Weekend Summary

It's Monday morning and everyone else is still in bed, so we'll see how far I get here.

Friday night was the first episode of Star Academy--Season 8. This will be a shorter season than last year's. Everyone seems a lot younger than in previous seasons, although that might just be my impression. My odds are on the guy who left a successful business career to try to make it in music. He's the only one who is married and he's about 27. The director and teaching team has changed a lot, so Raphaelle Ricci, Richard Cross, and Matthieu are no longer on. This year the students live in a hotel in the Marais section of Paris, rather than out at the chateau in the suburbs. I like that it's centered in Paris, as I'm a Parisien. Until Christmas, I know that a good number of my Friday nights will be watching Star Ac.

Saturday was a productive day cleaning up some financial papers. One sign that it's been a busy period was that I was cleaning out receipts from my wife's wallet from July, as I normally try to get all these cleared out each month. That night I went to VERTICALE, the 3rd Saturday evening of the month worship and prayer evening. It was good to see lots of friends there, including Suzanne (from the Swiss camp and Eglise Philadelphia). I met Matthieu (a friend of Suzanne's and classical musician) and the pastor of a new church plant in the Montmartre section of Paris. He also did some high music training. It was good to make these contacts and see what God is doing in the world of classical music here.

Yesterday we drove to the country to participate in the church retreat of Belleville. We first attende a Belleville church weekend 8 years ago. During one of the meetings, I went out with my son. We kicked a soccer ball and took photos of him being different animals that he wanted to imitate. I need to spend more time doing stuff like that with him, as he won't always be this age. I remember coming home from school as a kid and my dad being home and playing sports for an hour. This is a good memory of mine.

Doing lots of thinking about "church" and our involvements for this year and beyond. The time factor is one thing forcing this issue, as I really feel the limitation on how much time we have for "church," so the need to make it count.