And another reason life in Paris is awesome

While we haven't done a ton of touristy stuff in Paris as Wayne mentioned, we have been able to do some, and this week we had the great opportunity to visit Versailles while getting to know some new friends from church.  Thursday was a holiday here (Ascension Day) and so we had lunch with a family from church and then they took us to walk around the Versailles gardens for the afternoon.  Now for those who live here in France, visiting Versailles may not be much, but for those coming from Dallas where the oldest building there is a little one room cabin that some settler supposedly lived in early on, this stuff here is really, really, cool!

Enjoy some pictures of our fun afternoon!

Merci Matthieu et Marie-Hélène!

Life in Paris has been awesome (but not for the reason you're thinking)

We've received many a joke about "suffering for Jesus" in Paris. Undoubtedly, the reason for the joke is that most people think (and rightfully so) that Paris is an amazing city. There's the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysées, Notre Dame, the Louvre etc. There is no end of amazing things to see in Paris.

However, in our first 5 months here, we've been able to do very little tourist stuff (any guesses on how well museums work with a 2 yr old). But we have greatly enjoyed living in Paris. A major reason for this is our church here in Paris.

The new friends we've made here have always been patient with us when we're stumbling through saying something in French. We've been invited to meals several times usually where someone needs to do quite a bit of driving to get us back home. We've been loaned a car from someone at church during our last 2 school breaks.

Our church experience has helped us greatly in 2 ways. First, having so many patient and kind people to speak with has immensely helped our French improve. Second, the difficulty that comes with adjusting to a new location has been drastically lowered. Moving to a new country where you don't know the language is often an extremely difficult transition. While the transition has still been difficult (there's a lot we still miss from home), it's hasn't been near as difficult as it could have been.


Here's a few photos from the church weekend retreat this past weekend.



Here's Hilary teaching Addie her newly aquired Petanque skills





Et nous voulons dire merci à tous nos amis à l'église d'Antony.

International Meal

For dinner tonight...

Main course - Poulet Yassa (a chicken dish from Senegal that I made for the first time)

Next course - Traditional French baguette with some good Camembert cheese.

Dessert (for Wayne)- Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie with peanut butter smeared on top.  Pour nos amis français qui lisent le blog, c'est un biscuit americain que Wayne aime beaucoup!  Et il peut manger le beurre de cacahuètes avec tous!

4 years ago...

4 years ago today...

And us now, even happier!

Guess where we're going to celebrate...the Champs Elysées in Paris!  How cool is that.

And Addie's comments about the wedding while looking at our wedding pictures..."You and daddy got married.  I was not there.  I stayed home."  I guess we'll explain all that later!

Wayne went to Switzerland...I defrosted the fridge.

One of the reasons that we chose to go to Senegal was because it is a French speaking country and the primary language that we would need to learn for our ministry is French.  This appealed to us for 2 reasons.  First of all, by knowing French, much more of North Africa is open to us if we ever leave Senegal.  The other reason is that I studied French before and so we knew that we both wouldn't be starting from scratch.  We are both here to study the language and really both working full time jobs between going to classes, studying, and extra activities to practice our French.  But with a 2 year old, it's not always possible for both of us to always do the same activities, which brings us to this past week and the title of our blog.

This week, a couple of students from our school here went to a conference in Switzerland on Islam and they had some more space in their car for a couple more people to go.  Wayne had the great opportunity to go with and attend this conference for 3 days.  And the best part of all of this, the whole conference was in French and pretty much everyone who attended only spoke French!  It was a great chance for him to really push ahead in both his oral comprehension skills and his speaking skills.  We were really glad that he could take part in this.

While we both would have liked to attend, we realize that at this point in our lives, our language learning is taking place in a somewhat less than ideal situation.  It would be great if we could spend many more hours on our French each week and both be able to jaunt off to Switzerland for a few days for some intense practice.  But then again, we would miss seeing the joy on Addie's face when she saw Cinderella's castle (at least that's who she thinks lived there) or hearing her play by play of Aladdin because we're not in the same room to watch it with her ("Mommy, there's Jasmine's palace!...Daddy, they're kissing....Forward fast this part please!!!"), or hearing her say "A tout a l'heure (see you later) to our friends here at school.  We wouldn't trade that for the world.  Addie and I had a great time together for a few days while Wayne was gone and even got to go on a date to McDonald's together.  

So God has provided us with a great school to study at, opportunities to learn and practice together (ie. church) and opportunities for Wayne to have even more intense practice.  And God has given us a wonderful little girl who continues to bring smiles to our faces even in the tiring stressful times of language learning.  And as a bonus for this week, God gave me a day at home with Addie so I could get our fridge cleaned out and defrosted, and it looks great!