Project 365

Today we joined the Farver family and the Laird family (both are fellow ABWE missionary families to Togo) for a trip to Annecy, France for church. Annecy is a beautiful town on a lake about one hour from Albertville. A fun connection to Togo… Alain and Kathrine Niles are part of our Togo North team and have been a huge part of the hospital construction oversight. Well Alain was raised as a missionary kid in France (so his French is great) and his dad was involved with starting the Annecy church. While he is still at the Annecy church, he is now beginning another church about 50 minutes from Albertville in a town called Aix-Les-Bains. The church in Aix-Les-Bains had their first meeting in February. While it can be easy to look at our time in France as a hurdle we need to jump to make it to Togo, we must remember God is at work in France and we should be praying for and joining in the work while He has us here.

After church we stopped at a Domino’s Pizza shop  and got pizzas and ate them at a park on the lake before heading home.

Do you want to hear a French worship song? Last week in church they sang this song called Nous Croyons so if you’d like to hear the song click here. I’ll put the French lyrics and a rough English translation below if you’re interested.

Here are the French lyrics...

1. Nous croyons en Dieu le Père,
Créateur de l’univers.
Et en Christ son Fils unique,
Né de Dieu par l’Esprit Saint.
Nous croyons qu’il est mort pour nous,
Crucifié pour nos péchés.
Et qu’il est auprès du Père,
Car Dieu l’a ressuscité.

Jésus, Roi des rois. Roi des rois,
Ton nom est Tout-Puissant.

2. Nous croyons qu’il répand sur nous
Son Esprit avec ses dons.
Notre Dieu, par sa Parole,
Nous envoie vers les nations.
Il revient avec puissance
Pour juger sa création.
Tout genou pliera devant lui,
Hommes et anges confesseront.

Rough English Translation

1. We believe in God the Father,
Creator of the universe.
And Christ his only Son,
Born of God by the Holy Spirit.
We believe that He died for us,
Crucified for our sins.
And it is with the Father,
For God hath raised him.

Jesus, King of kings. King of kings
Your name is Almighty.

2. We believe that we spread on
His Spirit with his gifts.
Our God, through his Word,
Sends us to the nations.
He’s coming with power
To judge his creation.
Every knee will bend before him,
Men and angels confess.

We have enjoyed getting to know fellow missionaries while at language school. Tonight we had dinner with the Farvers who will be our teammates in Mango, Togo. They treated us to a regional dish called raclette which is basically a special cheese that is melted and served over a baked potato with ham and vegetables. It’s kind of funny… most dishes this region is known for involve cheese, ham, and potatoes.

Aaron talking to grandpa. We now have our internet and telephone working and as a bonus, all calls to landlines in the states are free from our house phone.

Getting mail is always very special but today the boys got a letter from a missionary friend in Bangladesh. Thank you Dr. H!

There are a lot of very old looking churches around Albertville.

It’s haircut time again…

The school has a laundry room where there are three washers and one big dryer. We all signed up for a weekly time to do our laundry and you can always do laundry when there is an opening in the list.  For those of you that like to know, it costs 3 Euros for a load to be washed and 1 Euro for 15 minutes of dryer time. To do three loads usually costs us about 11 Euros since we dry lots of things on our drying rack in our apartment.

Walking to church we passed this “small” car. There are actually quite a few of these little cars around but this one was more colorful than most. For some reason many of the cars this size sound like a poorly tuned lawnmower when they are running.

Melissa passed this building on one of her runs recently. Translating the sign it says “For the Bread” and it seems to be an old bread oven. The French people love their fresh breads and pastries. There are more than 8 boulangeries (bread shops) within walking distance of our apartment. A baguette or flute (long skinny loaf) of fresh bread costs right around 1euro or roughly $1.35 US dollars. If it’s something a little more on the sweet side you’re looking for I’d suggest the Croissants aux Amandes.  It looks like I’ll have to buy another one so I can post a photo (they just never seem to make it home).