Sermon - 31 Janvier

This past Sunday, I was able to preach on the subject of the importance of God being worshipped by people from all nations and how this theme is found from the beginning of the Bible until the end. In this sermon (which contained quite a few ideas from John Piper's book, Let the Nations Be Glad), I tried to present the idea of how evangelism is an extension of worship. If we truly value God and consider Him to be more precious than anything or anyone, then how can we be content in a world where people mock Him and consider Him irrelevant.

Ce dernier dimanche, j'ai preché au sujet de l'importance que Dieu soit loué par les peuple de toutes les nations et comment ce thème se trouve dès le debut de la Bible. Dans ce predication, j'ai esseayé de presenter l'idée de comment l'evangelism est une extension de notre adoration pour Dieu. Si on aime Dieu et le considére plus precieux que n'importe quoi ou n'importe qui, comment on peut être content dans un monde où les gens se moquent de lui et le considérent être sans importance.

Voici le lien:

Christmas 'Traditions'

Although we miss our families A LOT this Christmas, it has been fun to have a Christmas in our own small apartment and start some new 'traditions' with our own little family (I guess we'll see if they stick!). This is actually the first Christmas since we've been married that we haven't been traveling or moving, so we enjoyed having our own little tree, decorating our apartment, and having friends over for Christmas Eve. A few of the traditions we started...

- Advent candles...on Christmas Eve. We really meant to start on the first Advent Sunday, but it just didn't work out, and by the time Christmas Eve came, we hadn't lit any of our candles! So we did it all on Christmas Eve, lit each candle, read a passage and sang (or listened to on iTunes) a carol. It was a nice way of focusing on the birth of Christ, and we got use out of our Advent candles I bought over a month before! I think we may keep this tradition up.

- When I was growing up, we always watched It's a Wondrful Life on Christmas. We always talked about not liking it, but I think we all liked it a bit :) Wayne has never seen it though and had is own favorite Christmas movies. So instead of the classic Christmas movie, we (Wayne and I) watched Home Alone 1 and 2, and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (more cult-classics than classics). Addie watched the VeggieTales Saint Nicholas (over and over and over and over again in the last month).

And then there were things that we did that will not become traditions.

- For Christmas Eve dinner, we had ham and a potato dish with a yummy yet stinky French cheese in it. Not going to be able to find the ham or the cheese in Senegal.

- And last night, we did this. I think this might have been a once in a lifetime Christmas experience!

Notre Dame

The Eiffel Tower

Champs Elysees

Status Report - Hilary

In general, Hilary's been doing awesome with french. She had studied some before we came to France and thus didn't start in one of the beginner classes. I can't tell you how much it's helped me to have a wife smarter than me. She has been the recepient of numerous questions from me this year.

She's also beginning to have opportunities to minister to others. A couple months back, she had an opportunity to share some thoughts in chapel at our school. If you want to hear how she sounds speaking french, here's the link.



(If you prefer, you can download the message by clicking on the DivShare icon. That shold open up a new window where you can download it.)

Mon message - My sermon

Pour nos amis à Antony, J'ai beaucoup apprecié l'opportunité de precher. Si vous n'étiez pas là et voulez l'écouter, voici un lien.

Here's a sermon I recently preached at our church here in Paris. It was the first time I attempted preaching on a subject that was more abstract "The glory of God." In addition, the first time I preached, I read my manuscript for most of the sermon. This time I attempted to preach more like I would in english by only looking at my notes to remind myself of the main points and illustrations. It wasn't near as fluid or concise as it would have been in English, but I do feel that I was able to communicate my main points and it wasn't incredibly painful to listen to either. Hilary said she understood every word (she's fluent in hick french).




(Si vous préférez, vous pouvez telecharger le message en cliquant l'icon "DivShare.")
(If you prefer, you can download the sermon by clicking on the icon "DivShare)

Wayne preached...in French!!!

When Wayne's mom told this to a man who knew Wayne as a child, his response was "I never thought I'd see the day when Wayne would preach, much less in French!"  I am so very proud of my husband for making the big step into preaching in his second language here.  He's my favorite preacher to listen to, I'm glad the people over here get to listen to him now too!  We are very thankful that our church here in France has given Wayne this opportunity and that he is able to minister to them in our time here.  

If you want to hear what Wayne sounds like in French (even if you don't understand) you can listen here.

Si vous voulez écouter sa predication, vous le pouvez ici.

Whose money is it anyways?

Life in Paris is different than life in Dallas, or probably most cities that I have ever lived in.  The last year that I lived in Dallas, I was not faced much with very poor people, those who would come up to you on the street and beg for money.  It just wasn't done where I went.  But here in Paris, it happens all the time.  On the metro, on the way to the grocery store, and definitely in the city where they know that there are lots of tourists.  And whenever I am asked for money, I always have to ask myself  "Do I give it to them?" and sometimes it's even "Do I give it to them again?  I just gave them some?"  Sadly, I think I too often err on the side of caution and don't give money  I often think "Well, what if they really don't need it but could just go get a job" or "Why are they still asking?  I just gave them something!  I think they are taking advantage of me."  

In reading Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount, I have been convicted of my attitude, specifically the attitude of not wanting to be taken advantage of.  I think that too often, I try to protect myself instead of doing what God asks me to do and letting Him take care of the results.  In Matthew 5 verses 38-42, Jesus speaks about retaliation, or I should say he speaks against retaliation.  It is here that we find the famous concept of "turn the other cheek." It is a difficult idea to put into practice for sure, but I think that most Christians know that they should do this and really do try.  But a few verses later, another concept is linked with the lack of retaliation, that is the idea of giving to beggars.  Directly following the command to turn the other cheek and give your cloak as well when someone just asks for your tunic is the command from Jesus "Give to the one who begs from you."  That's it, no caveats.  But if this isn't enough to convince you, keep reading the next section.  In this section is the famous concept of "love your enemies," but it was something else in this section that hit me.  God tells us to give and not worry about being taken advantage of because he does exactly the same thing.  "For God makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." (verse 45)  God doesn't look at where he makes it rain and decide field by field who he will give rain to and who he will not.  The rain falls on the field of the just as well as the unjust.  And when a person does something bad with a good gift that God has given them, it is as if they slap God on the cheek, and yet he still turns the other to them, still gives them good gifts. 

Now I know that there are exceptions to every rule, that in Senegal it would be impossible to give money to everyone who asks because they swarm your car every time you stop at an intersection.  But I do not want my life to focus on the exceptions.  I want to have the attitude of Christ.  I want to give without expecting anything in return, even gratitude.  I want to give in faith, trusting that God will do what he wills with my gifts.  I want to give knowing that I have done what my Father has asked of me, not worrying about the other persons actions.  I want to give not worrying what others around me think, only what my Father in heaven thinks of me.  I want to give, knowing that it is all God's money, and he will do with it as he pleases.

News Flash!!

Addie parle le francais!!!  (Addie speaks French!)

Some things she has said to us...

Ça suffit  (that's enough)

Ne touche pas  (don't touch - I think she must get told these two phrases in the nursery :)

Un bisou (a kiss :)

Qu'est-ce que tu fais?  (what are you doing?)

Je ne sais pas (I don't know)

Allez, viens (come on, lets go)

A tout à l'heure (see you later!)

And every once in a while "Oui" will pop out of her mouth instead of "yes", even when we ask her a question in English.

And to see that she really does understand what she's saying, I said to her yesterday when she was trying to do something I told her not too  "J'ai dit non"  (I said no!) to which she replied with a big smile "J'ai dit oui!"  (I said yes!).  Now we need to keep working on the obeying part.

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.