Rainey Days

Monday, April 24, 2006 I think I am going to start doing the blog entries on Mondays, instead of Saturdays, because much of the important stuff of my life seems to happen over the weekends, and then I have a wait a week to mention it. In case you wanted to know why. . . This weekend was one of my ‘important stuff’ weekends. My American missionary colleagues from Marseille, Milan and Janice Novick, came to Bordeaux to scope out the area for their move at the end of May. Fortunately, they are heading to the States in June for their year-long furlough, so their big “move” at the end of next month is just to a storage facility. They don’t speak French, so I got to be the translator, wheeling and dealing with the storage place about all their belongings, which will be stored until they return and actually find an apartment here in the Bordeaux suburbs. The fun stuff came afterward. We all got to go out to the building site, where out future office is being built. I hadn’t seen it before, an...

Monday, April 17, 2006 Easter weekend After the retreat, I traveled on to Albertville, only 1 ½ hours from our retreat site. I figured it would a great time to visit my old church there and my friends from language school, over the long Easter weekend. The weather on Friday was absolutely beautiful, 80˚ and not a cloud in site. The snow stays on the Alps until early June, so in April and May the contrast of snowy mountains and spring-green fields against an electric blue sky is breathtaking. I hope that heaven has snow-capped mountains. All the students at the school were doing their semester exams, so I drove up into the mountains by myself on Friday to read and journal about the retreat. The streams were overflowing as the snow melted from the warmth of the day, and there were waterfalls everywhere along the side of the road. I found a picnic table along the side of one rushing stream where I ate my lunch and worked on journaling for a while. It was so peaceful and relaxi...

Saturday, April 15, 2006 I had quite an imagination when I was younger, always picturing myself in the settings of the books I read. This week, I had the rare opportunity to find myself literally in a story-book type setting. All the AG missionaries in France gathered together for a spiritual retreat, and we were hosted by an American couple who run a castle as a B-and-B in Western France. I have never in my life stayed in a castle (and likely won’t again), but I sure enjoyed it while I could. The castle dates back to the 12th century and was known during the Middle Ages as a haven for those wishing freedom of religion. It has been associated with Protestantism for several centuries, and contains a large church within the outer wall. Within the inner walls (driving over the now-empty moat), is the main house and the guard towers, along with modern French-style gardens. The castle was restored a few years ago, so the rooms are beautifully redone and very modern, with kitchenettes, bathr...

Saturday, April 8, 2006 This past weekend I had my first visitors to my apartment since I moved. Weléli*, who is my colleague in Marseille, and her husband Charles came to Bordeaux, to see the area and contemplate the possibility of moving here to continue working with the team once the office moves this summer. I knew that she had not been at all interested in moving to Bordeaux, and several times she had told me that she had a list of ‘worries’ about the move. I can see why it would be hard for her and Charles to move over 6 hours away from Marseille, where they met and married and have lived for 14 years. She has a sister in Marseille, and I know that she was also thinking she would lose contact with her sister, if she moved to another part of France. But in spite of all these things, they agreed to come have a look at the area, at least. Because I really wanted them to feel welcome here, I picked them up at the train station Friday afternoon and took them to their hotel, and invite...

Tuesday, April 4, 2006 Ever since I moved here, I have prayed that God would give me some chance to meet and get to know my neighbors in my apartment building. It is a small building, with only two floors and about 30 apartments. Most of the people that I see in the lobby or the parking lot seem to be single or couples without children, all about my age. I would really like to have some acquaintance with them, so that I can have a chance to witness to them. One day about a month ago, I needed a bottle opener, and since I don’t have one, I went knocking on doors. At the end of my hall, I finally found someone at home: a couple with a yellow lab that looks a lot like my dogs back in the States. The husband opened my bottle for me and mentioned that the whole building was aware that a new girl had moved into apt. 30 (me) and that I was American. But I didn’t have much of a chance to say anything other than that I like yellow labs. Then, this week, I walked down to the lobby to ch...

