Interesting sunday !!

News from the front !

To be Christian in France it's very hard! Is not easy to find a good community. Again this morning we went to the Lutheran church....It was very weird. The people are so old. The average age is around 70 years. There were just two kids (pastor's kids). We spoke with a lady who worked for Christian non-profit and she just said young people don't go to the church, even if they have the both parents who are christian they don't go. It's so sad.
The problem is from France maybe?? You know this famous right that we call Laicité/ Secular state à la française. Do you know this wonderful concept ? If you are lucky when you are walking in the street or when you are taking a coffee from the ATM for hot drinks you can have wonderful discussions with people who believe that they found their salvation in the Déclaration des droits de l'homme/The declaration of the human rights. One day I spoke with one of my bosses about the Bible. She just replied that we don't know who wrote it. So how can we believe in a book without an author???? Just after she said you know with the Declaration of human rights we know who wrote it. So we can believe in it!! And trust it ........All this heritage......There are lot of churches in France without Christians. I have the hope that one day France will get up from this nightmare. But when I see people like my parents who are involved in a Church in a little city just in the middle of nowhere.....when I listened my mother who says we are the church of tomorrow.....

As you can imagine to be an international couple is not easy every-day! But to be an interconfessional couple is just INTERESTING. To deal with the backgrounds of the other one. When we decided to make our life together. The first question wasn't where do we want to live ? But it was which church ??? ............................The best answer was the anglican church. Which balances our two backgrounds. Which is very important for our future family....
The answer isn't to be from this blue churh or from this red church. But to be Christian in this world and to have respect for all the Christian congregations. If we make this effort maybe the church will get up. As you know I am from the Catholic Church and I love it and I go to a protestant church. We'll raise our kids with respect for both. Because we have family who are from different churches.

Virginie out!!

The Frog of War

Ok, read that how you like. I'm sure you've heard all that stuff about how this cease-fire is just a pause so Hezb0llah can lick its wounds, and I agree pretty much with all that. France has fortunately decided to kick in 2k soldats for the Unifil force...for as paltry as that seems I think we can be thankful it's not fewer. 20 years ago under the socialists, we couldn't even throw that many around.

On to more important things. My buddy Sam is starting school at Duke Divinity, and I think that's outright cool! Work will be picking back up for me in September, which is cool too. Virginie will be piling on her courseload starting October.

Tomorrow, we are going somewhere near Saverne for a hike. It's a nice little area stoked with history and scenery.

Last weekend we went to Paris...the sis-in-law had the idea so Virginie and I drove down to Rupt on Friday afternoon, then we all piled in with Ray and Colette and headed over to Paris. While the wimmins on Saturday spent 10 hours in the "Big Stores" (Grands Magasins), me and Ray bought cool army surplus at a famous fleamarket (les puces de St. Ouen) and then spent the late afternoon on a 5km stomp through Paris.

Tonight, though, a LOTR marathon -- we're going to watch the first two. Fun stuff.

John out.

A propos des livres !

Pour répondre à Sam voilà moi ce que je dirais :

Un livre qui a changé ma vie : Pourquoi donc être Chrétien de Thimotty Radcliffe / Le retour de fils prodigue de Nouwen.

Un livre que j'ai lu plus d'une fois : Ma vie avec les chimpanzés de Jane Goudall

Un livre pour une ile deserte : The inner voice de Nouwen

Un live qui m'a fait rigoller : Astérix et Obélix c'est plutot une BD!

Un livre que j'aurais aimé écrire : Des souris et des hommes de Steinbeck

Un livre qui m'a fait pleurer : Léon Morin prêtre de Béatrix Beck

Un livre que j'ai lu recement : Léon Morin prêtre de Béatrix Beck


Bonne lecture !

Hot air

Dear all,

Stuff is good. Here is a photo of us trying to sell orange juice and drying laundry to our neighbors. Work is going well for both of us; Virginie has decided to no longer take care of kids and move over to working with handicapped and old folks. We will go to Frank's County this week, where Ray and Colette live.

I am so arch-conservative, that I don't have writer's block, I have pre-eminent writer's block. I think of super things to write when I'm in the car, then, even before I get to the computer, I forget. Arch-conservative...like Bismarck with his pre-eminent war...and pre-eminent social security.

Bismarck gets a bad name in American history classes for being that guy who started all those wars, among them the Franco-Prussian War(1870), the precursor to WWI. What he also did was start social security for Germany, which included, at the time, Alsace-Lorraine.

Fast-forward to 2006. When France talks about its social security woes, they don't mention Alsace, because it makes everyone else look bad. Alsace is the only region in France (maybe the only one in the world) whose social security is in the black and making money! There is generally less fraud and people lie less about being sick to avoid going to work, as opposed to the rest of France where it's rather commonplace.

Caveat -- Social security puts huge restraints on 1.)businesses and 2.)paychecks, two market-type things that make America great. So no, I'm not advocating what America should do, I'm just saying how cool Alsace is compared with the rest of Europe.

