Glenn and Kathy Kendall Update #137 of Thursday-Friday September 25-26, 2008, Paris, France.
Many of you have journeyed with us for a number of years through our updates varying from a typical day to suppers to worship services and even to what might be deemed silly.
This year, if you choose to continue the journey with us (and please feel free to let us know if you would rather not receive this email), we are going to do a brief overview of each country and some of what we are privileged to see through the eyes of our colleagues in those places. Hence this email will not come every week, but will vary with our travels. Again if you would rather not receive this email, let us know to delete your name from our address book.
And for those of you who choose to continue these perambulations, welcome to the first country of our journey, France.
We arrived in France after an overnight flight. Taking the train from the airport we sped along for about an hour to one of the southern suburbs of Paris, Massy. Along the train ride, we had the privilege of hearing accordion music by one of the roving musicians who frequent the trains and after playing a number of songs they circulate among the passengers hoping for monetary remuneration.
Massy is the location of a school for teaching the French language where over the years a number of our colleagues who are heading to francophone (French speaking) African countries have studied. Not only are they able to learn French, but they also learn some of the government and business customs which have been transmitted to Africa by French colonizers in decades past.
Surely one of the great advantages of studying here is the opportunity to visit the local bakeries, which are very local indeed...easy walking distance from almost any home. And so we also walked with our colleagues who are students here, not to the closest bakery, but to another further one; maybe 10 minutes walk because we were in pursuit of a particular pastry. Aren't some people so very fussy!
Being in the role of a student learning a new language for many is often times overwhelming especially when one has a family with children to enroll in school. Picture only one of many parts of the learning curve when going through the school registration to be told in French (of which you understand not one word) that your children must receive a certain vaccination not normally given in the USA...that to do this you have to go to the pharmacy to buy the vaccine and then you have to go to the doctor's office in order to be injected with it. Being your first days in the country, you naturally have no idea where the pharmacy is located or the doctor...much less what the school official just told you in the first place.
Learning....so very complex...so very humiliating...so very mind boggling...an intricate dance of the known, ordinary, common acts of life done in extraordinarily different ways...mental gymnastics. Opening one's mind and heart to receive new ideas, new words, new procedures....very different... not wrong, but so very different that one feels inadequate, incapable, insufficient for the simplest tasks and events...always in a state of surprise and anticipation of the unexpected, the unknown, the next mistake to be made.
Life for a language learner can be a most tenuous tightrope act...enjoying the thrill and at the same time being slightly off balance...wondering if/when the fall will happen yet such an important part of ministry prep.
PRAISE: After receiving a new contact lens two weeks ago Glenn has been able to see relatively well through both eyes, this is a real gift after three eye surgeries and three laser procedures since his first retina detachment last Christmas. Hopefully he will have only one more elective surgery to implant a lens.
PRAYER: East Africa WorldVenture leaders meet here in Nairobi Thursday through Saturday, October 2-4, for sharing, prayer, learning, and preparing for future strategic planning.