Canada meets Bordeaux

As I sit writing this I’m somewhat amazed to say that it’s still raining.

While it seems like an odd thing to say, it’s even more odd to experience given the incredible lack of rain that we’ve experienced since about the month of June. We’ve had the odd rain shower here and there, but what we’ve had over the last two weeks takes the cake! All in all that’s a good thing though… it will replenish ground stocks.

So last week, Canada invaded the southwestern capital of France…

Couples Seminar with the Wallaces

For a long time, I knew of Kevin & Crystal Wallace more than I knew them, but things have shifted over the past 10 years or so.

Crystal’s father pastored our home church for many years, but that was before we landed there. Still though, we’d see them come through from time to time, either on vacation or for various conferences.

We began to get to know them more when they were pastoring in Jacksonville, North Carolina and took us on as Partners in Mission, back in 2014. Since that time, they too have joined the Global Missions’ team here in France. Initially as furlough replacements for the Nowackis, and since then working with the church in Arras and the churches in Belgium.

Crystal is a licensed Pastoral Christian Counsellor and so between the two of them, there made up the Couples’ Seminar dream team over the weekend. We had four sessions with them on Saturday and they ministered again in the Sunday service, continuing on with the theme of strong marriages as the building blocks for a strong church.

It was wonderful to have some down time with them as well. They’re in the north meaning that we don’t get to see them all that often. We were blessed & encouraged on all levels!

Journal Time

Those of you who knew me from back home, you’ll know the extent to which I was, for a very long time, an avid journaler. Admittedly, I’m far less so since coming to France and undoubtedly, blogging has something to do with it (although it’s far from being the only culprit… lots of other things have crept in to break the habit). This week however, I took a quick dive back in….

There’s a distinct pleasure associated with opening a brand new Paperblanks Journal and setting ink to paper. I’m a bit of a snob though, because my favourite way to use a Paperblanks Journal, is to accompany it with a nice Waterman fountain pen… (My Waterman Hemisphere is probably 10 years old or so… it’s like coming back to an old friend!).

It won’t be a regular thing however… I was setting up and dedicating a journal for / to Sophie. After my initial two pages… hers will be the responsibility of filling the pages.

Prayer Requests:

I wonder if you could help us pray for a couple of things in particular:

Annie and Ghislain are very faithful in church attendance. He has been fighting throat cancer for over 2 years (the doctors only gave him 3-6 months initially). He’s been a trooper, but it’s taken a lot out of him. Please pray for this couple. Everyone in the oncology department has heard his testimony!
Next weekend will be our national youth conference, in Melun, so we will all be heading up for that, to meet with fellow believers from all over Europe.
Please pray for a core nucleus to form in our church family. We have folks a bit from hither & yon… but we’d love to see more step up and really become sold out, so to speak.