Bienvenue à Égletons (Welcome to Egletons)

Well, here we are in Egletons, France, and it’s hard to describe precisely the feeling of beginning to settle in to a new place. The weather has been beautiful. It’s chilly in the mornings and evenings, but sunny and warm in the afternoons. We have heard that it’s often quite rainy here, so we are soaking up the sunshine while it lasts.

Charles and I get up every morning between 7 and 8am. We wake up in chalet #3 here at Le Colorado and have breakfast together: yogurt and/or toast, coffee (of course), and sometimes orange juice. Then Charles heads out to work with Bob and Nolan (Bob’s son-in-law). Right now, they’re working on building a retaining wall for a future swimming pool. They hope to get all the concrete set in so that it can dry before the cooler weather. I clean the house, clean rooms of clients who have recently left, go on errands with Sheri or Kristin (the Misegades’ daughter), or have quiet time by myself. I cook, and the two of us usually have a fairly leisurely lunch together. In the afternoons, Charles goes back to work with the guys, and I help cook dinner for the clients or clean or hang out with Kristin and her three lovely children: Kailin (almost 5), Sophia (3), and Ryan (8 months). Charles and I try to go on walks when we have time. It’s a beautiful area for walking – even the weeds are pretty. For dinner, Charles and I often eat with the guests in order to get to know them and to practice our French. After a meal lasting up to 2½ hours, we come back to our chalet, watch a French video (language tool from Dr. Garside), maybe an episode of the Office, and fall asleep.

Communicating continues to be a little bit awkward. Today, on an errand with Kristin in Tulle, I met her friend Audrey. All I said was “Bonjour,” and she looked at Kristin and said, “She’s not French either, huh?” It’s not a rude thing to say here, it’s just an observation. Still… from one word, she knew I was American. It’s an odd feeling, trying to hide my nationality. But American tourists have earned such a reputation for being brash, rude, and ignorant of things that are culturally or politically sensitive that I try hard not to fall into the stereotype. I’ve not felt any animosity, though. Especially out here in rural France, we’re well accepted and people are very friendly.

Charles and I have very much enjoyed trying out our French on the customers here. With two of the “regulars,” Tony and Fred, we’ve been able to talk about politics, music, our dreams, religion, death, etc. Sometimes, with Charles’ Cajun accent, I end up acting as translator, but we’re both learning a lot. We also sometimes end up helping them a little bit with their English. Anyway, they’re great guys: friendly, interesting, and patient.

We’ve also started meeting people from around town. Charles met the guys who work at the hardware store, and I’ve met the lady who launders the sheets and the ladies at the grocery store. We’ve also met some of our neighbors, one of whom is a die-hard fan of American Western movies. He loves to wear his cowboy hat, bandana, and chaps.

Something that’s really lit a fire under me to work on my French is the women’s Bible study. It’s every Thursday afternoon at 3pm (9am Eastern Standard time), and it consists of about 7 ladies who meet at Sheri Misegades’ house. They’re all really wonderful, sweet, Christian ladies who enjoy discussing the Bible. I am able to follow the discussion fairly easily (provided my brain is in “French mode,”) but sharing my own thoughts is difficult. I was finally able to share a little bit this past Thursday, but I felt that I halted the fast pace of the discussion. They were all very sweet about it and understood me fine, but I was a little discouraged. All the more reason to keep studying, right?

Anyway, here are a few pictures to give you an idea of the scenery. :) For more photos, see our facebook pages.

Here's Charles in front of a castle not far from where we live. It's one of France's newer castles, from the 16th century. (Charles says it still has that "new castle" smell.)

From left to right: Kristin, Sophia, Bob, Kailin, and Sheri. This was taken during church on Sunday morning at Kristin and Nolan's house.
The big bosses: Bob n' Sheri. :)
Our current residence:

a couple houses in Egletons

picture I love of the nearby city of Tulle
Limousine cow
Our future apartment
Sorry the pictures are in a weird order. I haven't figured out blogger like Charles has. Anyway, thank you for keeping up with us! We'll keep you posted as we continue to get settled here.

Que Le Français Soit! (Let there be French!)

A lot has happened in the last week. We spent some time with Amber's parents before we left just hanging out, going out on their boat, playing spades and touring around the DC Mall (the Capital building, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Wall and the Smithsonian) before our flight to Dublin, Ireland. Our flight was actually 1 ½ hrs early, thank you AerLingus, so we had a longer layover, but we had Cadbury chocolates while we waited. And I checked on my guitar

From Dublin, we flew to Paris and the pilot spoke to everybody in only French. The funny thing about that is I understood more of his French than the TransAtlantic Irish pilots’ brogue! We got into Paris around 13:45 (but 7:45 to our bodies) to take the train to our hotel, Le Kyriad. Apparently, Le Kyriad is a European chain and a decent one at that. Our bed was actually two twins pushed together and you couldn’t see the television with the bathroom door open. The entire bathroom was approximately the size of the master bath’s tub in our trailer. Granted, the tub from our trailer in Georgia was a huge tub.

We decided to go get something to eat and found a few blocks from our hôtel a café called, Le Relax. By this time it was 18:30 or so, but we didn’t know that Parisians eat dîner at 20:00+. We both ordered items unfamiliar to us and the gentleman who was our waiter and cook brought Amber sliced pork loin and fries, and couscous, chicken, sausage and an undetermined soup like stuff for myself. The waiter/cook, realizing that we were Anglophones, told us that his uncle knew a man who spoke English and that he’d send his uncle our way. The food was fantastic! They kept us supplied with bread and I couldn’t finish my plate due to the amount served, but I tried. The uncle came over when he noticed we had finished with a plate of white grapes and said, “Dis is from zee chief.”

