Exhilarating!!

Monday morning I took Luc to his Senior High School 'down in the Valley'. It was raining and dark. Then I headed out to visit one of our church members. We are studying Neil Anderson's "Freedom in Christ" course. It's a privilege to get to know someone better and to grow in our understanding of our identity in Christ as expressed in Galatians 5:1:

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."

When I left I had to hightail it up to Lamastre again because we had an older couple coming for lunch. However, it was raining really hard and I was tired. Solution: put Amici in the CD player and speed through the rain hoping that snow tyres are good for road grip in heavy rain!

Actually, it was exhilarating! What a sense of freedom!

This is the feeling when we are set free in Christ.

(But I thank God for His protection in all our travelling. Pascal has as much as me to do.)

I've been everywhere, man!!!

Tight schedule!

Our retreat ended after breakfast Saturday morning and I had to get up to Le Riou by lunchtime in order to join our Teens group. Our leaders had organised a combined youth group day up in snow country with 2 other churches of our Union.

Four hours it took me! When I was young and living in Australia, it was nothing!!

Thank God for the French motorways. Perhaps not very environmentally conscious, but they are great for getting you from A to B.

And it was worth it because instead of snow, we had the most glorious autumn day with a view right to the French Alpes. The 23 kids didn't get to ride on dog sleds, but they were hooked up to the dogs and learned to control them and especially how to run behind them!

Luc is learning to put the harness on himself, then on the dog. He had the leader of the pack, because we figured that being a rugbyman, he'd control the situation!

He did a lot of running!! But to be honest, he controlled the dog well.

Should we make the parallel between being yoked up to Jesus?

I couldn't help thinking about parenting being a little like this exercise!

But what I particularly believe in is mentoring, accompanying and discipling. And for that you walk with a person and are linked to them for part of your and their journey. You learn to work with them, how to anticipate their needs, how to transmit your understanding.

Or it's like letting the Holy Spirit lead you...

Sometimes you are waiting,

Sometimes you run.

What a view!

Overlooking Tain l'Hermitage (on the left of the river) and
Tournon (on the right). Great wine country!

This was my view as I left our eldest son at a friend's house on my way to the Women's Retreat. What a spectacular country, yet look at how everything is ordered.

What strikes an Aussie, is how controlled nature is in Europe and in France in particular. The French love to control their surroundings and if they have to cope with too many trees in their yard, they cut them down. And to keep it all clean they tile over their front garden. Where does the rain go? Flooding incidents are on the increase as roads and concrete and tiling create order!

Makes us realise how close we are to Adam and Eve! We want to control everything and to know everything. And by 'taming' our surroundings we are under the impression that we do control everything. We just forgot that God asked us to manage His Creation.

Then again, our population is growing so much and our level of materialism is so high now that we are asking an awful lot of this Creation.

How to find the happy medium ? How to respect what God has provided for us ?

Femmes 2000

Eliane, Edith and Arla blowing out the candles

Transitions ...

10 years ago, 2 women, Edith (French) and Eliane (Swiss), were inspired to start a French-speaking Christian Women's movement. They called it "Femmes 2000" - "Women 2000" as in the year 2000. They had been very impressed by the Women in Leadership congress during Hope for Europe.

Their vision was quickly taken up by a number of women particularly around the Paris Region and by Arla, a Belgian woman. They made up the first team which organised a big conference for women in leadership in 2001. It was a first in French terms. Not only was the conference ministering to women, it was drawing women from different church families, and they invited a couple of women from French-speaking Africa and from the Eastern European countries. 180 women were able to participate over 3 days (one of those women was me!!! and what a God-send that conference was for me at a time when I needed spiritual mothering and time out with God.) The 4th day was a big gathering catering for 2000 women! These ladies started out with a vision, a conviction, a heart to encourage Christian leaders and NO budget. And God provided!

This event was such an encouragement that other groups sprang up and organised half or full day events on a much smaller scale. And each time there have been many blessings. It's like a ripple effect...

Last week 30 of us met together at a special retreat to talk about leadership, to change over leadership and to celebrate our 10th anniversary.

 The 'old guard' prayed over 'the new guard':

Left to right: Anne, Anne (Vice-President), Cécile (Président), Chantal (Vice-President), Mama Leke, Véronique (others were  out of photo).

I am now part of the National Committee and am active (inspite of the distance) with the South-East regional group which meets at Montélimar.

My aim is to see women encouraged in the ministries God has called them to, for them to be a blessing to others and to help their church grow spiritually.

I particularly appreciate the fact that Femmes 2000 is building up a list of gifted women speakers from French-speaking countries. We are weaning ourselves off Anglo-Saxons!!

Of Gods and Men

Last night, at our local municipal hall which serves as a cinema every other week, Pascal and I watched the film : Of Gods and Men (or About men and gods) - Des hommes et des dieux. It tells the tale of 7 Trappist monks living in Tibhirine, Algeria, serving the local community in the 1990s. Islamic fundamentalist soldiers/terrorists were sowing terror all around, killing men, women and children and attacking foreigners. The monks decided to stay on inspite of recommendations to leave. Their community wanted them to stay; the leaders told them "You are like the branches of a tree. We are the birds. If you leave, where can we perch ?" We accompany these men of peace in their realisation that they will probably die, murdered by these soldiers. As they were in 1996- firstly taken as hostages, but when the French Government refused to release imprisonned terrorists, they were beheaded.

It's a very fine film, nuanced,  where so much is portrayed by close-ups of faces expressing emotions, debating, petitioning God, the journey of accepting one's inevitable violent death, the sense of intimate community and wider community, sense of responsibility and refusal to enter into a violent, non-Christian approach to one's aggressors, even a celebration of life and love over evil and death. It's a story of courage and selflessness, and of following Christ's example.

A beautiful, challenging film, full of the Gospel. And you know what was so great about last night ? The hall was full - around 100 people were there! It's the first time since we have been watching films there that we have seen so many people. My guess is that many came because they are nominally Catholic, interested in understanding Christian monastic faith, and in recognising different forms of expression of the Islamic faith. Everyone in France remembers this episode and the audience was probably searching for some explanation.

My question to our church is : did you realise so many people are interested in spirituality? Were you there last night and did you know anyone? Did you notice how Christian spirituality is faithfully portrayed in  this commercial film? How can we get a 100 people coming to our activities searching for answers?

It comes back to the emerging missional church discussion - people are not going to come to us - we have to meet them on their home ground and develop bridges between their culture and our faith.

Please pray for Pascal and I as we share this concept with our parishioners through our different activities and discussions. Pray that they will so want to share their understanding of God that they will accept to step out of  their own church culture in order to meet others.

To read more in French : http://www.algerie360.com/divertissement/les-7-moines-de-tibhirine-assassines-en-algerie-canonises-a-cannes/

http://www.lejourduseigneur.com/Emissions/Les-veilleurs-de-l-Atlas?gclid=CNfwibXGiaUCFVBc4wodmntgMw

In English : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_the_monks_of_Tibhirine

It's Autumn...

The background of my blog mirrors what we see from our windows. A natural living picture in every direction full of dark greens, orange, yellow, light green and some lovely burgundy red from vines. The Lord of Creation is giving us a wonderful eye-full.

In our attic we are stocking freshly picked chestnuts that some of our parishioners gave us, pumpkins from our own garden, big courgettes from our neighbour's garden and home-grown apples. Our appartment is in a big house that fed a family of 7 from its garden. We are privileged to be able to benefit from the past.

Can you guess what all those hooks were used for ? Answer in the next posting.

