Goodbye PowerBook?

My beloved old PowerBook G3 seems to have fallen into a coma (no, I didn't drop it), and so far, there has been no sign of recovery.

We've tried unplugging and re-plugging the whole hing. No good. We've threatened it and taken its battery pack out and battered it. No good.

Right now Dad is messing with it, but it doesn't look like it's going to help much.

On the bright side, this means I have an excuse to use Jordan's brand new MacBook Pro, which is waaaay better than my old one.

And it looks like we'll get to take the PowerBook apart! Fun!

Merry Christmas!

Run Santa, Run!

I'm home!

After two very busy weeks at CEM (hence the lack of blogging), I'm back in Lausanne for two weeks of vacation! It's goig to be great to spend time with family, with the Church, to see friends and get some rest.

I've already been able to do the first three things on my list. However, I have yet to get some rest (I could have napped this afternoon, but then, no blog). I got back at 11:45 last night, and then Dad and I ran to the centre of town to join Mom in the Lausanne Midnight Run, which started, coincidence, at 12 pm.

There were about 750 runners, a few of them dressed as Santas. Thankfully, none of them passed me. I guess they had had a few too many cookies.

Booby Trapped Garage

Tomorrow evening, the church is hosting its annual Christmas program. Our choirs will sing a few praise and Christmas songs, then the children and teenagers from the church and neighborhood will present a musical about the Nativity.

People from this area of France are known for their tendency to exaggerate. They exaggerate so much that they supposedly claim Jesus was born in southern France, not Judea. So there is a traditional Christmas story here about how Jesus was born in Bethlehem, France (no one knows where it is anymore, but it is known that you have to go through Marseilles to get there). Throughout the musical, two angels argure about where the Nativity is taking place. It's fun!
We will perform again in another neighborhood next week. I was there putting invitations in mailboxes, when I notices a strange sign on one house. Now, I'm used to "I have dogs who will kill you" signs and stuff like that. But this one said, I am not making this up, "booby trapped garage".

My question: How would you go about booby trapping a garage?

"Ados" night

Once or twice a month, the church youth group has a Saturday evening activity. The teens ("Ados" in French) invite friends from school or their neighborhood to come play games, eat, sing and pray with them. It's always really fun, and we've had 20 to 30 kids almost each time. For some of them, this is the only contact they have with a church.

As CEMists, we help Philippe set things up, organize the activities and games, and clean up. Of course he usually does most of the work, but we'll get to take more responsibilities as time goes on. We also have a blast just spending time with the teens. So far I haven't found one who could eat more than me or beat me at arm wrestling (those wimps).

In Lausanne

After the retreat in Germany, we CEMists came down to Lausanne for a seminar on 1 John and Thanksgiving (we came for Thanksgiving, we didn't study it. I don't even think turkeys are mentioned in 1 John).

The seminar was great, I learned a lot (gnosticism = bad, love your neighbor = good).

And, of course, the Thanksgiving feast was wonderful. Mom spent a long time in the kitchen preparing the meal, and it was really worth it! It was great to taste Mom's cooking after having to eat my cooking for two months!

Here's a picture of the three CEMists in Lausanne. We look tired, but we were more tired than that.

Nathan

Here are a few photos of the newborn Nathan. I got to see him on Thursday, and he is as cute as a newborn can be. The fun thing was to watch Philippe, his Dad, act silly. It's not often you get to hear your introduction to the Old Testament teacher talk with a sqeaky voice and say Guzzi guzzi guzzi!"




By the way, Philipp took these photos and wanted me to tell you...

Rothenburg

At the Euro-American retreat in Rothenburg, Germany, we CEMists got to listen to conferences on the book of Exodus and how to live relationships the way God wants us to. We also got to hear lessons on love, perseverance and the mission. All very encouraging.

Here are some pictures of the old city of Rothenburg (click on the photo to see them all)

Rothenburg

"Home" Again

We just got back from our 8-day trip across Germany, Switzerland and France early this morning. The trip was great, I met lots of people, had a lot of fun, and learned a lot (is there a convenient synonym of "a lot" I could use?).

We came back a day early because Dolores, who works for CEM and is the wife of Philippe , one of the evangelists here, gave birth to her fist child yesterday! Philippe's father and brother were traveling with us, so we drove (they drove, I slept) through the night to get here today.

So more on the trip and photos are pending. Until then, I'm going to bed (yea, right).

Ach nein!

In less than twelve hours, I'll be on my way to Rothenburg, Germany for the Euro-American family retreat. It'll my first time there, so I'm really looking forward to it!

It's going to be an interesting linguistic experience, being in a German-speaking country with French people trying to speak English. So, to get in the mood, I ran this text through the Google translator in French and German and than back to English.