Saturday, April 1, 2006 On Saturday I went with the young adults to sing at a wedding (in the youth choir) and that went all day long. I had volunteered to be one of the drivers, thinking that the wedding was about 20 minutes away. However, it was actually another town with a similar name over 2 ½ hours away! So that gave me a good chance to talk to the four girls I was driving about life in Bordeaux and ask all the questions that I have always wanted to ask, but never had the time to kill. The wedding itself was interesting. In France, all marriages must take place legally at the mayor’s office in the town of your official address. Then, if the couple wants a “church wedding” they can have a ceremony after the “legal wedding” at the mayor’s. Even though the French Christians can have a church ceremony, there is no “I now pronounce you man and wife” since that has already been done; likewise, there aren’t vows either. But the pastor does an address and it gives the church a chance to f...

(still catching up on old posts) Saturday, March 25, 2006 Last week, I mentioned that one of the girls from the church young adult group invited me to the movies. Her name is Chinyere, which is just too hard for the French, so everyone calls her ChiChi. She is very outgoing and jokes with everyone. This week, she decided it was time to break me out of my shell at church. She has been after me for a while to attend the young adult group meetings on Saturday afternoons, and I have been a little reluctant to give up my one day off on the weekend. But she finally convinced me. I went to a regional rally on Saturday afternoon, and there was a time of fellowship afterward. ChiChi used that time to introduce me to about 20 people, all the while quizzing me on their names! But I did meet a nice young guy who wants to improve his English, so he talked to me quite a bit. I met a college student from Mauritius who speaks English as well. Of course, most of the people I met spoke ...

Saturday, March 18, 2006 Unfortunately, this week was probably one of the worst weeks I’ve had since I left the States. I felt truly privileged to have your prayers and support to stand on. It really does make a difference! I received a call on Wednesday from my family, telling me some hard news about a family situation. Not only was the news painful to deal with, I felt so alone. It was a truly a moment to rely solely on the Lord, not only because there wasn’t anyone else to talk to, but because it was so far above my ability to handle. I had to work on Thursday and Friday, with my body at the office, but my head and heart back home in Maryland. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk to anyone about it here in France (after all, who here even knows my family? They barely know me!). However, when I went to my small group Bible study, the leader asked me why I seemed so “blue.” I ended up talking to her about all of it, but it was really the best thing I could have done. It opened ...

Saturday, March 11, 2006 Marseille is a city with a rich heritage, having been founded in 600 BC. Its ideal location on the Mediterranean gave it a lucrative trading position in the area, and today, it remains the second largest city in France (after Paris). This week, I worked in the IC France office, doing the inventory of all the books, Bibles, magazines, and cassettes that we use for Muslim evangelism. Before the office moves in the summer, we wanted to have an accurate inventory. For me, it was the first time to really see all that we have available. It was awe-inspiring to think of how all those resources could be used. Part of my job is to advertise those resources to churches and ministries who want to do Muslim evangelism. I appreciate your prayers for finding exactly where these materials can best be used!

Saturday, March 4, 2006 This week I worked a lot at the CVA office. On Thursday I spent most of the day meeting with Laurent, just discussing our options for the future and doing some intense planning for a training program for Muslim evangelism. But the rest of the week it was back to the scut work. Every two or three months, CVA sends out flyers (10,000-20,000) and almost always, there is something inserted: an order form for something, a subscription card, etc. The new flyers were supposed to be redesigned, with a one page insert, divided into three sections that could be easily cut apart to form three different order forms. But by using only one page, it could be easily folded into the flyer, by using a new machine that automatically folds papers together. It’s really large and loud as all get out, but none of us mind, since we won’t have to do all of it by hand. At least, that was what we thought. Some brilliant thinker at the printer’s office noticed that the page ...

