as we work on a lot of practical things, such as renting out our house, applying for visas, and looking for tickets. More importantly, we'd appreciate it if you'd consider partnering with us in this opportunity. We see it as a great chance to be a part of something that's bigger than we are, and we'd love it if you'd grab the same opportunity, and join either our prayer team or our financial support team (or both). Please seriously pray and consider what part you could play.
Well, we made it! Debbie and I had a great trip to France, and have really learned a lot about the ministry at the Chateau.
We went a week early, so that we could spend time with Marlin and Sue without all the activities that go along with a typical GoTeam. We're very glad we did, as we got the chance to see how the Chateau is actually "run". Well, at least how one week was run.
The Charis Europe group was there at the beginning of the week, so we were able to meet lots of people from Germany, Portugal, Spain, GB, and Ireland. Then we moved on into a few days of seminary classes, taught by Dr. Gill from Grace Seminary, and finally a few more days of meetings among the European GBIM team members. It was a really good opportunity to talk with people from around Europe, and to see how the Chateau really does make an impact on people from all over the continent.
We spent a good deal of time that first week just talking with Marlin & Sue (who by the way are amazing, some of the most cheerful, encouraging people I've met, despite how busy they are), as well as with Melodie Brickel, who is over there right now helping out the Weavers. We've all come away feeling pretty confident that this is something that really fits in our lives, and is a way we can be using our gifts and skills to serve God this next year.
That first week all we really did was prepare food, do dishes, clean rooms, wash endless linens, clean bathrooms, mow the lawn, and go grocery shopping.
Grocery shopping was probably my favorite thing to do. I love to stock up on stuff (unlike debbie, I drive her crazy when I do the shopping), so shopping for 30 people was great. Plus, they have the most interesting shoppping carts in France - all 4 wheels swivel, as opposed to the normal ones in the US where just the front ones turn. This makes for a LOT of fun drifting around corners at high speed, but I'm not sure how long I'll maintain my shopping cart priveleges at this rate. Anyway, shopping was quite fun.
I thought it was busy with the 30 or so people we had there for the Charis meetings, so I can't imagine what it will be like when the Chateau is closer to its 80 bed capacity. The Weavers host over 2,000 people each year, and after 20 years, they've got the system down pretty well. Luckily for Debbie and I, we won't be attempting to do everything ourselves, but will be trying to put together a small team of people to handle all the responsibilities.
When the rest of the Go Team arrived for the second week, the time was focused on learning as much as possible about France; the way its history has an impact on missionaries' efforts, and learning about the church in France. We traveled to several different towns, visiting locations that were significant to the religious side of French people.
I think one of my favorite places we visited was the town of Cluny, with the famous Cathedral that's not there anymore. It was amazing just to see the remains, and to see buildings in the town that were built during the Roman times, and not only were still standing, but were still being used as shops! The history there is so rich. It's rather humbling to think that parts of the Chateau were built long before Columbus even thought about his voyage. A town nearby the Chateau was founded in the year 1. And I though our 1920's house was old.
We also spent time just listening to missionaries, as they presented to us the work that they have dedicated their lives to. We heard from the Grififths, the Hoberts, Paul Klawitter, the Martins, the Plasters, and the Weavers, as well as numerous French believers. It was a fantastic week, and I almost feel guilty for enjoying a "missions trip" so much.
Please continue to pray for us, since there are a lot of details to work out before we would be able to leave next July. Of course, we still need to go through the official GBIM application process, and figure out what our support need will be. I will be talking with GBIM about my position at the home office, since they will need somebody to take my place when I leave. Please pray that the right person will be found. We also need to rent out our house for the year, so finding a renter quickly will be important.
And if anyone is interested in adopting two adorable cats for a year, just let us know :)
Thanks for your prayers and support!
designed by Jay Hocking - copyright 2004