There were a group of people there and we began talking to them and they started asking us who we were and where we were from. When I told them my name, Charles Vincent, they responded , «Charles Vincent? Vous êtes un Français!» (CV? You are French!) I explained that I was from Louisiana and they were all excited and one produced an encyclopedia to look up our state and find more information; Another produced an accordion and we all passed a good time despite his inability to play it. It seemed God had his hand in the whole thing since we were able to comfortably communicate with those people for a couple of hours and they helped us with terms and ways of saying things and even our ability to hear improved in just a short while. We both felt more comfortable talking after that.

The next day, our «decalage horaire» or jetlag turned out to be worse than we’d hoped, but we still got up before noon. We were able to see Nôtre Dame that afternoon and walk around a beautiful area of the city. On the way, we stopped a man cleaning the streets and asked him, «Ou est La Nôtre Dame?» since we weren’t completely sure of our location. The man gladly walked with us several blocks, singing along the way until it was in sight. He turned to us and asked,

«Parlez-vous L'Englich?»

«Oui.»

«Zen you say, en Anglais, ‘Where iss de Nôtre Dame Crunch?’»

“Do you mean, Church?”

«Oui! Church. ‘Where iss de Nôtre Dame Church?’»

We had a good laugh about it.

I surprised amber that evening with a boat tour of Paris (paid with previous savings) that included a five-course, fancy meal. It was a beautiful tour and we were able to communicate in French with our waiter who seemed relieved since many other tables did not speak French.

Communication is still a bit awkward; I’m sitting now on the train with a man to whom I can’t properly explain why we’re not in our assigned seats...

Saturday, we thought about going to the Louvre and got on a bus that ended up heading in the wrong direction. When we got to the complete wrong end of the city, I thought we would turn around , but the driver said we all had to get off because of what I thought he said was a «Barah.» «Barah?» I said. «Non, Parade. Avec une groupe, bah ba ba ba bah!» and he began imitating a trombonist marching around and then I understood that there was a parade on our bus route. But we got to see Le Tour Eiffel and go to the top (pics) and speak with some Eastern Europeans who knew French, but not English, the first interaction of that kind. They wanted to know about my beard. Actually I was trying to count the languages I heard in line at Le Tour Eiffel: German, Dutch, French, Italian, English (American, British, Australian), Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Whatever Eastern Euro language it was that I heard, and others. It was really quite amazing.

Sunday, we still couldn’t wake up before 11:00, but we got up a little after and went out for a picnic at Le Jardin du Luxembourg. It was crowded (pic) but very beautiful (pic). There was also a very interesting music group playing and people danced some apparent traditional dances.(vid) We went also to a park on a far end of the city that was near the Conservatoire. It was a beautiful, modern park that also had groups of people playing music. We stopped and listened to a couple of the groups, most African drum circles, but the last one had guys singing African songs and we tried to capture that group’s wonderful harmonies, but they went into something else in this video, but there is an excellent surprise at 3’ 15” enjoy. (video coming)

By the way, We’re now off of the train and the man sitting across from us on the train I mentioned earlier started a conversation with us and we found out that his name is Pierre and he is a Sergeant in the French Navy living near where we will be staying. He was interested to hear about our situation in France and asked if we were Scientologists. We assured him we weren’t, but it was difficult to explain with such a limited vocabulary and not being Catholic that we were Christian. We were able to explain that we were simply following Jesus Christ and not fame or money. He asked for our email address because he wanted to talk to us more about it. Pray for Pierre that we would be able to reach him soon and minister to him. Pray for the Misegades that we could minister to them as well as they help teach us how to minister. We’re busy, but we’re taking time to do this once a week when we get into a routine schedule. We’ll try another, briefer update on Monday.

À plus tard, (Later)

C&AV

Lord, Prepare Us

Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary

Pure and holy, tried and true

With thanksgiving, I'll be a living

Sanctuary for You

Two days until departure. We're having a wonderful visit in Virginia, finishing last-minute paperwork, banking stuff, tickets, reservations, packing, and hanging out with family n' friends here. Sunday morning we spoke at Manassas Baptist Church, where Amber grew up. It was our last church visit, and they're deciding in a Missions Council meeting tonight whether or not they'll be supporting us. It was really nice for her to get to see so many people she grew up with! 

Anyway, keep us in your prayers as we finish getting things ready and leave on Wednesday evening for Dublin, then Paris. 

Louisiana Tour & Goodbye to Georgia

We have just finished our Louisiana support-raising tour. We spent time in Baton Rouge, Sulphur, Lake Charles, Rayville, Rustin, Spring (TX), and Lafayette. It was a time of incredible encouragement and spiritual refreshment, but it was also draining. We performed and spoke at several churches and met some incredible Jesus-lovers. :) We have been fervently prayed for, encouraged, fed (LOTS!), and have made some progress in our support-raising. Our last church to visit will be this Sunday in Manassas, Virginia. Here are a few pictures of us "doing our thing" in Gospel, Inc in northern Louisiana:

September 6th was our last Sunday at New Bethel Baptist Church (for a long time, anyway). We had a wonderful time of worshipping and sharing with our beloved church, followed by a fantastic meal in the new fellowship hall. It was difficult for us, and tears were shed... but we continue to lean on the knowledge that we are following the Lord with our lives. 

Keep us in your prayers! We're spending our last few days in Virginia with Amber's parents before we fly to Paris on September 16th.