Bournagain

Welcome to our blog for those who have just linked in from our newsletter which went out today. Hope you enjoy your visit.

We just had our new neighbours over for “goûter” - it’s the same kind of idea as afternoon tea, and it’s a pretty common way of inviting people for the first time, especially if they have children. They’ve moved into the house next door which had been empty for 30 years! Good thing they have time off work to get some work done on it. They have two children, including a boy a bit older than Isaac, and they seem to get on well.

Like so many people we have met in Nantes, they have fled the rat race of Paris for a change of lifestyle out in the provinces. What a life they had - 3 hours in the car each day, on top of an up-to-10 hour day. Interesting jobs, well paid, but at the cost of seeing their son for about half an hour a day for the first six years of his life. They have very bravely taken the plunge into a change of geography, in the hope that it will lead to a change of lifestyle.

It made us think of our major change of geography 7 years ago when we came here. And we have changed, but in hindsight it was nothing to do with geography. Just changing the externals of life doesn’t necessarily change who we are inside. I can move wherever I like in the world, but my priorities, my patterns of relating, my blind spots, they way I define myself, all come with me. Real change is “from the inside out”, and often involves the painful giving up of things in my life which take the place of God.

Nice family - hope we can get to know them better. We miss our friends from across the road who have moved to Bordeaux - another example of someone desperately seeking change but not really knowing where to look for it. We are still in touch - had a visit from them during the November school holidays.