Out of the mouths of babes

We have been back in the US now for one crazy busy month and leave for Senegal 2 weeks from today! And while this month has been full of joy at seeing friends and family and also sadness at saying goodbye once again, God has blessed us particularly through Addie these past few weeks. Her joy and flexibility continue to amaze us in this phase of life we are in and we are so thankful to have her. Just to share with you how she has blessed us, here are a few of the things she has said this past month...

At the doctors office in Iowa 3 days after we arrived from France

Nurse: "Hi sweetie, where do you live?"

Wayne and I (in our heads): "We have no idea, we're homeless!"

Addie: "I live in Senegal!"

After I said goodbye to my grandparents for possibly the last time

Addie: "Mommy, why are you crying?"

Me: "I'm just sad to say goodbye."

Addie (with her arms around my neck giving me a big hug): "Don't worry mom, you'll be happy in Senegal!"

When talking about Senegal and our teammates who were in France with us and will be moving to Senegal this summer as well.

Addie: "I'm soooo excited to see Faith and Grace in Senegal. Aren't you soooo excited to see uncle Bo and aunt Michele in Senegal mom?"

At the 3rd church we've been to in the past month

Addie: "Mom, this is not our church. Our church is in French!"

And something that brought a smile to our faces today while all 3 of us were lying in the hammock

Me: "I hear the birds making noise. I hear daddy's stomach making noise too!"

Addie: "My face is making noise too!" (And it hasn't stopped all day)

Au revoir

This week...

Packed our bags - yup (and they are packed to the gills!)

Walked around Paris one more time - sort of (we were too tired to walk too far!)

Sold the car - done

Ate our last real French meal - mmmmmm, it was good

Got rid of all the stuff we'd acquired this past year that didn't fit in the bags - yup

Said "goodbye" to lots of friends :(

Said "au revoir" to lots of others :(

Got Addie's report card from school - we're so proud of her progress this year!

Had our last Sunday at a church we have grown to love this year - always hard for me!

Spread a little "Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookie" joy to our friends in France (as long as the recipe I translated makes sense!)

Looked back at how much God has blessed us in our 16 months in France!

What a week.

Happy Anniversary to us

Wayne and I celebrated our anniversary a month early this year by a little trip to Rome! It's great being so close to so many places here in France. We had a wonderful weekend enjoying the sights, being real tourists, eating lots of pizza and just relaxing.

But we sure did miss this little girl!

The first 5 months of 2010

I was flipping through my planner the other day and noticing how full it is...until the end of May, and then it is empty! Why? Because on May 25th, we move to Senegal! (and I have no idea what our life will look like after that day...)

A few of the things that have been keeping us busy and will keep us busy up until that day...

1. School...yes, we're still in school. I sometimes feel like my life as a student will never end...

2. Vacation...the wonderful thing about school! We recently had a week off and were able to visit Wayne's cousin and his family in Prague. It was a beautiful city and a very refreshing time with family. The dads and kids had just gone sledding in this picture...mom is smart, she just took pictures!

3. Sleepovers...Addie has now spent the night at her friend Emma's house twice and Emma was able to come stay with us one night. We are so thankful to Anne-Sophie and Olivier for having Addie over and giving us a night off once in a while!

4. Anniversary...for our 5th anniversary this year, Wayne and I will be taking a quick weekend trip to Rome while grandma and grandpa Denny spend some time with Addie! Looks like it's a win-win situation.

5. Packing...we haven't quite started yet, but it sure is on our minds. It gets a little complicated when you have things going from France to Senegal, France to US to Senegal, US to Senegal with someone else, and US to Senegal in our suitcases. Pray for my sanity please.

6. Presentations...we presented our goals and plans probably 50 times in the States before we left, but we get the chance to do it one more time next week in French! We are excited to share with our church our plans for Senegal so that our friends can keep up with us and pray for us.

7. Paris...yes we do manage to sneak in a day in Paris every once in a while. You can't live in Paris for over a year without having seen at least a few of the great museums and going up the Eiffel Tower!

8. Reading...Wayne and I are both reading through the Bible in 90 days with some friends of ours here at church (although it will be about 110 days for me...whoops, where did those 2 weeks go?). We are enjoying spending this time going fairly quickly though the word and getting a bigger picture of who God is and what He has done and is doing.

9. Traveling...we will be heading back the States on April 24th (just in time to celebrate my dad's birthday at Giordanos in Chicago!) and will be there for one fast and furious month. We will each be in 3 different states during that time, but at slightly different times...I'm not even sure I'm going to be able to keep up with us!

10. Seeing family...in about 2 months, we will have both been able to see all of our immediate families! I can't tell you how excited I am about that as it has been over a year since I have seen my siblings, and about 10 months since I have seen my parents.

11. Eating...I can't lie, the food in France is incredible, but we also miss the food in the States. Which means we'll just be eating a lot in the next few months. We still have to try a few things here (I'm sure there are at least 300 types of cheese we haven't yet tried, no joke, and I've been told we can't leave without trying fois gras), and we've got our tour of foods we've been missing and want to eat while we're back (Chicago pizza, mexican food, Red Robins hamburger, Buffalo Wild Wings, and of course, Snuffers cheese fries).

