Wedding of an artist friend

On Thursday afternoon I received via Facebook an invitation to the wedding of Jaime and Anne Laure. Jaime is a professional dancer from Colombia whom we met at the Belleville Church 8 years ago. He was one of those eligible single Christian guys whom we hoped would find a good wife someday. It was with excitement that we recently learned of his engagement several weeks ago.

As their wedding was at the same district city hall of where we live, I decided to attend the civil ceremony. They accepted my offer to take photos. It was just a small number of us who were able to attend this ceremony.

A couple of days ago I read an excellent article in the Oct 2008 issue of EMQ online.com, a journal for those working in cross-cultural ministry. This current issue focuses on families in ministry, a subject that has been on my mind a lot in recent days.

Below are some points that resonated with me from Lila Balinsky's article titled "An Ordinary Family in Ministry."

"The most ordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children." G.K. Chesterton captured, in this simplest yet most profound of phrases, the idea that the basic family united created by God is vital to mission in the world.

In this day of short-term missions and whizzing vision trips, the emphasis is usually on individual contribution to kingdom work. In no way is this article meant to demean the great contributions made by religious orders of single people or the dynamics of the short-term paradigm, for surely the command to go and disciple the nations is not restricted to certain social units. However, let's take a look at the family unit in mission. ..The missional dynamics suggested...are just as applicable across our hometown streets as they are across geographic boundaries.

Families are the core of a community. Anyone with children knows the impact of babies and children within a cross-cultural community setting. As a new missionary wife in Ethiopia, I knew we were being included in our new community when a venerable old mama poked her head inside our jeep window and spat a blessing upon the cheek of my newborn. I also remember saying to my husband when our three sons had all left Ethiopia for college, "I think we lack some luster in the total community now that our boys have left home." Even in our own churches and communities, we respect and enjoy observing a model family. Almost two hundred years ago, Rufus Anderson (1796-1880) missionary and administrator of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), wrote that "the heathen should have an opportunity of seeing Christian families." Mrs. Elizabeth Dwight, missionary to Constantinople in the 1800s, is reported to have said, "The heathen want not only ministries of the world, but pious, well-educated families...to be the living, bright examplies of the doctrines of Christianity (Robert 2005, 238)

A family in mission must also be given to hospitality. Someone has described hospitality as "an open door in and an open door out." Hospitality expresses all that you are as a family and all that you have to give, both inside and outside your home..."An open door out" means "get out" into the community, to your neighbors, to those different from you. Of course, there is always a balance between "get in" and "get out" and the best advice is "get it all together" before you do either. These decisions take the grace and wisdom of God on a basis.

I hope that Jamie and Anne Laure have a happy and productive marriage that makes them both more effective in their art forms. I hope that, in time, they have children as well. May they work together effectivelly for the Kingdom.

Good news, TV film crew on our street this morning

Our younger daughter was accepted into the school that her older sister attends. She'll be in the first year class, while big sister will be in the 3rd year class. This will simplify our transportation, as we'll just have 2 schools to drop off kids at, rather than our current 3. This will be her last week at her current day care. We'll miss seeing the ladies there, all of whom are conscientious and care well for our girl.

This morning they were filming a scene just down the street (about 50 yards) from our apartment entrance. It is for the weekly police series called PJ ("Police Judiciare") on the France 2 television station at 8:30 p.m. some night each week.

Paris is a film capital in the world, so we have regularly seen film crews all around the city. Never a dull moment.

New born diapers: getting ready for Baby J's arrival

Earlier today (or technically yesterday, even though I haven't yet gone to bed), I was at Auchan doing my big grocery shopping. With our Auchan card, we get a 10% discount on Auchan products on Tuesdays, so I often shop on Tuesdays. I also had a coupon good for 1.5 euros on 10 euros worth of diapers.

Yesterday my wife had her monthly visit to her OB/GYN doctor. He said that the baby looks healthy and has her head down already. But he advised my wife to start taking it easy, especially in terms of walking, as her cervix has already started to open. The baby's tentative arrival date is November 9. It would be good if she would wait to give birth until at least October 9, as the baby would be starting her 9th month then and be pretty fully developed.

