Together for the Gospel En Français!

A thrilling new development for the French-speaking world...

On Oct 21st, D.A. Carson, a French-speaker himself having been born in Quebec, announced that the The Gospel Coalition launched a French-language website.  This now puts many resources in the hands of French-speakers all around the world!

Excerpted from Carson's announcement:

We are merely providing the technical support; the French-speaking editors control the content. They do not propose to simply translate English resources into French. Instead, they hope to highlight and assist the French-speaking church by producing and distributing thoughtful, faithful resources from a variety of sources, including materials they write themselves.
Two men in particular have been and will be instrumental in guiding the Évangile 21 initiative (which is the name given to the Euorpean French version of The Gospel Coalition; the Quebec French organization is called Sola). Aurélien Lang, who currently serves at the Foyer Evangélique Universitaire de Grenoble, will oversee the site while Mike Evans, director emeritus of l'Institut Biblique de Genève, will serve as publication manager. Joining them on the editorial team will be Matthieu Giralt (graphics and video) and Fadi Akl (technical assistance and conference registration). Lang and Evans will oversee a growing group of translators and collaborators committed to the sufficiency of Scriptures and the doctrines of grace. On the background and need for the site, Evans remarks:

In 2012, Don Carson, John Piper, and Henri Blocher were the keynote speakers at a conference held in Geneva based on the theme of gospel-centered ministry. Ever since we have been under pressure to launch a website and continue with regular conferences. We are aware of a keen and increasing sense of interest among the new generation of Christian leaders for resources that will inform and stimulate gospel-centered ministry. It's taken time to get everything on course because we're dependent on the enthusiastic commitment of volunteers. Our debut is modest, but we are aiming to progressively increase the content of the Évangile 21 site in the coming months.

HT: Thanks, Mom!

Kubb

Have you ever played Kubb before?

We played it once in France with a family that had Swedish roots (the game originates in Gotland, Sweden), quite fun!  Essentially, you try to knock down the opponents stakes with your wooden sticks.

Apparently, the game is huge in Wisconsin, as Eau Claire in 2011 was declared the Kubb capital of North America, and there are several Kubb clubs in Wisconsin (according to wikipedia).

The Most Expensive Coffee in the World

While we studied French, we met a woman from the Philippines studying with us who familiarized us with this rare, expensive coffee.  According to Amusingplanet.com,

Kopi luwak, the world’s most expensive coffee, is made from a certain variety of wild red coffee beans but only after it has passed through the digestive track of the Asian Palm Civet. The berries which grow in Indonesia and Philippines are eaten by the civet, a weasel-like animal, who likes the berries for their flesh. But they can't digest the inner beans which come out as poop.

Update: For the Thailand version of this, 22 Words just posted about elephant dung coffee selling for $500/pound, about the same that civet-dung-coffee sold for a few years ago.

Old Testament Guide in French

Released last month at Excelsis (below).  Matthieu Richelle taught an Old Testament exegesis class that we took at Vaux-sur-Seine and did a phenomenal job.

Btw, I have found Matthieu's blog incredibly helpful (in French, of course).

Another of his books was released this past January, 2012, on archaeology, La Bible et l'archéologie. If you know French and work in exegesis, in the coming years, you will want to become familiar with Matthieu's work. Now, the problem is getting a hold of his books as I have not been able to locate them easily (they are not currently sold at amazon.com, for example).

Colleagues: What We Wish We Had Known

If you are interested in knowing some of the concerns, considerations, etc we daily face, this series of posts by some colleagues/friends would be a quick, helpful read. They studied in France with us and were in Cameroon for a few months:

• We Wish We Had Known, part 1
• part 2
• part 3
• part 4

La Poste en France

Comédien Dany Boon décrit justement nos expériences d'attente à la poste française :-)  "Bougez avec la poste...S'il y a un endroit sur la Terre où il ne bouge pas c'est à la poste !"

Number 5 of 5!

Just returned from the airport with our final bag! Since it has been so long, we had almost given up the hope of seeing it again.


The Numbers Required to Secure Our Luggage

• 0 of 5 bags arriving with our flight, but 3 the next day, 1 the day after that, and the final one today
• =1 week, 4 day wait
• Enduring a 3 hour plus standing in line (after our night flight) to immediately claim our lost bags at the airport
• Over 20 phone calls to 5 different countries (Cameroon, Morocco, France, UK, USA)
• Conversations in French and English
• Making a detailed report of the last container's contents (English and French)
• 5 trips to the airport (one of them taking over 3 hours)
• One detailed document of all the vital information related to baggage claim

Q&A
What is the first thing you want to do, now that the last piece of luggage arrived?

• Chris: trim my beard (my clippers were in the bin)
• Elizabeth: put on make-up!