12. I guess that means exercising should be next on the list! Wayne is still very involved with his basketball team and has a few more games left. I'm going to start running again when it gets warmer - maybe....

So...on y va! (that's "here we go", I haven't figured out how to say "bring it on!" in French yet)

Franglais

Addie's French has really started to take off. In fact, some days she seems to speak more French than English (which is really exhausting when she wakes up at 6 am and for the next hour asks me for things in French). And she is not slowed down by not knowing a word either (she's her daddy's daughter). I think sometimes she thinks "hmmm...I don't know if this word is French or English...let's just try it" and then what comes out of her mouth is...

"C'est un computer" (insert French accent) or

"Je suis strong" (again, insert really cute French accent to all words, including the English one).

She is her daddy's daughter.

..........................

Addie parle beaucoup en français maintenant. En fait, parfois, il me semble qu'elle parle plus en français qu'en anglais (et ça c'est très fatiguant entre 6h et 7h du matin pour moi!). Et le manque de connaissance d'un certain mot en français ne l'empêche pas de parler (elle tient de son père). Je crois qu'elle pense parfois "Je ne sais pas si ce mot est français ou anglais...du coup, je vais l'essayer!" et puis, elle dit quelquechose comme...

"C'est un computer" (avec un accent français) ou

"Je suis strong" (encore avec un accent très mingon pour tous les mots, même le mot anglais).

Tel père, telle fille.

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:

The McNuggets/Les McNuggets - en version originale et version française

Wayne gave me a free afternoon today, so I decided to head to the mall to see a movie. The mall near us is nice because it has a big theatre and lots of matinees, but the only problem is that the movies are always dubbed in French (sometimes we can go to a movie that is just subtitled in French). Well, feeling pretty daring today and not too tired (and being a sucker for sports movies), I decided to go see Invictus, a movie about the South African rugby team just after the election of Mandela. I don't know anything about rugby and don't particularly enjoy it (probably because I don't know anything about it), but the movie was great. And I was feeling really good about myself for having watched it in French (I know I missed one joke when everyone laughed but me, but I think that was about it). Feeling pretty proud of myself, I walked around the mall for a while, bought Addie a present, and generally just tried to blend in with the rest of the French shoppers. I was doing pretty well (as long as I left my jacket on and didn't show my Chicago Cubs t-shirt), that is until I stopped for dinner.

Normally, I don't have trouble ordering food in a restaurant here. I can pretty much figure out how to pronounce things from the way that they are spelled. The problem is that I wasn't eating French food, I was at McDonald's, and I didn't want a Big Mac (I know how to pronounce that with a French accent), I wanted nuggets. I briefly thought about ordering a BigMac, just so I wouldn't have to figure out how to pronounce "McNuggets" in French, but I really wanted the nuggets. So I gave it my best shot, the lady at the counter gave me a really funny look and said "pardon?", I tried again, and finally she said "Oh, McNuggets!" (of course with a French accent) and I said "Oui, avec coca."

So I learned today that I should be careful about being too proud of myself, and I always need to be ready to laugh at myself (because I'm pretty sure others already are).

Wayne m'a donné un après-midi pour moi-même aujourd'hui, et j'ai décidé d'aller au théatre. Normalment, quand on voit les films au théatre, on les voit sous-titrés en français parce que c'est plus reposant pour moi. Mais aujourd'hui, je n'étais pas très fatiguée, du coup j'ai osé de voir Invictus en version française. J'aime bien les films du sport, et ce film est excellent. C'est à propos de l'équipe de rugy de l'Afrique du Sud après que Mandela a été elu président. Bien que je ne comprenne pas le rugby, j'aime ce film (mais je n'ai pas pleuré comme d'habitude dans les films du sport!). De toute façon, le film m'a plu et j'étais très fiere de moi aussi parce que j'ai compris quasiment tout là dedans!

Alors, j'ai parcouru le centre commercial, tout en etant très fiere d'être "si française" pour avoir vu ce film sans problème en français! (Je n'ai pas enlevé mon manteau pendant que je marchais parce que je pense que le t-shirt du Chicago Cubs aurais dit que je n'étais pas française) Mais peut-être j'étais un peu trop fière de moi, parce que dès que je suis entrée McDo's, je me suis rendue compte que j'ai eu un problème. Je ne savais pas du tout comment prononcer "McNuggets" en français. Je sais prononcer "BigMac" en français, mais je ne voulais pas un BigMac, je voulais des McNuggets! Je savais le dire en anglais, mais j'ai toujours du mal à prononcer les mot qui sont anglais mais qui sont utilisés en français. Alors, j'ai pris mon courage à deux mains et j'ai dit "Je voudrais un menu McNuggets", et elle m'a dit "Pardon?" Alors, j'ai essayé encore, "McNuggets", et après quelques secondes (pendant lesquelles elle sûrement se disait "elle n'a ni dit BigMac, ni hamburger..."), elle m'a souri et m'a dit "McNuggets?" auquel j'ai dit "Oui, avec le coca." (je sais dire coca!)

Donc, j'ai appris aujourd'hui de ne pas être trop fière de moi et qu'il faut rire de moi-même parfois aussi! Mais je me suis regalée avec les McNuggets! Tout bien consideré, c'était une bonne journée.