Continuing the “catch-up” on old posts . . . Feb. 25, 2006 I thought you would enjoy the (mis)adventures of my day today. I had the day off of work, so I decided to go to Ikea to get some bookshelves. Ah, the beauty of a plan! Are you also one of those people with a “to-do list,” evenly checked or crossed off, that keeps you on track? My whole life seems in order when I have that piece of scrap paper in hand, telling me what to do next! So this morning, I was up, ready and out the door by 9:00AM. Ikea is six or seven exits up the beltway, so it’s about 20 minutes. I was actually early. They opened at 10:00 AM, so I sat in the car and made a grocery list, because I have no food in the house (having been gone all last week). In fact, I had so little food, I had to eat French pastries for breakfast (the only store open yesterday was the corner bakery). Now, I know you are thinking, “French pastries? Poor Ariel!” But really, I don’t like to eat them for breakfast because they ...

Saturday, Feb. 18, 2006 I am rapidly becoming quite the traveler, by necessity if not always by choice. I spent this week in Marseille, France, working at the IC France office (my “real” job). Before the office moves to Bordeaux and merges with CVA this summer, I need to learn my way around the inventory, the various activities there, and the other staff members. For now, there is another American missionary couple, Janice and Milan Novick, who are going on furlough shortly (June). They will be changing their job portfolio significantly after their furlough to focus on prayer/ work teams coming to North Africa, but they will still base out of France and work with me, to some extent, in Bordeaux. There is also a fantastic lady, Weléli*, who is a former Muslim from North Africa, now working with the Arabic language branch (translation, correspondence, etc.) of IC France. These three helped train me this week with the resources there for the ministry I will help them wit...

Saturday, Feb. 11, 2006 Home sweet home! It felt wonderful to come home to my apartment last weekend after two weeks of sleeping in a strange bed. It’s funny, isn’t it, how much your own space means to you. I just moved into this apartment six weeks ago, and already it feels like a haven. Of course, I had to spend my first day in the “haven” watering plants, dusting, and doing laundry, after being away so long! The rest of the week I worked at CVA. CVA stands for “Christ Vous Appel” or Christ is calling you, and is a multi-media ministry of the Assemblies of God of France. It broadcasts Christian radio programs on certain radio stations in France, sells French translations of popular Christian books, maintains a Christian website, and more. The director, Laurent Guillet, is a former AG pastor and missionary to Morocco from the French AG. He has a real heart for Muslims and would like to use the resources of CVA to back the projects of IC France, a Muslim ministry started by a missionar...

Saturday, February 4, 2006 While I was in Amsterdam, I received an email from a friend that one of my language-school classmates had died last week in Burkina Faso, where he was just starting his missionary career. Tea-June Heo, a missionary from a Korean agency, and his wife left for Burkina in July, accompanied by their 3 year old daughter, June Young. He was killed in a car accident in the capital city of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Just receiving the news was a shock for me. In Amsterdam, I didn’t have a way to find out more details or even to contact other friends who knew him. I cried, and prayed, and cried some more. Tea-June is with his Savior, and that is where he would want to be. He was a man with a heart for God, earnestly and intensely seeking the Lord. However, my heart breaks for Youn Suk, his young wife, who is two months pregnant and for little June Young; this must be so confusing for her. I wish that Tea-June had been given a lifetime of missions service in Africa; he...

Over the past few months, I have written several posts for this, but not actually gotten around to posting them on the site (hey, this blog stuff is still new to me!). Over the next few days, I will be adding the old ones with their appropriate dates, to catch up anyone who wants to read them. We begin . . . Saturday, Jan. 28, 2006 When you think of Amsterdam, what comes to mind? I always used to think of drugs and immorality, having seen a bit of the city once on a long layover. But, for two weeks, I have the chance to be in Amsterdam for two courses on Islam, and the city has really won me over! The Dutch are very direct people, a trait that I actually admire (and relate to!). The French prefer a much more indirect approach to everything, which means I have to think, “What did so-and-so really mean by that comment?” The Dutch just say it straight out! They are also very hospitable, and nearly everyone speaks English, so it’s very easy for an American to find their way around...