If you are reading this on Saturday morning (depending on your time zone) there’s a good chance that I’m still in the city of Melun teaching at the Bible School. IBF stands for Institut Biblique de France and is the Bible school operating out of senior missionary John Nowacki’s church in the city of Melun. Students attend one Saturday each month, from 7:30am – 5:30pm, for 3 years as well as a block week each summer. This semester, I’ll be teaching Epistles 1 (Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians.

Liz & the kids, however, are about 3.5hrs away… back in Châtellerault, and so, for our first Valentine’s Day in France – the country of romance – we are apart. No fear though… A backup plan is in place!

Our Week

What can I tell you about our week this week???

• Last Saturday after our post… We explored the city as a family. We spent some time at the local library and got the low-down on library cards, resources, etc. (they also had free internet access… So we took a bit advantage of that).
• We discovered Le Lac… The lake in town where many locals go to enjoy their Saturday afternoons out in nature. Timo took his basketball & shot some hoops with Liz while Dominic & I went looking for something that he had on his list.
• Timo spent some of the money that he got from the church as a going away present(photos to follow in another post some time).
• We found the local version of Value Village or Good Will. Slim on clothes, but wow… The furniture pieces!
• We got some grocery items…. (not as exciting, but oh so necessary!), including “mustard pickles” chips… Yummmmm!
• Liz & the kids led worship on Sunday morning & I preached. Then again on Wednesday, the kids helped Sis Brochu lead in worship… So great to see them involved.



• Thursday was a work day around the church: we cleaned up a lot of wood that was leftover from the power company trimming back a treeline…. big bonfire by the end of the day!! During this time others… Worked on a nasty mole problem in the lawn, cleaned up the flower bed by the main entrance, raked leaves & worked on music for this coming weekend… Working together is a great way to get to know one another!

On Instagram?

Are you on Instagram? Want to connect to a photographic stream of life here in France? It’s where I share part of the artsy side on my personality.

Click here to see my profile: MikeLongSJ

There are a few aspects on our family life, but most of the photos are of the scenery here. If you click on the hashtag #CeMatin_àChatellerault you’ll see photos that I take when I do morning prayer walks around the city… Usually a couple times each week.

Prayer

First of all, thank you for keeping us in prayer! Please continue to keep our house situation in prayer. The buyer’s finances are in place and tomorrow afternoon there will be a home inspection – the last major step before closing.

Please keep the Brochus in prayer as they are now where we were in December… Staring down an all-too-soon departure with many things still left to do.

Finally, please continue to keep the kids in prayer… This past Sunday there were 9 in Sunday School… The best in a good while. Not only is that good for our kids, but very encouraging for the other kids as well as their teachers.

God bless your day today & thank you for spending part of it with us!