Merry Christmas from England!

Avignon

We went to Avignon this past Friday to get vaccinations for Senegal, but we made a day trip out of it, and enjoyed the sites afterwards. It was so fun!

I roamed Avignon with Anna and Sam, because we were all in agreement that H&M would be our first priority (For those of you who are about to Google "H&M", I'll save you some time; it's a clothing store). It was a large, two story one at that!

Our next stop was Le Palais des Papes.

Those two little specks in the lower left corner are Sam and me. The palace is massive!

We climbed several sets of stairs and turned around to realize we were in the perfect location for enjoying the sunset.

My favorite view of the day, however, was the bridge, Pont Saint-Bénezet. Anyone know the song Sur le Pont d'Avignon? The song refers to this very bridge. I love how clearly you can see the reflection of the bridge in the water!

 

Our final stop was the Christmas market, where vendors were selling all sorts of homemade/handcrafted wonderfulness (crepes, candy, hats, scarves, wooden toys, etc). Our time was limited, so I did me some quick window shopping.

Thanks be to God for a wonderful day of sight seeing. J'aime bien Avignon!

JEM Saint Paul Christmas Party

Last night we had a JEM Christmas party. We all dressed up, enjoyed a special meal, and played one of those crazy gift exchange games. I was asked to share some of my personal highlights from the past 12 weeks with everyone, and I thought I’d post a paraphrased excerpt from it here, for posterity (or something like that).

“Over the past twelve weeks God has given me many good gifts, and tonight I’d like to share some of them with you. The first gift: acceptance. I've always been a people pleaser. I've always wanted everyone to like me and accept me. But when you live in close quarters with others, as we do here, it’s pretty much impossible to be accepted and liked by everyone all the time. You're gonna get on peoples nerves at one point or another. Yet, each time I have messed up or sinned against someone, I have been met with forgiveness and love. The love I have experienced here reminds me of the love and acceptance I have in Jesus Christ. Amazing!

The second gift: the Bible. In the past I’ve relied on my parents, pastors and friends for advice when making decisions (big or small). But here, my "advisers" are not around, and I have been forced to turn to God and his word for answers. Because of this, my love for the Bible and my gratefulness to God for giving me his word has only increased!

This is just a sampling of the good gifts God has given me; I could share more! But tonight we’re gathered not only to celebrate gifts from God in our individual lives, but also the gift we have all been given—Jesus Christ—who came to earth to save us!"

After my little speech I read the story of Jesus birth in English, Sophie read it in French, and then we sang Christmas carols. It was a wonderfully festive evening!

Week 11 Festivities

Week 11 was full of good food and memory making! We ended up celebrating Thanksgiving this week instead of last week, because our instructor was from the States, and we thought he'd enjoy sharing an AMURican meal along with us.

We tried to make most of the traditional dishes, however, turkey did not make it onto the menu (it's crazy expensive here for some reason). We had chicken, mashed taters, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole (made by me...you weren't missing out), cranberry sauce, stuffing, pumpkin pie, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, and apple crumble (also made by me...this, I'm happy to say, got rave reviews).

Some of the other students even decorated our dining room to make things feel more festive, but it was oh so strange to celebrate without my family. Thanks to my sister, Cara, I did get a little taste of Thanksgiving at home. She made a video for me with clips of my family members saying "hi" and sending love during their Thanksgiving celebration. Thank you so much, Car!

After the big meal, we watched Les Misérables (the 2012 version). Man, the theme of forgiveness and mercy in that story is absolutely amazing! We've been humming and singing the songs from it almost constantly since then.

Thursday night our instructor took us out on the town. We admired Saint Paul's Christmas charm; it was decked out for Christmas with window murals and lights in the trees. I have pictures, but the quality is so bad that I am too embarrassed to post them! Afterwards we ate dinner at a little place called L'Auberg Inn. I ordered Salade de Chevre Chaud au Miel and a Banana Split, of all things! The salad had warm goat cheese and honey drizzled on top of a bed of greens. It was simple and delicious. Believe it or not, that was my first eating out experience since I've been in France! 

