Currently Bringing the Joy...

* Coffee made entirely with milk with cream on top! Indulgent but wonderful!

* Our recent fondue night... three different types of chocolate to dip fruit in (and therefore it was very healthy) whilst chatting with lovely GBU folk.

* The French for awkwardness ... "gaucherie"... it's feminine, so I might just change my name so that people know what to expect. (They can call me Cherie for short)

*Small people aka children, ah so much cuteness.

* Tim Keller's amazing book that I recommend you a) read and b) buy someone for Christmas. Also weirdly enjoyed watching "La Vie En Rose" - life story of Edith Piaf which echoes lots of the themes Monsieur Keller brings up in Counterfeit Gods.

* Victor Hugo's poem on burning libraries (tried to find it online and failed) and my poetry lectures. Yes, I actually LIKE this lecture! Miracle!

* The happiest album in the world- African Children's Choir, "Because You Loved Me". Go listen.

* My amazing friend who comes round to discuss the Bible, life, the universe and everything with me each week and last week brought the most amazing presents... One of those little metal permanent real- tea -tea-bag thingies (they probably go by a better name than that!) and some "Prince William" tea. Yummy... (I assume no Prince William's were harmed in the making of the tea)

* The Lion King soundtrack in French. Turns out "arrrrrrrrsen venga" is pretty much the same in both languages.

* Les Parents and their willingness to bear the moanage, and their telling me about Jesus early. Just SUCH a good one!

* Exercise. Science says it makes you happy (Oh, by the way, when I say, "science" I mean the little gnomes who live in my head and whose job it is to convince me that getting up and going running with the OAPS of Nice is a good idea). Anyway, whether it's the endorphins or the sweet buzz of self righteousness... somehow the aftermath is sunshine-and-lolly-pop-y-er.

* The sunshine! What a lovely idea, especially from this safe (ish) distance!

* The Notebook... or, er... not so much. At all. (But I do love my celtic buddies who bear with my ridiculously ranty reviews!)

* Jesus, because "on those walking in the shadow of death, a light has dawned" (Isaiah 9, and Matthew 4 "by the way it's talking about Jesus.")

* also Jesus because, even when everything else seems hard, and I can't even work out what are the right things to think or feel or do to make things better, at the foundation of everything is Jesus, who is good and powerful and at work and in control even when my emotions, behaviour and thought life are all over the place... and is faithfully, in the midst of everything, providing multiple undeserved goodness-es. Woop.

Some Things That Happened Recently

Coming Up: an explanation (vaguely) for this elephant's bum, and other things that happened to me since I last blogged.

Enjoy!

I made myself some curry (oh yes, you can see the calibre for stories is going to be high). Was quite excited about this. Sadly, as I was carrying the plate in to my room, I dropped it... evidently with quite some force, because, even though it landed upside down with all the curry and rice underneath it to cushion the fall, the plate broke in to very many pieces, some of which I am still finding days later. I MAY have desperately scrambled to stay within the 10 second rule, scraped the remains on to my plate and eaten it, plate particles and all. Mmmm... crunchy. If that's gross, then maybe I didn't do that.

My oral teacher doesn't really like me. Or maybe she does but she just doesn't like acting like she likes me. I have to do a project this term on some aspect of French life and culture, so early on I suggested studying "French perceptions of Protestantism" and she said something like, "hmm, well, no one cares about Protestantism here." Shot down! Finally suggested doing the project on "Le Fonctionnement d'une Eglise Protestante". Next lesson she'd had a discussion about all our projects with the heads of the department and year, and looking at my proposal and laughing in front of the class said, "oh, we talked about you for a long time (laugh, laugh)" and then asked, "just one question: is your church really a Church? Or is it a cult?"

I have developed what can only be described as profound hatred for my French course. I have to do insane things like write haikus. Here is mine...

Les mots m'ont aimé, Words loved me

Les mots étaient mes amis, Words were my friends

Puis, la langue française. And then, the French language

Speaking of French literature (yes, I do realise how shameful it is to claim that the above has anything to do with either French, or literature... but...), I had quite an embarrassing experience in my "novels" class. Last week we studied Rousseau, considered to be among France's most influential novelists, philosophers and composers, a hero of French literature. Yesterday my teacher wanted to cross reference something from this week's extract with our Rousseau extract so she asked me if she could see my copy, and of course I oblidged. Sadly I noticed just at the last minute that I had written the word "ELEPHANT" in big, bold letters all along the bottom of the page, accompanied by a (beautiful, I must say) picture of an elephants behind. Best review of Rousseau ever, in my opinion... but don't let... anyone, really... hear me telling you that.

I've been running a few times... again, not sure "running" is the appropriate term, given the fact that the entire retired population of Nice appear to be faster and fitter than me, overtaking me with ease as I huff and puff my way along the prom. At least I'm not one of those wiggle crazy power walkers. Did it in a red t-shirt the other day... major error, the Old Folks Running Club will shortly be referring to me as the "slow, slow tomato girl".

