Happy New Year
to you all !
As 2008 draws to a close everyone's mind seems dominated by the financial crisis. However 2008 has seen much more than that, hasn't it !
For us it's been a good year, a year of consolidation in the work here and with no major crises.
We are still very happy in France. As the years pass and we pay our tax bills and settle in Alan is slowly becoming less convinced of disaster creeping up the driveway. We seem to be basically conforming in the essentials ! Thankfully.
Health has been good in our little family. Pat and I have doctors who supervise our health very actively : blood tests, x-rays, mri scans, ultra-sound. The worst we've had to face was Pat's severe sciatica - painful but thankfully not dangerous. We both need our eyes testing - Alan peers at the videoprojector image on the wall trying to decide whether it is in focus or not ! ( The opthalmologist will probably say there's no problem, everyone does that !)
Gwlym is now a lanky 14 year-old and has good and faithful friends. At church there's a dream trio of Clément, Dylan and Gwilym who get on very well indeed. At school Pierre and from his first day here in France Florian still keeps in contact. Gwilym's a keen footballer and is learning electric guitar at the music school ( Smoke on the water, Satisfaction, he does all the golden oldies ) He's doing OK in school and getting more and more to grips with the advancing levels of French that he needs for his subjects. Gwilym leads the videoprojector team - the dream trio who advance from verse to verse of hymns and songs.
Catrin is a tall 12 year-old and doing well in school. She struggled more in the early days but now it's much easier for her. At the music school she's learning flute and also sings with a chorale d'enfants, which she loves. She has not loved orchestra and we may give this a miss till next year, but she played a flute duet with her dad at the church new year bash. Her special friends are at church, Christina and Colline. They love dancing, pink, sleepovers and High School Musical.
Pat's special friends include Rhian (ex-pat), Leila (from Bahrain), Cecille (at church) and Liz (colleague). Pat's has a love-hate relationship with her French class. It's a great opportunity for getting to know other students (mostly immigrant women) but the teachers' exigency with written work drives her potty. Student outreach and backup work has been great. This year's bout of sciatica was a fairly major incident, brought on by leaning wrongly into the freezer to reach something and keeping her out of the car for about a month. Pat has developed a keen loathing for the freezer but Alan says that if it hadn't been that it could have been the kettle or anything else - Pat's back is a sciatica bout waiting to happen.
Alan enjoys his trombone lessons at the music school and feels he ought to get back into practicing his flute, too. ( The trombone has REALLY helped his flute breathing ! ) He explained to the music school director that he would be unable to play in the orchestra because of work commitments - namely Thursday Bible Study - but then changes at the centre freed him up for the 20h30 half-time, then the 19h30 start. Further changes meant he couldn't attend rehearsals any more but he still played during the Christmas concert and the director has suggested he continue to play and just turn up for rehearsals whenever he can. We'll see. His chums include Ben (colleague), Samy (colleague), Xavier (Rhian's husband and fellow-geek), the dream trombone section - Renaud and Thomas (apologies to the flutistes...) and various guys in the student work and the church ( Manu, Olivier, etc. )
As for the work this year - it is a jigsaw puzzle of interlocking parts that make up the big picture : the French Church, the International work and the Student work.
This year has seen huge changes in the French work, firstly in that we now have our settled home which is working out just fine. It's a trifle on the small side for special occasions but for normal Sundays it's great. It's been super to see how the church has responded to the news of Samy and Carol's departure, to see how God has led to Dik Briennen coming in August and to see how some of the young guys are growing into service. At the same time we face big financial challenges and the issue of encouraging all our folk into a regular commitment and service. We also face a big challenge in knowing how best to help the Blaye churches to be strong and to reach their community.
The International work is a challenge and an encouragement. These first early months have shown the usefulness of English in reaching people from all over the world (China!) and French people too. We have not appealed so far to Anglo-Saxon ex-pats. It will be interesting to see if this becomes a bigger feature of the work. We will need to work on making known the ministry among the ex-pats. Some of this will be quite easy (liaising with embassies, leaflets in bookshops and so on). Some will be less easy (linking in with the ex-pat network via the Bordeaux clubs and societies... time consuming and not naturally our thing...) Bordeaux has a million people. How to find the English speakers ? I may write a simple leaflet to give to people who I hear speaking English on trams etc...