This news got us thinking that we may be having an October baby! So we're doing all we can to have my wife do as little walking as possible. I also am trying to get as much done now before baby arrives. This included a bigger grocery shop today, as well as a defrosting of the freezer in order to have more room for supplies there.

In thinking of how November might work out, I had the idea that my father might be able to come and help for 2 1/2 weeks, especially as a scheduled trip he had for the Philippines for then has fallen through. I ran the idea by him and he seems happy to come again and help us. This is probably our last child and his last grandchild.

I bought 2 bags of newborn diapers this afternoon. We're just about done with diapers with our 2 1/2 year old, as she's basically completed potty training and only needs 1 pair of pull up pants a night. So we're about done with diapers with her just in time to start another 2 1/2 to 3 years of diapers with baby #4.

I'm starting to feel curious about what she'll look like, as well as what her personality will be like. It will be fun to see how the other 3 relate to her, especially the 2 older sisters.

I had 2 discussions today with neighborhood people whom I've known for a number of years, but not very well. One is the mother of a boy whom we met at the baby swim class from a few years ago and whose son is also at the school where my son goes. He's in the class one year ahead of my son. The other is a 20ish young man who lives in our apartment building and is trying to learn English. One conversation took place in the park after school, while the other started in front of our apartment building and continued by the mailboxes. The relationship with both people went a little further through these conversations.

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.

Updated ministry page on web site

I finally completed a draft on our web site of our ministry. I hadn't done a good revision on this page for several years. But with a number of transitions in our work, it was good to have to revise it. So, if you want to, take a look at our site.

I'm tired and going to bed now.

Wild week

Today my elder daughter turns 5. She was born at 1:30 a.m. and I remember driving to the maternity ward late at night 5 years ago. On Sunday we'll have a birthday party for her and some of her friends with an under the sea theme and some decorations from "The Little Mermaid."

Yesterday my wife was at the same maternity for her 3rd trimester ultrasound. Apparently everything is looking good with daughter #3. As her 3 siblings have stretched out the womb, she has more room and will probably be the biggest of our 4 babies. I think she'll need to be bigger and stronger in order to handle the enthusiasm of her siblings after she arrives.

This week we've had our record number of contacts with visitors passing through. We had Bill & a work colleague from Michigan last Saturday, Trisha from Georgia on Monday, and Peter from New Jersey and the NY Philharmonic Orchestra on Wednesday. This weekend we expect to see Mark & Ellen, Dave & Jennifer, and Jason, all from New Jersey.

I'm working madly to renovate our web site. We've had it going for 7 years, as I worked hard back then to have it up and running for the birth of our first child. But I haven't done much with it in 2008 and it badly needs renovation. I'm getting happier with how it will look and communicate.

End of Summer / La Rentrée

Today, September 1, is the last day of summer in France. It's sunny outside, so it feels like it could be summer for awhile. However, tomorrow is when a French cultural event takes place. It's called LA RENTREE.

Tomorrow we enter a new stage of life, as our firstborn enters CP ("Cours Préparatoire," which is like U.S. first grade). After 3 years at his former school, he'll start a more serious academic program. He only knows one person in his class. But he seems to be looking forward to it, at least from what he says.

Until I had kids in school, LA RENTREE didn't mean that much to me personally. But this year, it will mean a major shift in schedule, as we try to organize getting our 3 kids off to 3 different places most mornings, pick 2 of them up at lunch time, and drop one back after lunch, then pick up the oldest 2 after school. In that way, our schedule will be much more regimented.

In terms of the French mindset, LA RENTREE is really when the new year begins. After a lazy July and August, it's time to get back to work. For the arts ministry I work with, we have our first exhibit this coming weekend. Last night we had a planning meeting with some of the team present. For churches as well, this coming Sunday is when things get back to normal in terms of programs.

All in all, it's been a good summer for us in France. It was nice to not be driving all over the place this summer, unlike the previous 2 summers. While we didn't see everyone we would have liked to, we did have some quality time with some friends. I was able to start learning a new video producing program. And we had a great family vacation in Switzerland for 10 days.