My amazing friend Cat sent me Tim Keller's book "Counterfeit Gods" and I love it. Also listened to Mike Reeves on Union with Christ. Really fantastic! You know, I always forget about Jesus loving us... and just HOW much. When I see the gospel in the Bible I am always surprised and am like, "Wow! God really is THAT outrageous in the depth and width of his love, mercy and grace!... Wow! We really are that secure, forgiven, adopted." I guess it's evidence of my sinful nature that I am CONTINUALLY surprised by the goodness of God, grace blows me away every time I grasp it- it's never what I expected from God. It's so good! It just doesn't take long for my heart to grow cold, which is I guess why Mike Reeves says we need to warm our hearts at the fire of Christ (in his Word) every day. Mmmm... Christ fire!

By the way I am currently listening to Paloma Faith singing, "do you want the truth or something beautiful?" and am LOVING that in Jesus we see the truth AND something beautiful... truly, truly beautiful!

Woop!

Le Monde Interview (Forum)

This is me at Forum this year, talking about Nice last year, and sporting a hair do that wasn't even acceptable in the 80s. Enjoy, I think it's a good summary, if slightly (i.e very) embarrassing.

Relay Homestart Interview with Philippa Wilson from UCCF: The Christian Unions on Vimeo.

When You Don't Need Love...

Embarrassing things happen to me. I've come to accept this, to the extent that I thought my "blush" function just didn't work any more. Turns out it does.

Today I grabbed my post on the way out of the house, and realised I had a letter from my lovely Canadian friend Lydia. I opened it up as I stood at the bus stop with a load of chav-like French teenagers. Lydia had sweetly cut up little love hearts and coloured them in pink, and put them among the pages of the letter. Sadly they didn't stay among the pages of the letter very long. As soon as I opened the card they got blown away by the wind and everywhere. I made a noise that is probably written something a little like "Baaaaaaaaaaarggggh!" as I tried to chase them down (whilst simultaneously looking cool, of course), but failed and one fluttered it's way to the feet of one of the couples. One of the guys was already laughing quite a lot, and his girlfriend picked up the heart and handed it over with a big smile on your face (and probably a nudge to her boyfriend, "why don't you ever cut out pink little love hearts for me?"). Nearly died, and ran off to find another bus stop. Anyway, love you too Lyd! :-)

What else happened this week? (It's hard to remember- embarrassment has blotted out large portions of my life!) Last weekend was the regional weekend for the South East region. We went to somewhere called Rians, which was really pretty and had so so so much grass! I think the place was a nunnery, although thinking about it there was only one nun. Which is a bit strange. I was amused at one point as I watched her feeding the fish in the river, because it reminded me of that scene in About A Boy when he throws the loaf of bread at the ducks and kills one. She was throwing half baguettes in to the water... but after about three seconds these like mutated giant whale fish gobbled them all up! I think they've probably grown that huge on account of their crazily unnatural high carb diet.

Anyway, it was beautiful and countryside-y and lovely. Sadly only 7 students came from the region, and I felt a lot of frustration at not being able to talk about Jesus in the way that I would have done in English! Time and again I have to remind myself that the hope for France is CHRIST and his power and committment to building His own kingdom, rather than in me and my ability to conjugate sentences well. What fantastic news!

We played "I have never" where you all sit round in a circle and move if you HAVE done the thing the person in the middle says they have never done. Everytime I understood whatever the person said in the middle I found myself moving, regardless of whether or not I had done that activity... sadly, one time when I ended up losing and stood in the middle trying to explain myself was when I moved on "I have never been engaged." Eurgh, yet more embarrassment. Probably just one incident that led to my French friend's conclusion about me, "you are funny in French, it's just that you don't mean to be."

One of my French teachers reminds me of an Oompa Loompa. He teaches "Descriptive Grammar" the content of which is about as exciting as it sounds. We ask such questions as, "what is a sentence?", "what is a full stop?" and "please tell me time is nearly up!?" (ok, it's just me who asks that one.!) But it's made more enjoyable in that I have the Oompa Loompa song playing in my head for the duration.

I set up the internet and phone line in my room this week. Achievement of a lifetime! French AND Technology...!? Scorio!

Other than that, I've been really very stressed indeed. There's lots going on with GBU, team life, the French course and church and there's so much I'd like to be doing but am not, there's been a few nights that I've woken up at some crazy early hour feeling REALLY restless and in need of writing multiple "to do" lists (I am such a sad individual)! I've realised I don't know exactly what my priorities are, or should be- which means it's very easy for me to try and do everything, and unsurprisingly I fail at that, as I am not designed to sustain the universe. Nevertheless, I would really appreciate prayers for wisdom, as I've been getting in a total muddle doing lots of things badly and using most of my time for stress, rather than trusting GRACE and seeking God's guidance for which of the good things to do, and which to entrust to him, knowing that HE CAN DO THEM WITHOUT ME!