Enjoy:


In less than twelve hours I will be on my way to Rothenburg, Germany Europe for the American family retired. Ll my first time, so I am very concerned that!

It will be an interesting experience linguistics, which is in a German-speaking country with German people who try to speak English. Then, for you in the mood, I met this text in the Google translator in English and French as well as English in return.

The Last Shall be First

When I came to France, I discovered that part of my ministry was to learn how to play soccer (known as "football" here). This is a bigger effort than you may imagine, considering that I play with as much grace as a pregnant hippo.

So anyways, our church has a little team and we play against other churches... and our team has lost every game it has played since its creation. Our first match of the season, we lost 1-11, and we were playing as hard as we could. There's about as much chance of us winning a game as there is of it snowing in Marseilles.

We had a lot of snow today.

And our team won its first match ever 3 to 1 last night! I even got to play. It was great fun to see the curse finally come to an end!

But it was cold out there!

Foi en Folie!

That's "faith gone crazy" in French, or something pretty close.

It's also the name of the activity we have with the 10 to 12 year-olds every month. Last time, we made pizzas for the church meal on Sunday. So what do you get when you cross 6 kids, 4 adults, and a lot of pizza dough?

Lots of fun and a whole bunch of pizzas (as in almost forty)! Enough for everyone on Sunday, and several days worth of leftovers for us CEMists (our motto: "if it's free and nothing's growing on it, we'll eat it").

Great fun. We'll have to do it again sometime.

The Fuveau Chapel

The church celebrated ten years of existence here on avenue de Fuveau this weekend. Saturday was spent in prayer for the church here and its future, and in the evening we sang, ate and watched PowerPoint slideshows of the church over the last ten years.

Things certainly have changed! Ten years ago, the chapel was a garage, the preachers were younger, and the kids from the youth group were still in diapers (well, they were a bit older than that, but you get the idea).

For the past ten years, the church here has been reaching out to the local community. If you walk into the chapel Sunday morning, you will find ethnic French, North African, American, African and Arab brothers and sisters. People from every social group and class here in Marseilles, who wouldn't be together if it weren't for Christ's love.

Happy birthday, Fuveau Chapel!

Three Heads are Better than Two

Or so I've heard.

Last night, the number of students here at CEM increased by no less than 50% (and, technically speaking, no more)! Linda, from Lyons, came to join Raphaël and me to do CEM this year.

Welcome to Marseille, Linda ! May the Lord bless you throughout this year !

The CEMist Classroom

I'm going to do a short series of articles on the places in which I spend a lot of time, so you'll be able to recognise things when you come and visit me!

Mondays through Fridays, Raphaël and I spend most of our mornings in the CEMist classroom. It's a nice little classroom, with a small library with several interesting books I plan on reading soon. We even have heaters! We're thankful for this, because the first year of CEM, they had NO heaters. And even down here, I'm told it can get cold enough to kill electronic equippement (macs go to heaven, PCs reincarnate as those annoying stuffed animals that talk when you squeeze them).

Thankfully, it hasn't gotten that cold yet. Though that doesn't stop the prople here from turning the heaters on full blast. Old habits die hard, I guess.

Raphaël

I first met Raphaël in 2005, when he had just met the church here in Marseille. Since then, the Lord has really changed his life. I was present at his baptism this summer at bible camp, and we were all filled with joy to finally see him give his life to Christ.

He is doing the CEM program with me this year, and we have been spending a lot of time together. Almost all of our time, since we live in the same appartment. But we get along well. I've learned not to mock the French while he's around (or any other French person, by that matter), and he has discovered I don't like being told I'm wrong (strangely enough, those two things often happen simultaniously...).

We haven't yet not determined who isn't the worst cook between us. But we're working on it.

Young people stuff

Yesterday evening we had our young adults group at church. We had a good time eating, praying, talking and playing Bang!. The outlaws barely beat the sheriff and his deputies, to everyone's surprise.

For our bible study time, we read from Colossians 3.1-4. In the text, Paul encourages the christians to desire thing that are in Christ, and not the things of this world. It's a good reminder, especially in today's materialistic society.


And, just for fun, here is a video from the youth retreat. Our team was eliminated in the quarterfinals. Bummer.

All saints teen retreat

I was rudely awoken by my alarm clock at 5 am last friday morning. So I got up, set it to 5:15, and went back to bed.

An hour later I was in the car on my way to the Bonnefoi retreat center in Ardèche, France, to help prepare for the All-Saints teen retreat.


About 40 teenagers, ages 13 to 18, were there from Lausanne, Geneva, Lille, Marseilles, Lyons and Paris to spend time together having fun and learning more about God.




They had Bible classes, discussion and prayer groups, sang together, played sports under a clear ble sky, ate lots of pizzas and burritos, played crazy games in the evenings and even slept a few hours!

They can't wait for next year.