Why it Took So Long?
We are pretty sure it's because the right side strap fell/broke off, the strap on which they had attached the baggage sticker information (destination, name, etc). The sticker above was a new one they made after matching our container with the info and photo we emailed them.

Lesson learned
Instruct the gate agent to stick the luggage sticker on the container itself!

This Week...

at the Paris seminary, 4 days of studying Elijah and Elisha, Systematic Theology, and History of the Church. Looking forward to some great content, meal-time discussions, and readings.

14 July National Holiday

France's equivalent of July 4th, commemorating the storming of the bastille and the topple of the monarchy in France, July 14, 1789.  We didn't go to downtown Paris, but went to some local fireworks near where we are taking seminary classes northwest of town.

Jim Elliot on His Language Learning Experience

Was encouraged in reading this journal entry of Jim Elliot, since we cling to the same God while we share some of what he experienced - the language mistakes, the temptations to compare, the feelings of inadequacy, etc...:

July 26--Marveled at my inner weakness yesterday. Felt miserably unworthy to be here as an 'administrator of the mysteries of God.' Strange that I should - evidently for life - be put to such close contact with Pete and Betty whom I feel are far my intellectual superiors... They are both able to correct my grammar and pronunciation, and seem to be able to apply tense rules so much easier than I. Felt weepy and useless yesterday at noon, swept with waves of envy and defeated wonderings about such things. 

Hike Up the Mountain...

...Yesterday with some dear friends.

No, that is not us in the red suits, but in normal weather we would have been able to climb behind this waterfall.  Because of the recent rains, the rocks were way too slippery and the water level much higher than normal.

Flashback to 1 Year Ago

This time last year we were moving from our school in TX and getting our French visas, as we began heading overseas. By way of reference, last week we passed month 10 of French studies here.

Happy Mother's Day...in France!

That's right, France celebrates Mother's Day 2 weeks after the States.

Cameroonian Artist and the French Open

Cameroonian artist Barthélémy Toguo was selected to design and paint the publicity fliers for the French Open (the Roland Garros) this year. His artwork will be on display in Paris until the end of the year.

See also: French Open

La Fête des Voisins, 27 Mai

The US equivalent is National Night Out, where neighbors meet one another, gather and eat together, and participate in community. In MN, we also found those nights to be creative and important times for making building steps in evangelism in these neighborhood block parties, as well as care for our fellow neighbor (e.g. in the neighborhood watch system).

1999 was the first year France (just in Paris) held the Fête, but it seems to have largely 'caught on.'

French Open

Day 5 today for the Roland Garros tennis tournament (French Open) in Paris, a tournament that ends June 5th. To win a Grand Slam, the tennis player has to win in the same year or throughout the career the 4 big tournaments:

1. Australian Open, January-February
2. Roland Garros (French Open), May-June
3. Wimbledon, end of June
4. US Open, August

Handball, the Sport

Handball is an olympic sport that is popular in our region due in large measure to the success of France's national team: they are the reigning gold medalists from the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Two additional connections:

• A son of one of our language helpers won the national handball championship for middle schoolers last week.  
• Our town's professional team has won France's national championship several times, are currently placed second nationally, and are strong candidates to win the national tournament this year.

OC Cesson Handball_Chambéry_Spot Orange Sport par OCCessonHandball

Bells, bells, and more bells (but no cowbell please)

Time Aid
In our town, the bells at the town hall and the Catholic church adjoining our roof help us keep track of time, really. They strike their respective time at 7 AM, Noon, and 7 PM everyday, with some exceptions (e.g. the days leading up to Easter where all the Catholic church bells fell silent until Notre Dame in Paris tolled their bells).

Bell Discussion
One day this week, we had this discussion between class and tutoring sessions while preparing for lunch.
E: What time is it?
C: Noon (it was actually 11:59 AM)
E: (As the bells chime the Noon hour at the end of my sentence, and with a laugh) Hmm. What time is it again?

Our Carillon
Regularly, the carillon at the town's central chateau near us plays their 70 bells (the largest weighs 5 tons), enabling the bell player to ring out complete songs, sometimes hymns we recognize.

This 3 minute video gives you an inside glimpse and listen to our town's carillon: 

Le grand carillon de Chambéry par Savoie-actu

French Tongue Twister

The Pastor's sermon today was on Luke 19:1-10, when Jesus met with Zacchaeus.  Try saying this tongue-twister sentence from his sermon 10 times fast!

• Jésus s'invite chez Zachée. 

Calvin's Institutes and African Commentary (in French)

We visited the CLC bookstore today as we finished some adoption papers nearby their store, and are eager to get Calvin's Institutes in French and the African Bible Commentary, also in French.  What a delight to see these books readily available...if only I could find them digital and so more portable for Africa!