Sometimes people ask us what a “normal” week looks like. It’s always such a difficult question to answer, as a week rarely ends up looking like what we expected or planned.
Monday I spoke to a group of visiting Americans about French church history – I think that if I ever had to change jobs I would quite happily be a history teacher.
That evening I joined in with a series of seminars one of the churches here is running on house church/simple church. This church is in the very unique situation of preparing to merge with two other churches, and making home meetings the centre of their activity. One of the really fascinating things is that the ethnic makeup of these three churches is very diverse.
Tuesday morning Dad took school with the children while Mum helped out at La Maison – a drop-in centre for local homeless people. It is a reality check for both of us to know what some of these people go through.
Thursday evening there is a fledgling home meeting happening on the island in Nantes where we heard the great news that one of the group has just got engaged, and got into some good discussions around Genesis 1 & 2.
Friday I have 7 hours of English classes, back to back.
Saturday we had the second installment of the language café in our new venue. After much searching we found a suitable café that opens on Saturday mornings. It’s actually in the centre of town, which may have turned some people off. Nice atmosphere though, and I think we will keep it going to see what develops.
We have been to very few Sunday morning meetings since getting back from NZ, and have been enjoying the strangeness of this (after 20+ years). However, being a special day with a meal and baptisms, we spent the day with all our St. Sébastien church friends on Sunday.
And now it’s Monday again – the beginning of another week, at the end of which we will probably wonder, as usual, where the days have gone.
When you’re a New Zealander living in France, people regularly talk to you about rugby. I received calls before the match “wishing me luck”, a number of people slapped me on the back jokingly “offering their condolences” in advance. This is ironic because overall the feeling here prior to last night’s world cup game was that the French were bound to lose.
This is a case of déja vu for me because exactly the same thing happened in 1999 prior to that historic defeat of the All Blacks by the French that was so totally unexpected. This was the historic defeat that would supposedly “never be repeated”.
I think I’m starting to understand something which may be indicative of a difference between French and New Zealand mentality (prepare yourself for a sweeping generalisation on that notoriously inexact science of cultural psychology…) : the French seem to do best, and are at their most passionate, when there is no real hope other than being defeated honourably. Being told that they will probably fail, which is, by the way, a standard pedagogical technique used by large numbers of French schoolteachers, seems to have the opposite effect of goading them on to success.
On the other hand, New Zealanders seem to do really badly when they have not fully grasped the strength of their opposition. I’ve noticed many commentators have already suggested that the run of matches leading up to the quarter-final where the All Blacks just walked all over the other team was psychologically very poor preparation for facing the French. Nobody in France expected the All Blacks to lose – along with 4 million New Zealanders!
I’m wondering if this is applicable to areas other than sport…
One thing for sure, there will be an interminable post mortem about this in New Zealand; the nation will be in sackcloth and ashes for weeks (it’s already started here at the country’s largest newspaper). Meanwhile, dans la patrie des Bleus, the celebration goes on…
Bravo les bleus! C’était un super match! All Blacks – great job. You didn’t lose by much. Take a break, go fishing – it’s only a little oval ball, after all!
I had one of the more surreal experiences of my life this week. We had set up an English conversation & coffee event at a local community centre. Our first meeting was a great success, and we were just planning the next event when I was called in to meet with the director of the centre.
It transpired that an overly zealous member of what is sometimes affectionately referred to as the “anti-cult cult” had contacted the centre to warn them about me. I was informed that the community centre was awaiting a file of incriminating details confirming that I had infiltrated the community centre in order to brainwash the other members and drag them into my “cult”. This file duly arrived, and I went to a meeting to hear the verdict.
Yes, it was as they feared: I am a dangerous and deceitful man, and I was to be struck off the membership of the community centre without further ado.
“We are a non-confessional organisation sir”, I was reminded by the Catholic director and her yoga-instructor assistant, who rather put her foot in it when she said that as a coordinator of an activity it was impossible not to let one’s beliefs show through, and this would be in violation of the secular principles of the community centre… Whoops. So, in other words, it’s okay for Hinduism to “show through”, but not Christianity ??
I was fascinated to know what juicy bits of information there might be in my file, but they made the rather surprising decision to ferret the file out of my sight the moment I asked for it. So, no specific accusation was made, no serious investigation into whether or not any complaints had been made, just an arbitrary “on your bike”, for no apparent reason other than that I am perceived to be an e***gelical Christian (there’s that terrible “E”-word again!)
You think this is a joke, right?
It really happened.
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