The student work has been encouraging this year. My involvement has mainly been in evangelistic surveys and questionnaires, in the English class, in soirées, in tracting and in background stuff ( leaflets, website, prodding the computers to try to keep them working...) Some more people coming along to the English classes has been encouraging. Fiona has a gang of Chinese beginners. My class is more diverse with two women from the Caribbean, two French guys, and Chinese lad and a Moroccan. Some of the students take responsibility for the work of the centre but it is not easy to encourage them in evangelism. Tracting at the Christmas market, I was really encouraged when the guy I was with said "I couldn't have imagined doing this just a year ago." And he's got such an easy manner with people : happy, chatty yet still wanting to talk about the gospel.
This year in the house we decorated Catrin's and Gwilym's bedrooms. Not bad ! The "garden" is basically a story of slash and burn - well burn is prohibited so we have to chop everything up small and drive it to the dump (strange smoke from neighbours' gardens tempts us to flout the prohibition... Can you burn garden waste on the barbecue instead of charcoal, I wonder...) The car : well it runs very well but so it should after the costly service this year and two more new tyres !
I spent three weeks visiting churches in Britain this March which was hugely enjoyable. I wouldn't be surprised to be back in Britain on another similar visit soon. We'll see ! I brought back an impressive quantity of tea bags. ( We now feel that the pleasure and nutritive-value of Heinz baked beans makes them worth the £1.50 a tin we have to pay for them ! )
Holidays this year - we went to Britain and stayed with friends in Bath, then at some friends' house in Swansea, then up to Shotton. It was great to see everyone. We were struck by the busy roads, the inclement weather and the cheap price of beans in the supermarkets !
And so 2009 begins. It's been interesting to see how the financial crisis has developed - unwise practices but then the whole 'talking up and talking down' phenomenon... It's all built on nothing, isn't it ! For us the weakness of the pound is a big issue because our supporters give in pounds but it is converted into euros to pay our keep. I keep expecting the euro to begin its descent, following the dollar and the pound, but as yet there's not much sign of it. The pound is clearly linked more strongly to the dollar than the euro but what of the future ? Time will tell.
Meanwhile my experience of the 1970s (three-day week, power cuts etc.) and our knowledge of God's supervising and controlling presence makes us confident. We hold on to his hand in the rapids, knowing that he steers the boat with complete skill.
So 2009. For you all we wish God's blessing. For us we long to see people discover peace, joy, forgiveness and new life in Jesus Christ and to see our church becoming ever stronger and better established. Glory to Jesus in 2009 !
As 2008 draws to a close everyone's mind seems dominated by the financial crisis. However 2008 has seen much more than that, hasn't it !
For us it's been a good year, a year of consolidation in the work here and with no major crises.
We are still very happy in France. As the years pass and we pay our tax bills and settle in Alan is slowly becoming less convinced of disaster creeping up the driveway. We seem to be basically conforming in the essentials ! Thankfully.
Health has been good in our little family. Pat and I have doctors who supervise our health very actively : blood tests, x-rays, mri scans, ultra-sound. The worst we've had to face was Pat's severe sciatica - painful but thankfully not dangerous. We both need our eyes testing - Alan peers at the videoprojector image on the wall trying to decide whether it is in focus or not ! ( The opthalmologist will probably say there's no problem, everyone does that !)
Gwlym is now a lanky 14 year-old and has good and faithful friends. At church there's a dream trio of Clément, Dylan and Gwilym who get on very well indeed. At school Pierre and from his first day here in France Florian still keeps in contact. Gwilym's a keen footballer and is learning electric guitar at the music school ( Smoke on the water, Satisfaction, he does all the golden oldies ) He's doing OK in school and getting more and more to grips with the advancing levels of French that he needs for his subjects. Gwilym leads the videoprojector team - the dream trio who advance from verse to verse of hymns and songs.
Catrin is a tall 12 year-old and doing well in school. She struggled more in the early days but now it's much easier for her. At the music school she's learning flute and also sings with a chorale d'enfants, which she loves. She has not loved orchestra and we may give this a miss till next year, but she played a flute duet with her dad at the church new year bash. Her special friends are at church, Christina and Colline. They love dancing, pink, sleepovers and High School Musical.
Pat's special friends include Rhian (ex-pat), Leila (from Bahrain), Cecille (at church) and Liz (colleague). Pat's has a love-hate relationship with her French class. It's a great opportunity for getting to know other students (mostly immigrant women) but the teachers' exigency with written work drives her potty. Student outreach and backup work has been great. This year's bout of sciatica was a fairly major incident, brought on by leaning wrongly into the freezer to reach something and keeping her out of the car for about a month. Pat has developed a keen loathing for the freezer but Alan says that if it hadn't been that it could have been the kettle or anything else - Pat's back is a sciatica bout waiting to happen.
