{Re-blog: Line 13 Domination}

Last week my roommate Brittany and I decided to embark on an adventure which we have been planning for a while.

For some reason, we've always wanted to talk along our metro line.

We live on the very north end and have thought it would be great to walk along the streets above the underground metro all the way to the very end of the line- which is on the south side of Paris.

We set out on what turned out to be over 4 hours and 10 miles long but in the end we were triumphant!

Brittany documented the entire trip via photos and posted them on her blog which you can check out here.

Currently thankful for: adventurous roomies, sunshiney days and strong legs.

mgw

{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.

{the state of being}

At the beginning of December all of the ladies on my team were able to travel for  a weekend away from the big city. There were 6 of us: 3 journeymen girls and 3 ladies who are married. We piled up in one of the family's mini-vans and drove 3 hours north of Paris to a small village called Les Loges. Driving out of the city was beautiful because it had snowed the night before and though next to no snow sticks on the streets of the city, the countryside was covered with a beautiful white dusting! We arrived and settled into our bed and breakfast for the weekend. We had prepared and packed all of our food for the weekend and since we were the only people staying in the house, we had it all to ourselves! 

On Saturday we headed to Fecamp, a 30 minute drive through the countryside where we went to a large marché and admired our first view of La Manche (French for English Channel) We then drove along the coast to the city of Êtretat, our ultimate destination for the weekend. Êtretat is a small village on the coast which is characterized by several large arches spanning from the top of the cliffs to the grey-blue water of the channel. Monet painted several works on the beach looking out at these arches and after reaching the beach it was obvious why.

Monet's Porte d'Aval

Meredith's Porte d'Aval + crate

It was cold and windy but we were bundled up and resolved to walk to the top of one of the first arches that we saw. At the top we found a breathtaking view of the English Channel in the distance, of waves crashing below us on the shoreline and the combed back grass that had been beaten down by years of blustering wind. It was a scene out of my imagination. The older ladies decided to head back down to the beach while Brittany, Ruth Ann and I decided to walk farther over to the next hill. Once we got there we sat down and dangled our legs over the edge of the cliff, almost taunting mother nature to blow us over. I'll probably regret that decision at some point, but in the moment it was a rush to feel the wind blowing around my feet knowing there were only grass and rocks to hold onto, no guard rails or insurance liabilities. As we sat there admiring the inhibition we felt, the grey clouds parted and sun burst through onto the water. La Manche immediate transformed from stormy grey to a brilliant green-blue and we sat there together admiring the Creator of it all. At the particularly grey and cloudy point where I was at that time emotionally, it was a vivid remind of the faithfulness of my God to renew my weak passions and to sustain me forever. After 5 minutes of light dancing across the waters and the cliffs, the clouds moved again to cover the sun, but nothing was ever quite as dark as it was before. 

After such a religious experience, we climbed back down the hills to the beach, RA decided to stick her feet in the cold waters and we traipsed about the town until we decided that it was time to travel on. We stopped at a goat farm and bought gourmet chocolates made from goat's milk, drove up another hill for a view of the entire village of Êtretat and then meandered on home. We spent the evening eating soup next to a large stone fireplace, playing question games and reading 1 Corinthians together. 

Êtretat, the name of the village, is a really interesting name to me. The best I can deduce from my amateur experience with French (disguised as an undergraduate degree) would be that it comes from two different French words. "Être" is the verb "to be" while "etat" means "state or condition." The meaning that I've assigned based on these facts is that the village name means, "the state of being." 

I really like the symbolism of the village name, "the state of being." This weekend retreat couldn't have come at a better point. The end of November brought a flood of emotion from my first Thanksgiving away from home, the onset of a hard and heavy case of culture shock, and a season of distance from the Lord (always me running, no doubt) Being able to escape to the north, to let down the guard of tough skin that one must develop to cope with living in a huge city, to sit next to a fire and laugh and cry and reflect with these women, it was bliss. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that this weekend was instrumental in helping revive my spirits to continue working during December and to prepare me for Christmas away from home. 

me, blissfully next to La Manche

{gratitude}

Thank you Father for:
A labor day that was the least laborious of them all: encouraging time in the word, challenges from wise counsel, and spending the afternoon climbing rocks, swimming currents almost too strong for my arms and legs and laughter with new friends that feel like old ones.

Community driven by obedience

$2 movies at the Byrd Theater

Lebanese food so good you'll smack your momma and move to the Middle East

Provision in the form of a visa appointment 4 weeks earlier than planned! Thank you Dad for having a timing more secure and a plan more perfect than my own.

Tonight I am full. (and not just from platefuls of kafta and falafel!)

{Days}

Many friends have been wondering what our days are like here so I thought I'd sum it up for y'all.

Wake up, early breakfast, group reflection time (we are going through the book of Acts together), 1 or 2 morning talks, lunch, 1 or 2 afternoon talks, free time before dinner and after 6 we are usually done with things.

It doesn't sound like a lot but our talks range from biblical doctrine, to evangelism training, to in-depth bible study, to managing finances, to dealing with transition, grief, culture shock, conflict and the myriad of diseases that are prevalent where many of my co-workers will be going. On top of that we spend time with our teams focusing on language learning, cultural practices, and applying for visas. We also spend a lot of time in prayer. I have been more challenged in my prayer life in the past 4 weeks than I can ever remember. We spend time daily praying for our team-members in the places we are moving, our fellow individuals and families at training, the people whom we are going to live amongst, the government officials of those countries, our friends and families back home, and the churches that have commissioned us. This emphasis and application of prayer is changing the way that I look at the world. By recognizing the people I'm sent out from, I am humbled by the offerings given that enable me to move out and be obedient to this calling. In praying for the city and people I'm moving to be amongst, I realize that all of my best efforts are for nothing if it is without the Holy Spirit. God has promised that he will call all the nations to his name, but we are all privileged that he allows us and wants us to be his hands and feet on the earth. wow.

In addition to all of that, I spend time playing volleyball, running, playing phase 10 and apples to apples and occasionally doing pilates workout videos that leave me sore for days. The conversations with my new friends and family are sweet and I've come to have a loving community around me here helping me sidestep into life abroad. I sit up late with my quad-mates telling stories, occasionally we go into town to see a movie or eat mexican food or make a Wal-Mart run, but it is always so so fun. These people are the BEST type of ridiculous!

Best,

mgw

{RVA}

Friends-

I'm into week 4 of training in Virginia. I'm here along with many other families and singles for 8 weeks of training and fellowship before heading out overseas. There are about 200 of us here, including everywhere from bitty babies to 60 somethings. We are from different hometowns, decades, socio-economic statuses and personality types. Some are here with big families of 5 children, some with their spouse, some with 1 child and some of us are here single.

In all of these differences though, we have the overarching unifying passion of love for our Lord. This is a love that has been stretched much deeper than a walk down the church aisle, a decision through prayer with a sunday school teacher or even a street side profession of faith in the midst of a turbulent college lifestyle. God has captured each of our hearts and grown in us a love for a people group or nation and in obedience to that call, we go.

So I intend to post here updates from training and thoughts and concerns about the great unknown of Paris, with the intent that God's faithfulness would be written over it all. I'm self aware enough to admit that my life is not glamorous enough or adventurous enough to merit my own space on the internet but I see this as an opportunity to report back on the Lord's work in and through me here. So it's only appropriate that I thank you all who've invested and loved on me these past 22 (and some change) years. I have seen the love of Christ radiated through your affections, your challenge and your encouragement and I'm privileged to be sent out from such a community.

Blessings

mgw