les Davey de France

Christmas comes early in International Churches, because so many people travel home for the holidays. So it was that the Marseille Carol Concert was held on 1 December. Here in Bordeaux we held off until 15 December, and some of our students waited to go home until the following day. Now we're in the post and pre Christmas period - our major festivities are over, but the great day has not yet arrived - so we've suspended our Sundays in Judges and we're spending a few Sundays looking at aspects of the incarnation until the New Year. 

The International Church in Marseille is one of our sister churches, and does a lot of event evangelism. Recently they held a Thanksgiving Feast, with an interview with Governor Bradford, and 111 people present. They buy imported American turkeys, make pumpkin pies and green bean casserole, and hire a chef for the day to get everything ready. Then each year they hold a Carol Service in the Basilique du Sacré Coeur, which is on one of the Boulevards of Marseille near the Protestant church where the international church used to meet. Although the Marseille church usually has fewer than 30 people attending, there are some wonderful networkers there and so they get a great turnout for their special events. They've invited me to go and be their speaker at Christmas a couple of times over the years, but Marseille is a long way to travel, and the talk lasts about 7 minutes, so I felt I could never accept. Anyway, who would preach at Bordeaux while I was away? But this year a couple of thi...

The Bordeaux Town Hall has put up posters in the city carrying this message. The words come from Gisele Pelicot, the woman who was drugged and raped by her husband and many other men. She came forward to denounce him, testified in court and explained why she's taken her courageous stand. She's not changing her name. She says that she wants her children and grandchildren to grow up having a reason to be proud of the name Pelicot. She said that it's not for her to feel shame. Victims should not bear shame. It's the perpetrators who should feel ashamed. "La honte doit changer de camp" - shame must switch sides. She's become quite a figure in France, where domestic violence and sexual aggression is too common. The town hall posters advocate for no tolerance of domestic violence.

The cold snap arrived n Bordeaux on Tuesday and coincided with us being on duty in the café. This 'cold snap in Bordeaux' means minimum temperatures of 2°C and maxima of just early teens.With impressive lack of foresight I had not unpacked or even located my warm winter clothes, so I suggested we travel by tram.  Bike is better. Thankfully the café has a new and advanced system controlling its electric radiators. It's a system installed free, paid for by the electricity producers. It enables them to switch off your heating for short bursts in order to control peak demand on the grid. It also enables you to control thermostatically and by timer old electric radiators without such controls. It's great! So the café is warm when we arrive and stays warm while people are there. We turned on the heating for the toddler group about a month ago, but now it's on whenever the café is open. Cycling back and fore has been much nicer than the tram. It's only really cold firs...

Well last Saturday we met our granddaughter for the first time. She is the finest looking baby I have ever seen, with the exception of her uncle and her mother, of course. She has fine features, a decent amount of hair and is unusually alert. She loves having her head massaged or being gently tickled, and has taken to feeding as if milk is going out of fashion, which, of course, it soon will. She's generally calm but is subject to violent nocturnal attacks of unremovable wind. The life of a grandparent is as wonderful as they said it would be. In other news, after a week of procrastination I have submitted my application for French citizenship. I hit two snags on the website application : 1) they asked me to upload a United Kingdom DBS. However their list of documents didn't have that, and it would need to be officially translated, and I have lived in France for 19 years. If I need to do that then I guess I'll have to. 2) What category does pastor fit into? Am I employed? S...

So have we had a week! Our daughter, Catrin, has been pregnant for some time, expecting a little girl in mid-October. Once your estimated due date arrives  you go to the maternity unit every two days to be assessed. If all is well they send you home to continue the long wait. If necessary they will intervene to bring the pregnancy to a happy conclusion. Thus it was that every two days we have been on tenterhooks for some little while. On Thursday they decided enough was enough, and that Catrin would stay in hospital until the baby was delivered. This was followed by gentle induction of labour ( déclenchement in French), then less gentle induction, then finally a caesarian section yesterday afternoon. And so Dorothea Anwen has entered the world. We're very proud of everyone - Catrin, Théa and Froim dealt with the whole process with enviable sang-froid, coping admirably with every medical decision and every change of plan. I was amazed - and I don't amaze easily. I regularly tak...