Speaking of the rest of Europe, what's up with these Lebanese soldiers that might be sent to the Lebanon-Israeli border?!?!? If the UN had done its job, maybe Hezbollah wouldn't be dancing around in the vacuum that is Southern Lebanon. If Chirac wants his immediate ceasefire, all he has to do is send the troops that he doesn't have to go and not disarm Hezbollah. Unifil...hmmm, sounds like a gas station, and when I say "gas," I mean "hot air." UN peace is bought at the price of chains and slavery. The Israelis know what the price of peace is and are willing to pay it. May the best man win.

John out

A blessed weekend !

Our weekend is just wonderful :
Part I :
Yesterday, we went to Mont Sainte Odile it was wonderful. We began to walk at 3.00pm!! John was the leader and was very good. He began very well. Me at the beginning I said that it would be cool If we could stop to smoke. Euh wait a minute we don't smoke.
Not very warm when we arrived on the top the Anyway It was very beautiful. The weather was perfect. temperature wasn't very high around 15°C!We recharged our batteries. Just to smell good air, to see beautiful colours...Good way to make a meditation.....
Part II :
James (John's brother) called us yesterday. And it was very good to have news from the Walpoles in Texas. In few months they will be three and this is just amazing.
Part III :
This morning, we get up at 9.05 am ! We took very quick showers and ran to the Catholic Church which began at 9.30 am. We didn't eat breakfast!
We felt very down.Lots of old people. But the sermon was very good. So we ran back to the flat to have a cup of coffee and piece of cake. And we decided to go to a Protestant Church down the street. We enjoyed our time there. People came to meet us. The priest was very good and his sermon was perfect. We think that we found our new church. We thank God :)
Part IV :
This afternoon, we received The Watkins Clan ! It was super nice to see them. They are like family to us. We love them....
Part V :
Tonight we receive our neighbours for a BBQ !!! Hope that the weather will be at the party!

Have a blessed weekend as we do :)

Virginie and John

Sainte Odile

Tomorrow we are hiking up Mount Sainte Odile. Saints are real important around here as you know. I'm not all about praying to/at/for them, but there is something important about them and their stories...

Odile was born into a noble family in the 7th century. She was born blind. Angry that Odile was both a girl and blind, her father was furious.
Before he could kill her, she was sent to a convent in Burgundy. At the age of 12, her blindness miraculously dissappeared at her baptism (?!). Her brother soon came back to bring her home to Alsace. They got home, and Odile's dad was so angry to see her that he killed her brother. Odile ummm, revived him (?!) and left home again, to go into hiding in Germany. Her father pursued her, but was deterred by divine avalanches and such (!?).

Her father, some years later fell ill. Odile came back home, finally, to nurse him in his final days (!!!!!!?????!!!!!?????). His heart being healed by her witness of Love, he founded a convent (and died), of which Odile became abbess (the big woman in charge) until her death. Well, quasi-death, because the nuns prayed so hard that she came back to life. (?!?!?) But she said "You don't know what you're missing," took communion, and then died again.

Bogus-seeming miracles aside, we can learn from Sainte Odile's story. In the face of a world that tells us that people are expendable, we can take a stand and say otherwise. God's grace redeems us (in French, racheter, "buy back"), and equips us to return into the depths to love those that hate and misunderstand us. If you're not all about divine avalanches and reviving people from death, DO be all about going into the depths armed with God's love. DO pray for God's strengthening love daily. And no, don't do it because you could become in charge of a convent. Do it because that's what God asks us to do.

Ratatouille !!

Today I went to the supermarket. I was very surprise how Alsacian as German people love organic food. You can find everything. It's quite expensive... 4 tomatoes cost around 3 euros!!! I wanted to buy coffee. I found organic coffee and I found Max Havelaar coffee.With this label a part of your money goes the little producer. I like the idea...I bought it:)

In the flat you can smell Ratatouille. Tomatoes,zucchinies, green and yellow peppers, eggplants, olive oil and the french touch just a glass of white wine. Cook for 2.30 hours. Serve ratatouille and chicken it's succulent.

Friends, family , who are living in US if you need some french receipes very easy. Just tell me I need to write in English.

A Bientôt,
VA

Hot?

Ok, don't know where all that heat went! It is now about 68 F here, certainly a huge summer surprise in one of the hottest regions in France.

Last night we ate at the Fischer Brewery restaurant. Simple stuff, Alsatian "pizza" called flamenkuch, or, "flame-cooked." Onions, sour cream, canadian bacon, and cheese on a very thin crust. If there is "thin and crispy" crust, this would be "thin and flimsy." I will try to have the recipe perfected for our visit next summer -- it's worth the trouble!

Secret revelation from a participant today -- "my dream is to work in America and to have a little house by the beach in California." Hmmm...reminds me of the guy in Red October "I would like to live in Montana, and have a Recreational Vehicle." For as much as people might criticize the US ...'Murka's got a good thing goin'!

Work soon. And yes, on the whole it's more than 35 hours a week.

John out.