Back to School… for the 1st time!

This morning, I’m again writing you from Pat-à-Pain… the “French fast-food & internet place” as we are, once again, without internet…. wait, what!? “No internet” what is this thing you speak of??? 🙂

We’d always been under a contract that was in the Brochu’s name (since we were living in their house) but since their re-settlement in the Paris area we’ve had to change a lot of things over to our name: house rental, utilities, phone/internet service, etc.

I’m not sure what it’s like elsewhere in Europe but in North America, just imagine a service provider telling you that it can take anywhere from 10 days to 3 weeks to set up a new internet connection.

No really…. just think about that for a minute.

Even though we’ve been here a year and a half, there are still some everyday things that just blow my mind. Let’s see…. “Customer Service” or “Customer DIS-Service”?

Last Hurrah!

Last weekend was a Farm Weekend for us and the timing was great. With the boys getting ready for their first ever Back to School it was a chance to kick back, relax and invite a friend over to share the pool; temperatures have continued to be in the 30’s.

(New to the blog? …this is not our place but we house/animal-sit here from time to time. Read more about it here.)

School Daze

We’ve always been a homeschool family and that’s worked well for our family. We’ve enjoyed participating directly in the kids’ education, working through the Abeka Academy (Pensacola, Florida) program.

Early in Summer however, Dominic expressed a desire to attend school here & wondered about the possibility. His motivation? He wanted to improve his French and make more friends.

Liz did her homework and found a private school that had room for both boys. Don’t let the term “private school” alarm you, it’s nothing terribly exclusive. It’s smaller in size and the guidelines are generally tighter than would be the case in public schools. For example, whenever an adult enters or exits the room, they are taught to stand as an expression of respect. I like that.

It costs to attend there, but nothing compared to what would be common back home… it’s less than $100 CDN per month and they can eat a 5-course lunch for roughly $6 CDN.

(One of our questions when we met with the principal
should’ve been: “Can we come for lunch too??) 🙂

First Day

Yesterday was Timo’s first full day and Dominic’s first 1/2 day: Their fame preceded them. As Liz & I came back to pick up Dominic, we heard two girls near the school talking excitedly about the new Canadian kid in their class named Dominic. That’s kind of cool!

We knew Dominic would adjust well because his French was already quite good. We were encouraged that Timo, although his French is the weakest of the three, understood a fair bit. He doesn’t get everything, but while telling us about his day, he recounted a few different exchanges between teachers & kids or between kids themselves.

This is not insignificant.

Our openness to prolonging our time in France was always predicated on how well the kids were adjusting. The fact that they desired to connect themselves to the language and the culture, by attending a French school is huge. The fact that the idea originated with them is also significant.

There may have been a couple of tears shed at the dinner table when it was just the four of us, less Timo, but all in all, the first day went very well and we thank the Lord for that. In addition, Liz had been praying that God would let her meet anther parent with a kindred spirit… and he did.

While dropping Timo off, we met another mom whose boy was in the same grade. They moved here from the southwest shortly after us in 2015 and it was her first time living away from home and family. She was, for the first time, building a new network of friends & connections. God answered Liz’s prayer.

We’ll also be involved with the school’s PTA (Parent Teacher Association) in an attempt to be more closely connected to the school and staff.

Our goal whether in the context of new friendships or community involvement is to embody Matthew 5.16: