{panic-mode Meredith}

.

Monday morning I woke up and began my day as usual. I drank a cup of coffee, sliced a pear and  did a little bit of reading before I logged into Skype to talk to Jon. Usually we talk in the evenings but after a long and busy week and a busier weekend, he had asked if we could talk for a little bit on Monday morning. So I logged in and busied myself with getting ready for the day until 10am came and went. I sent him a text message a little bit later asking if he slept in and then tried to call him. Pretty amused that he had slept in I got up to start making lunch around 11:15. I was really excited to cook up some quinoa and some veggies to take with me to a lunchtime meeting that day. 

Getting the pan heated up, suddenly the front door rang. I answered the call and it was an American voice asking for Brittany, my room-mate.

I immediately thought that it was the voice of a guy on our team but when I asked who it was, the mystery voice said simply that he had a delivery for Brittany.

 mpulsively  I volunteered our floor number as I pressed the buzzer to unlock the front door for him. I then began to panic.

What had I just done? I rang a total stranger into my building and moreso I gave him access to the elevator AND told him my floor number.

My heart started to pound as I imagined numerous scenarios that could have unfolded... most of them ended up with me dead or dangling off the high balcony.

 In complete panic, I grabbed a pair of scissors to keep in my hand which I threw down at the last minute as I opened up my door to await for my killer. 

(yes... panic-situation Meredith is handling this really well at this point)

So, I'm standing there with my door open, heart pounding and beginning to sweat as the elevator arrives on our floor.

 I nervously utter  "help me, Lord,"as the elevator door slowly started to open and I began to back away from my open door in fear. The door swung open and a hand holding a familiar brown laptop bag emerged followed by the very un-serial-killer face and smile of Jon Thompson.

The only thing I remember is slowly backing away from the door in shock and him coming to the threshold of the door, smiling, and saying hello. He says my first words were, "WHAT are you doing here??" but I'll say that that is a perfectly acceptable question seeing as how Jon lives in the UK. not in France where I live.

Eventually I calmed down, my heart still pounding from the terrifying sounds of the elevator bringing stranger to my door step and then from the realization of the surprise in front of me.

He had come to surprise me and spend two days here walking around and cooking dinner for an early Valentines Day. It was such an incredible surprise, and he kept laughing about it his entire time here and poking fun at me for being so scared. Don't worry though, he did lecture me about how unsafely panic-Meredith responded to crisis situation but he was glad it worked out that he could wait to surprise me on my doorstep.

Homeslice even brought sunshine and milder weather to grumpy gray Paris!

{meredith in paris in january}

After spending the New Year with a sweet group of friends, it was exceedingly difficult to return to daily life here. January and February in Paris are notoriously bleak. and very cold. So it was hard to try and look ahead past what was widely accepted among our team as the worst months of the year. Still, I tried to push through and be positive.

I feel like January can't really be articulated in what I did or new vocabulary I learned or in looking at what I wrote down in my planner. In reflecting, all of the meat, all of this "update" has happened in my heart, so please bare with me as I try and flush it out for you.

This month, I've started teaching my own class at our Women's Literacy class. I have 10 sweet, hilarious and ridiculous women who I get to spend time with 3 times a week. I'm enjoying the smaller setting and the ability to influence the pace of the class depending on how well the women are understanding our material. I love sharing the stories at the end of class and feeling the women start to connect with who Jesus is and what His life means. Mostly, I love that I'm getting to know each of the women more personally. Knowing what their lives are like and having them know me more. I'm praying that this will afford greater access into their homes to know them outside of classes!

So I started off January with classes, excited about a new routine and pushing through the bleakness of the weather. 

Then, in mid-January, things started to get a little crazy. On January 14, my older sister had her second baby, precious Will. I got to FaceTime with my family in the hospital after the fact and got to see little Will all swaddled up and new to the outer-world. I cried a lot and he yawned a lot. Don't blame him though, it's a tough business being born!

Bibi (my mom) beaming. Will (my nephew) yawning. Meredith (myself) crying.

January 17, I received the news that my grandfather passed away back in the States. My family is small, as I've only one living set of grandparents, and it was important that we were able to grieve at this time together. Thankfully, I was able to take a few days at fly back home for the funeral and for some sweet time with my family. My sister and her now slightly larger family are in the States until March, so I was able to see them and to do a lot of baby holding, diaper changing, and niece-swinging while mom-hugging, National Championship game-watching, and chips and salsa-dipping. As unexpectedly as it was planned and as difficult as the reason for my home-coming was, it was a sweet sweet time.

This is Lucy, my 4-year-old niece who can count to 10 in Arabic unprompted. She's awesome and also jumped up and down on my bed waving this flag chanting the pledge-allegiance on my first night back.

Me, jet-lagged. Will, adorable and cuddly and baby-smelling.

These are my parents. They are almost always wearing red t-shirts.

January has yielded way to February and with it has come the responsibility and joy of classes and French exchanges and other daily tasks. A slight rise on the thermometer (highs of 45, to be exact) has been a silly tease of springtime to come.

Ultimately, in January I was pulled and twisted by the Lord into obedience. There were points when I didn't want to step forward, where the only thing forcing my feet one in front of the other was knowing that my will, my plans and my comfort are subject to the sovereignty and Lordship of my God. In the confusion and frustration of my grandfather's illness in early January I would have never imagined that his death would be in perfect timing- in perfect accord with the birth of a new baby and the reminder of life. As he stepped into eternity with the Lord, being given a new, more fully realized, and capable body, my nephew came into the world in brand new form. It doesn't wipe away the sadness and the frustration that I've felt at points with The Father, but it has removed any bitterness. His timing is so. far. superior. to ours. What hope we have, sweet friends, as children of the Most High!

My grandmother and Will, her first great-grandson.

This is my favorite picture.

"O God, I have tasted Thy goodness and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more."-AWTozer

Our God is a good God. Always.

OK OK OK, I know you want to see more baby pictures.

RTR Y'all. 

{a story about exiting}

I have never had a clean and easy exit from England. Never. I've joked with Jon and said it either means I'm not supposed to come or I'm not supposed to go.

In March, twice, Megan and I ended up sprinting through train stations to make it to ours before it departed. After Thanksgiving in November, Jon and I ended up on the wrong train headed the wrong direction when we had to exit at the next stop that had us, literally, stranded in the middle of a stormy English field. In December, we hit a new highest record for stressful exits from the United Kingdom.

It's December 26. The day after Christmas. Also it's Boxing Day. We were in England, which happens to be one of the only countries in the world that actually observes Boxing Day. We were planning to take an overnight coach ride from Victoria Station in London to Paris. However, unbeknownst to us, all of the trains in the entire country were closed. We spent that afternoon googling and making phone calls, trying to figure out how we would get from Cambridge to the coach station in London learning that in addition to the trains being closed in observance of Boxing Day, all of the public transportation workers were on strike in London, meaning that all of the tube lines were shut down. Jon ends up booking us a coach ticket from Cambridge to the airport where we will wait for 45 minutes then catch  a connecting coach from the airport to Victoria Station. We should arrive 45 minutes before our bus departs, giving us time to check in and get settled.

Everything's a go. We hurridly pack up our things, finish making home-made sausage balls, and set off for the coach stop in Cambridge. We wait patiently, noting that more and more people start to flood the tiny hut/coach stop. As the bus pulls up a plump English man with a round face and rosy cheeks steps off. As he checks our tickets and loads our luggage underneath the coach, a mob starts to form. With people attempting to force their way through the line and onto the bus. Jon and I are already seated on the coach when we start to notice this and our rosy-cheeked bus driver starts yelling at people to calm down and step back from the coach. Our coach fills up but there are still crowds collected around the doors trying to force their way on. The driver shouts that there is no more room, jumps onto the bus and sets off in the direction of London.

Only a short bus ride later, Jon and I step off the bus at Stansted Airport outside of London. We are to wait here for 45 minutes before loading onto our connecting coach to Victoria. There are mobs of people here, in half-formed lines jutting out each and every way. Buses are crowding into the marked spaces in the parking lot, filling up and heading out but even as buses file through, the crowds never seem to shrink. Jon and I stand, time-stamped tickets in hand, in line for our bus to Victoria. The line starts shrinking as passengers board the bus and then suddenly the line stops moving forward, the bus doors shut, and the bus drives off into the night headed to Victoria.

Problem.

That was our bus. Where was it going? Why weren't we sitting on it? We start to panic (correction, I  start to panic) Jon asks a bus-company worker standing next to the que why the bus left when we, along with many others around us, had stamped tickets for that bus. The worker brushed him off and said another bus would be coming in 20 minutes. 20 minutes. OK, we can still make our check in for the coach to Paris.

That 20 minutes turns into 1 hour that Jon and I finally board the bus that is to take us to London Victoria. The bus driver tells us that the company must have over-booked tickets for his route and comments on the craziness surrounding the airport. There are hundreds of travelers stranded there because of a ridiculously scheduled train holiday (the day after Christmas, people! One of the busiest travel days of the year!) Jon asks the driver if we are going to miss our bus to Paris, and the Englishman doesn't answer in the negative.

We arrive at Victoria Station at 9pm, at the exact hour that the bus we were to be on to drive to Paris left the parking lot. We ran inside, frantically searching for anybody who could help us to wave down the bus or to get us on the next bus, to no avail. We stood in a long line of people who were having troubles with coaches and Jon boldy and graciously stated that our missing the bus was not our fault, it was in fact, coach company we were taking to Victoria station was to blame for overbooking our bus. After over an hour of persistance- standing in lines, waiting on managers, calling managers, stepping into back offices, Jon had gotten us into the office of the bus station manager who booked a ticket for us on a later coach to Paris.

We waiting on the coach, in a load and crowded waiting room. There were people sitting everywhere, sleeping on the floor, babies crying and a general atmosphere of chaos as people clamored into crowds to walk out onto the loading zone for the coaches to take them near and far from London. I took this moment to tell Jon that THIS, this craziness and chaos and smelliness and unrest is what Paris feels like most of the time. I dont't think he believed me at that point.

We eventually loaded onto our bus where we undertook a 9 hour journey to Paris. We were cramped up on a full bus where we slept intermittently, were prodded like cattle through a customs point in Dover and then loaded onto a ferry that would take us from Dover, UK to Callais, France. We slept sprawled out over coaches and chairs on the ferry for 2 hours with hundreds of others migrating to the European Continent until we reached land and loaded back onto the bus. Instead of attempting to fall asleep in our cramped seats we watched a movie and several hours later pulled into Paris.


As triumphant as it felt, navigating many many road blocks and finally reaching l'Île-de-France, I still can't shake a bit of nervousness I feel when I think about what's to come the next time I attempt to travel from Cambridge to Paris...

Outside on the ferry as we pulled into Callais, France.

Poor iPhone pixel quality disguises the true amount of under-eye circles that I had.

Struggling opening a bag of flips.

The moon over Callais. 

{noteworthy pictures}

a blurry picture of JWT as we crossed from Dover, UK to Callais, France via bus and ferry. 

It was 3 am.

Voltaire's body. He's kind of a big deal. 

Monument to Denis Diderot. He invented the encyclopedia. He is also a big deal. 

JWT and I in front of my FAVORITE building in Paris- the Hôtel de Ville. (town hall)

Louvre sky-light as we waited in line the morning New Years Eve

Living in Paris means you find little plaques like this all over. 

It's a pep-talk to the French people during WWII. I love it. 

Inside the Paris Opera House.

Inside the Paris Opera House.

Ceiling inside Paris Opera House. Absolutely stunning.

Bibliothèque Nationale de Mazarin. 

Oldest Public library in Paris. 

And the hardest public library to get into in the world. 

Homeslice and I spent time there studying. 

And by that I mean HE studied/researched/worked and I facebooked.

Jon and his diva card aka US Passport.

{meredith in paris in december}

Some really fantastic things happened in December:

I traveled to Étretat, FR with 5 awesome ladies.

I visited this friend and celebrated Jesus' birthday with her.

Floranie is my friend and incidentally my French language partner. She is kind, gracious, hospitable and grossly overestimates my technological capabilities. She has twice asked me to help her fix up her fancy new TV to her cable and a DVD consol. Neither time was I successful, woops.

I taught 5 full 1 1/2 hour French lessons to 20+ North African women. I'm sure I made numerous mistakes, but nothing too grave.

I continued working with my friend L on English lessons. She still struggled pronouncing the English "-th" and "h" sounds and I struggled figuring out how to teach that. We laughed a lot, drank lots of tea and she fed me many many apple pastries after I told her I love apples.

I met weekly with the ladies from my team for fellowship, prayer and time in the Word together. We are going through 1 Corinthians right now.

Our team had a Christmas party at my supervisor's house and I made THIS:

Brittany, Ruth Ann and I made 12 plates filled with home-made banana bread, chocolate covered pretzels, clementines and sweet candies and gave them to neighbors in our building, our local bakery owner, and our land-lord. We gave them the plates, wrapped up in green bows along with Christmas cards explaining the birth of Jesus in French. We prayed over these plates as we passed them out and it was a fun opportunity to meet some families we've only seen in passing and to let them know that we love them and want to be active in our community and in our building! I'm praying that in the following months, with warmer weather and warmer demeanors we will be able to spend time outside of our building meeting women and girls who are our neighbors.

I met with a small group of women each representing different "sending" organizations. We are all here doing similar work with the same people group and this was a time of sharing and encouragement as well as training for discipleship and ev work. It's such a blessing to be able to partner with other like-minded believers on this side of the world!

I went to England to see Jon. We bought Spongebob drum sticks for a 3 year old friend, drank beaucoup of tea, played games with English friends, played games with American friends, cooked foods that reminded us of home and took a fairly hectic trip back to Paris via boat via bus.

Lots of wonderful friends came to visit us and spend the beginning of the New Year in Paris. We reflected on God's faithfulness to us in our present countries and his faithfulness to us throughout the year. We spent Sunday studying Hebrews together and singing songs in English in my living room and we spent New Years Eve walking through the months of 2012 sharing happy and sad memories but all that reflected the goodness of God. It was a sweet time and I'm so thankful for this time with them.

December was full and draining, but ultimately left me Full.

The Father reminded me of and renewed my joy through the advent season reflecting on the gift of His Son to humanity. I learned about Peace, about joy, and a lot a lot about obedience.

Thank you for remembering me during this time, for sending sweet Christmas cards and tweets and emails and for supporting the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. You are each a huge blessing to me.