Friday afternoon a group of us went to a Christmas craft market in town and on the way home enjoyed a gorgeous sunset. Just look!

  I love late fall tree silhouettes!

The festivities don't end there, folks! Friday evening my small group—Peter, Shea, Sam, Anna—and I went to Mado's house for fondue. (Mado is one of the JEM Saint Paul staff members who lives in town). To be completely honest, I wasn't really a fan of the cheese. The white wine flavor was a bit too strong for my liking. Even so, I enjoyed the experience and the company.

So there you have it: a full, fun week of new experiences. I have many other things I could share right now, but this post is long enough as it is. Besides, I don't have pictures to hold your interest beyond this point anyway. Until next time!

Status Update

Weather: Cold, windy, and often quite rainy

Week Nine: Finished

Feeling: Homesick

New Favorite Pastime: Playing soccer with my JEM people

Christmas Plans: Staying with Abi and her family in Manchester, England along with Sam, Shea, and Peter!

Leaving for Senegal: January 2

Returning from Senegal: March 11

God's Grace: Amazing

This Picture: Just because

A Saint-Just Treasure

I just posted a shortened version of this on Facebook, but I just had to post it here too (especially for my non-Facebook people)!

We just got back from a day in Saint-Just. We were helping our friend, Isabelle, who will be translating for us next week. We did some yard work for her in the morning and enjoyed lunch and a tour of her home afterwards.

Isabelle and her mom live on a beautiful estate that's been in their family for years. The yard was lovely and extremely large. I would pretty much equate it to "The Secret Garden." During WWII the Germans would camp out there because of its prime location. I love doing yard work, so I was in heaven as we raked, broke down fallen branches, and picked up fallen Sharon fruit (Persimmons, I think?) and laid them out to ripen.

And the house, oh the house! It was a mansion (literally a maze of a place) and wonderfully old. Vines with red leaves crawled up the walls of the beautiful, blue shuttered home. The main part of the house was built in 1780, and some of the basement/wine cellar areas date back to the 1300-1400s! Uh, I just loved it! I'm only sorry I don't have any pictures to share. Just use your imagination, okay?

Castle, Confusion, and Clarity

I know I haven't been very "blog post happy" lately. They've been keeping us busy around here...

Two weekends ago we visited Le Chateau de Suze-la-Rousse, which is just a 10 minute drive from JEM St. Paul. It was beautiful!

Can you see the faint outline of a mountain range on the horizon in the picture below? Not the first mountain range, but the one you can just barely see with a layer of fog covering it? That's Mont Ventoux; one of the most challenging peaks in the Tour de France. Cool, huh?!

Then, last weekend we (the students) hosted a dinner party for the JEM staff members and their families. We planned everything: the menu, the decorations, and the entertainment. It was a great success! Everyone dressed up like a Bible character; I chose to be Zipporah. Here I am pictured with my new little friend, Abigail (I'm not exactly sure which Bible character she was). 

Alright, enough about weekend adventures and festivities, let's move on to the meaty stuff: lectures. This week's lecture topic was "The Holy Spirit." To be perfectly honest, I don't usually think about the Holy Spirit on a day to day basis, so I had a difficult time wrapping my mind around the topic. Our teacher really loves God and had some truly valuable things to share, however, a few of his points—as far as I could tell—were not based on the Bible. I've tried not to be overly critical when listening to the lectures, but between the novelty and subjectivity of some of the teaching, my head was spinning this week. I didn't know what to believe about anything! I was anxious, emotional, and confused.

Thanks be to God, I am doing MUCH better now. After several, long phone conversations with my mom, one long phone conversation with my parents' pastor, and praying and Bible reading on my own, I was able to sort through some things. God helped me realize that while it's true I shouldn't be overly critical, I should use discernment. I'm learning not to take everything at face value, but instead to listen to the teaching, then study the Bible on my own, while asking God to help me develop convictions that are from him. A wonderful outcome of this week is that I am really excited to read my Bible more. And that, my friends, is the work of the Holy Spirit!