Today’s feature image is of the island pavilion at Dampierre Castle, outside of Paris. It looks beautiful from a distance, but up close, the need for renovation is evident. Plaster and mortar are crumbling, windows are broken and the sparse furnishings inside are in advanced disrepair, due to their exposure to the elements.

Sometimes we can be a bit like that, in varying degrees. All looks good from a distance, but when you get up close… not all is as it seems. Pentecost is the answer to that.

Shall we have a quick “coffee chat”?

Pentecost Sunday

Last Sunday was Pentecost. Normally, the national leadership would hold a Pentecost Weekend convention and churches from all over the country would come together. That is still not possible, and in lieu of that, Pastor Dieudonné Kahozi (Montreal, Canada) recorded a Pentecost Sunday message that all of our churches could share in their services.

He compared the Old Testament feast of Pentecost with that in the New Testament and described in great detail how our Pentecost is the better of the two.

The message was followed by a great time of prayer and one of our young people was filled with the baptism of the Holy Spirit, with the evidence of speaking in tongues, as the Spirit gives the utterance (just like in Acts 2.4).

Just incredible! We praise God for a great Pentecost Sunday. As beautiful as the roses are at the church entrance (and they’re beautiful right now)… what happened IN-side was even more beautiful!

Off to Paris

Liz & I had time for dinner with the kids, a Sunday afternoon nap and then it was off to the Paris region for a quick overnight.

Monday was a holiday and she was one of the judges for the national Bible Quizzing tournament. We arrived after the 9pm curfew and could only enjoy a pizza in our hotel room… (fancy-shmancy, I know 🙂 ). We laughed about how our first meal out since restaurant terraces re-opened… was in our hotel room!

I couldn’t attend the quiz tournament because of a restriction in the number of people (covid regulations), so I hooked up with a friend and we adventured around for the day. Here’s the Dampierre pavilion, seen at the end of the canal. It was nice to get out ‘n’ about (“oot ‘n’ aboot” for those who like to make fund of my Canadian accent – 🙂 ).

On-site Teaching

For the first time in a long while, I was again on-site teaching this week.

We got back from Paris Monday night and taught at the Nursing School Tuesday morning. It’s just exceptional really… a chance to get to meet the first year students and make that personal contact. Because of the classroom that I was in… it was also a chance to re-connect with…
chalk & a chalkboard!!!

Oh how I LOVE working the old-fashioned way… so much more dynamic than a static power-point presentation. You can think of examples on the fly in answer to students’ questions and they can see the words and correct spelling immediately.

#WeNeedMoreChalk_n_BlackboardsInOurLives 🙂

Bee-Bombs

On my way home from the nursing school, I popped into the bee yard for a quick stop (or so I thought) to correct a couple of issues. Once I was done and ready to leave, I took a final walk around and…

… Lo and behold there were two swarms in a cotoneaster bush.

OK… back in the bee-jacket & let’s take care of business. The first one (on the right) was easy because it was dangling from a fairly open branch. The second (on the left), not so much. Cotoneasters can be notoriously interwoven. *ugh*

In the end… got them all set to rights and hived. That’s the main thing.

Thanks for Checking in…

It was a busy, busy week, what with driving to Paris and two days of driving to the nursing school (teaching via computer gets us a bit spoiled – time-wise), then about 7h at church yesterday doing yard work.

But it’s the daily work that keeps us here, keeps us in a maintained church building and facilitates the background so that terrific God-moments can happen, like they did last Sunday.

Your prayers and financial support make you part of all of this.

Thank you!