Having criticized St Tropez for its materialism (as for much of the Western world), I'm challenged to make the most of our resources here in Lamastre. Our parishioners all have vegie gardens! Can't conceive of a house without one. Not only do we gain good organic fruit & veg from their labours, they actually created a vegie patch for us last year! So we have a modest garden. It's a challenge to be grateful for what we have because I'm definitely NOT a natural gardener; Pascal only a little more than me. I prefer the kitchen part and over the years (because we had a similar situation in Béziers, our first pastoral position) have learned to do bottling, jams, chutneys and all sorts of meals. This is the fun side of living in France! All that emphasis on fine food!

The way to my missionary heart is through my stomach ???!!!

Time out!

Mid-term break in France around the All Saints' Day public holiday. 10 days off school!

The Girards went south - together for a whole 6 days (well, of course we didn't take the Sundays off! Too many commitments!! Before you write to us about BURNOUT - it's ok.)

Thank God for Christian brothers and sisters. One such couple has decided to rent out their little holiday home to Christian workers for whatever we can afford to pay. So we had a lovely sunny autumnal time at Collobrières, near Toulon.

 No TV! No computer connection! Lots of sleep, family games and READING! Yes, all 5 of us finished at least one book!!! Jokes, conversation, one meal out, eating yummy chestnut and cognac ice-cream (it's an area which produces chestnuts and has a processing plant there in the village).

The boys slept out in a tent - best solution against snoring and smelly socks!

We even visited Saint Tropez, playground of the rich and famous. Pretty village, but everyone was there to be seen and we weren't inspired by the materialistic climate there.

We didn't get a sun tan, but we returned refreshed and ready to attack Christmas preparations and winter. 

Thank you, Lord, for holidays!

Think before you speak!

Mid-October, Pascal and I attended a seminar organised by the Evangelisation Committee of our Church Union (Free Evangelical Church of France - Union des églises évangéliques libres de France).

 Here we are with Dietrich Schindler, the guest speaker, Head of the Church Planting Department of the German Free Church. The man on the right is another pastoral colleague. Pascal is on the left and Mr Schindler between us. 

I arrived at that meeting spouting off about "why do we always rely on having foreigners coming in to speak to us and to teach us ???" forgetting the irony of me being a foreigner!! I do get frustrated by the continuing reliance on outside help in our French churches. I've already been in the country for 20 years, and when I first arrived I felt it was time the French Church took responsibility for itself. 

Well - I should not have spoken so quickly, because Mr Schindler was a real inspiration and a blessing to us all. He has so much practical experience in church planting in Germany. He had tried and proven ideas, he had analysed situations, had empirical evidence, lots of good old common sense and some surprising advice! Like - don't accept all-comers to help with a new church plant - choose your team wisely. Some people are more of a hindrance inspite of their good will! This advice in a country where churches are so small that any volunteers are gladly accepted!

And -  listing the criteria of a church which should 'die'. Then suggesting that some of the leaders pray about it for 6 months before starting the church up again but with renewed objectives, a united team and WITHOUT half the people who made up the church before!! The scary thing is that at least a quarter of our Union's churches qualified for the 'dying' bit!!

To conclude in a more positive manner : our Rhône-Alpes regional pastors meeting followed the next week and we determined to set up training and information sessions for our Church Councils. There is a real need for clarifying the rôle of our Counsellors, especially if we are looking for church growth. We absolutely MUST put into place leadership training and mentoring. 

Look at your church life in Australia. A lot of your structures and programmes seem so obvious to you. Here in France, in our Union in any case, it's not at all common practice.

Please pray for our Region as we organise the training sessions, and pray for our Union that we can work on building leadership and unity of purpose.

POST SCRIPTUM: Can't resist mentioning that Mr Schindler is closely related to Schindler of Schindler's List fame. I'm impressed because the faithfulness and God-honouring behaviour of that family is being passed on down the generations and being a blessing so many people. It's the amazing way in which God's Kingdom grows inexorably through people like Mr. Schindler, and people like ... you and me! We are one with the Holy Spirit and, with God, all things are possible! We all have our part to play.