Teaching English to the French

Hey Y'all!

The boys are both napping so I am taking advantage to update this here blog for you, our supporters.  First, let me apologize for not getting to this sooner.  We have been on the go (more to come on that!) and there are these two little boys that take up much of my attention these days :).  So in saying that please forgive me for this long overdue post.  Secondly, I don't want to go any further with out stopping and personally thanking each of you for your continued prayers and support of our family as we are following God's call on our lives.  We could not do this without you.  We can feel your prayers!

Alright on to the updating.

As some of you may know, sharing the Gospel with French people is not so easy. What I mean by this is they are pretty closed off and not as receptive as other areas in the world.  In saying that,  those sharing Christ here have explored different ways to get a French person to open up.

One of these ways is by offering English lessons.  I had the privilege of going with Barbara (Bill and her were the one's who first shared the need for the Gospel here in France with Daniel and I over 4 years ago) to two of the meetings with a group of French people who were eager to learn English.  Oh what a joy!  As you know me I love to talk...shocker!  It has been a little bit of a battle as my desire to talk with others has been limited since I don't know French yet, but this has afforded me the opportunity to talk with a French person.  Teaching these classes can potentially open up to an opportunity for one to share Christ.  Baby steps though.  Planting seeds.

Yesterday Daniel also had an opportunity to go to one of these classes and came back on fire too.  It is just such a joy to see these French people EAGER to talk with you!

And to piggy back on these classes...I am teaching English for a two week course starting next week!  Typically what happens is the missionaries here offer this two week course in the summer to the French.  Handing out pieces of paper wherever they might be (grocery store, gas station, mall etc.).  They have a group from the states come and teach these classes.  Once the two weeks are up, some (if not more than some) of the French students want more weekly meetings, which opens up an opportunity for a missionary here to offer classes and build relationships on a weekly basis.

Pray for the team that is coming in.  I am really looking forward to teaching alongside brothers and sisters in Christ.

Pray the Gospel would penetrate this hard country.  Pray for the laborers.

Like cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.  Proverbs 25:25


Mae

French Pastors Conference

Last week I (Daniel) had the privilege of attending the AEEI pastor's conference a couple of hours south of Paris.  The AEEI is a French denomination that works with TEAM and has 31 churches mostly spread around the wider Paris area.  It was a wonderful experience being able to get a different perspective on the church in France.  I was able to meet some of the French pastors who are the fruit of TEAM's ministry in France.  I came away with a great respect for all the work that has been done towards the development of the Church in France.  Much has been done, but there are still many who live in areas with no Gospel witness.

P.S. More posts with pictures to come.  We have been going and going the past week.

Preaching in France

I (Daniel) had the opportunity to preach to the Church Plant in Guyancourt, France this past Sunday.  It was a great experience being able to preach to a French congregation for the first and for the first time through a translator.  I have to say I quite enjoyed it and it was wonderful to see God preach His truth through me, through the translator and to the congregation.  It was interesting to see what sentences and phrases were easily translated into to French and which ones required more explaining.  It is looking like I will have the opportunity to preach again sometime in July.  Pray God would guide me as I prepare to preach again and that He would help me use what I learned from my first experience.

Here is a short video of the singing from this past Sunday.

Interesting Tidbits Volume #1

We thought it would be a good idea to chronicle some of the interesting things we have noticed during our time here in France.

1. For starters we find the grocery store to be one of the more interesting places to visit.  It can tell you so much about people's habits and everyday lives.  As many of you might expect food is very important to the French and the grocery store reflects this fact.  They are full of entire departments of fresh produce, meat, cheese and enough bread to sink a battleship.  For those who want to know food generally tends to be slightly more expensive with things such as bread and cheese being less expensive and items such as peanut butter being priced through the roof compared to the states.

2.  Since a good bit of our support base is in the South, y'all might be intrigued by this one.  Some of you might know that one of us really enjoys listening to country music (bet you can't guess which one that is :)).   We were riding in the car one of the first days we got here and jokingly said "I bet they don't have country music here".  A few days later we discovered one of the  stranger things which is that there actually is an English country radio station and it is even more country than what you would normally hear in the south.  We would be interested to find out who it is exactly that listens to that here.

3. One fact that might surprise some is that the French do not all hate Americans.  This is especially the case if you at least try to communicate in French to start with.  If we have learned nothing else during our time here in the past two weeks, we have learned that stereotypes are not helpful and you must approach each person with an open mind willing to learn about them as an individual.

4. In our experience so far it seems that most shirts with writing on them are in English.  Apparently the French like to buy shirts with English writing.

5. Who knew that the days were so long here in the summer.  It starts becoming daylight a little before 6:00am and doesn't get dark until after 10:00pm.  This has been quite challenging for trying to go to sleep at night but I think we have finally adjusted.


To be continued...