les Davey de France

This is a real Alan weepie, I'm afraid. Juliette does it very well, though not as well as Brel.

Did I mention that in our discussions with Maxime we came to the conclusion that Dan is already too small for us? Well, I say, "came to the conclusion", but I am slow to be persuaded. Though yesterday, well we were about 28. One family of holiday-makers who amounted to 6 of us. Also Maxime and Demelza, bringing the "real number" down to 20. But there may well be new students. And some of our regular folk are away. Anyway, we need to be on the lookout for somewhere else. And our preference is for what they call Bordeaux hyper-centre. Meanwhile, two folks coming to view the house today. One lot at 5, the other at 7:15.

We have a student from the Belgian Bible Institute with us on placement this week and it is proving to be a very stimulating experience. It means he preached on Sunday, in French, aided and abetted by his excellent Cornish wife, Demelza. Then discussions and dreams on Tuesday and a little on Wednesday. Today we'll see each other for lunch, and he's also working on what one calls our "visual identity" - so we can order a banner to tie to the grill of the door at Dan. There are other visits at the moment, too. Fiona Steward is in town and last night Gwilym and I went to a barbecue at the Cenon church in her honour. Also Helen was in playgroup, nursery and primary school with Gwilym and is currently starting a year in Bordeaux studying physics, so we have met up with her an her parents a little. This means LOTS of eating here and there, here a sandwich, there a barbecue, here a lunch by the seaside, there an invitation to a restaurant, everywhere indigestio...

Christians sometimes get themselves in a knot over our attitude to the world. "Do not love the world". "God so loved the world". "The world is under the control of the evil one". etc. etc. The answer is actually fairly simple - the word world doesn't always mean the same thing in English. Sometimes it means the physical globe. Sometimes it means every human being. Sometimes it means everywhere where humans live. Sometimes... well you get the picture. You have to understand the word from the context. The old pleasantry, "It's a small world!" "Yes, till you start to try and paint it!" illustrates this point. Anyway, long story short, as they say, here's some links to youtube videos of a Ligonier conference on the world, where some of the Western World's finest worthies join forces to consider the world. To the World, Folly and a Stumbling-block : Steven Lawson The End and Purpose of the World : R C Sproul ...

Maxime Soumagnas is preaching for Bordeaux Church this afternoon. Maxime was a student in Bordeaux in 2005 when we arrived. He was a very useful type, always willing to help in any way he could. He left for Cambridge where he worked with Friends International and also did a training course, then went to Saint Helen's Bishopsgate where he worked and did their training course. He's currently at the Belgian Bible Institute in Brussels and has one or two years of training left before, I hope, he returns to France to serve. Meanwhile he has married Demelza (from Cornwall) and they have two lads. And he's preaching for us from Psalm 103 this afternoon.

There have been far fewer mosquitoes around in Pessac this year, I think, probably because of the dry spring season and perhaps also because our neighbour cleaned out his pool. But on Friday evening, on the quays, I felt that tell-tale flutter on the skin of my right arm and gave the mosquito warning, and this morning I have three huge inflamed zones around my elbow. Rubbing in Savlon eased the itching. Today we found some old Apaisyl bite cream and I took my last anti-histamine.

Some church folk met up for a picnic on the quays yesterday evening.