Cookie Making Event #2

It's another late night in Paris. My wife is sleeping on the sofa in our living room, as our bed is full of displaced boxes and stuff from today's cookie making and decorating event. We had our first cookie making last Thursday with 5 classmates and several parents. Today we had 4 classmates and one parent. On Friday I expect that we may break our record for participation.

We basically have invited some friends and classmates of our oldest 2 children. The majority of the invitees are in their class at French school. One reason why we are doing this now is to get to know some of the kids and their parents. Opening up one's home means something more in France than in the U.S. The French generally do this as easily with people they already don't know very well.

All 4 attendees today seemed to enjoy the event. I think some of our friends were praying for today. It was basically just my wife and I doing all the leading. It could have gotten wild today, as the guests were less calm than last week's ones. But once the cookie making got going, everyone was focused.

Several days ago one of our neighbors on another floor knocked on the door and asked if she could borrow an egg. I was glad that she felt comfortable enough to knock on our door. While my wife has no problem asking for this, the French are less likely to do so. My wife ended up inviting her daughter to come this Friday. I think that she helped color Easter eggs last year as well. Who know what kind of relational doors this might open?

Our 2nd floor neighbors moved last week. They have 3 kids around our kids' ages, but we never connected with them, although we tried. But as they were doing the final cleaning, I ran into the husband in the basement. He asked if we wanted their balcony plants, as their new apartment doesn't have a balcony. So we now have 3 more plants on our balcony. It's hard to understand why we didn't connect with them, but do with some others.

We will trust that God will do them good in their new neighborhood and bring people into their lives who love God too.

One thing that we seem to do well is to make people feel comfortable when we invite them over for a meal or an event. We hope to do this more often in 2008. We already have a lot of the physical items that make hosting easier. We need to trust the Lord to provide the finances for the ingredients.