Alan enjoys his trombone lessons at the music school and feels he ought to get back into practicing his flute, too. ( The trombone has REALLY helped his flute breathing ! ) He explained to the music school director that he would be unable to play in the orchestra because of work commitments - namely Thursday Bible Study - but then changes at the centre freed him up for the 20h30 half-time, then the 19h30 start. Further changes meant he couldn't attend rehearsals any more but he still played during the Christmas concert and the director has suggested he continue to play and just turn up for rehearsals whenever he can. We'll see. His chums include Ben (colleague), Samy (colleague), Xavier (Rhian's husband and fellow-geek), the dream trombone section - Renaud and Thomas (apologies to the flutistes...) and various guys in the student work and the church ( Manu, Olivier, etc. )
As for the work this year - it is a jigsaw puzzle of interlocking parts that make up the big picture : the French Church, the International work and the Student work.
This year has seen huge changes in the French work, firstly in that we now have our settled home which is working out just fine. It's a trifle on the small side for special occasions but for normal Sundays it's great. It's been super to see how the church has responded to the news of Samy and Carol's departure, to see how God has led to Dik Briennen coming in August and to see how some of the young guys are growing into service. At the same time we face big financial challenges and the issue of encouraging all our folk into a regular commitment and service. We also face a big challenge in knowing how best to help the Blaye churches to be strong and to reach their community.
The International work is a challenge and an encouragement. These first early months have shown the usefulness of English in reaching people from all over the world (China!) and French people too. We have not appealed so far to Anglo-Saxon ex-pats. It will be interesting to see if this becomes a bigger feature of the work. We will need to work on making known the ministry among the ex-pats. Some of this will be quite easy (liaising with embassies, leaflets in bookshops and so on). Some will be less easy (linking in with the ex-pat network via the Bordeaux clubs and societies... time consuming and not naturally our thing...) Bordeaux has a million people. How to find the English speakers ? I may write a simple leaflet to give to people who I hear speaking English on trams etc...
The student work has been encouraging this year. My involvement has mainly been in evangelistic surveys and questionnaires, in the English class, in soirées, in tracting and in background stuff ( leaflets, website, prodding the computers to try to keep them working...) Some more people coming along to the English classes has been encouraging. Fiona has a gang of Chinese beginners. My class is more diverse with two women from the Caribbean, two French guys, and Chinese lad and a Moroccan. Some of the students take responsibility for the work of the centre but it is not easy to encourage them in evangelism. Tracting at the Christmas market, I was really encouraged when the guy I was with said "I couldn't have imagined doing this just a year ago." And he's got such an easy manner with people : happy, chatty yet still wanting to talk about the gospel.
This year in the house we decorated Catrin's and Gwilym's bedrooms. Not bad ! The "garden" is basically a story of slash and burn - well burn is prohibited so we have to chop everything up small and drive it to the dump (strange smoke from neighbours' gardens tempts us to flout the prohibition... Can you burn garden waste on the barbecue instead of charcoal, I wonder...) The car : well it runs very well but so it should after the costly service this year and two more new tyres !
I spent three weeks visiting churches in Britain this March which was hugely enjoyable. I wouldn't be surprised to be back in Britain on another similar visit soon. We'll see ! I brought back an impressive quantity of tea bags. ( We now feel that the pleasure and nutritive-value of Heinz baked beans makes them worth the £1.50 a tin we have to pay for them ! )
Holidays this year - we went to Britain and stayed with friends in Bath, then at some friends' house in Swansea, then up to Shotton. It was great to see everyone. We were struck by the busy roads, the inclement weather and the cheap price of beans in the supermarkets !
And so 2009 begins. It's been interesting to see how the financial crisis has developed - unwise practices but then the whole 'talking up and talking down' phenomenon... It's all built on nothing, isn't it ! For us the weakness of the pound is a big issue because our supporters give in pounds but it is converted into euros to pay our keep. I keep expecting the euro to begin its descent, following the dollar and the pound, but as yet there's not much sign of it. The pound is clearly linked more strongly to the dollar than the euro but what of the future ? Time will tell.
Meanwhile my experience of the 1970s (three-day week, power cuts etc.) and our knowledge of God's supervising and controlling presence makes us confident. We hold on to his hand in the rapids, knowing that he steers the boat with complete skill.
So 2009. For you all we wish God's blessing. For us we long to see people discover peace, joy, forgiveness and new life in Jesus Christ and to see our church becoming ever stronger and better established. Glory to Jesus in 2009 !
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