January 29, 2012

Just a short note for today.  We visited L’Eglise Protestante Eangelique du Tours Nord today.  Had a nice time of fellowship and I think this will be our church.  It was recommended by three different sources from friends here and in America, so we felt it was a good fit.  One nice thing is there are four or five people who speak English.  The pastor’s wife is from Iowa!  The doctrine is sound and they are associated with France Missions.  We visited another church in November and really liked it too, but it was an hour and a half away plus 9 euro each way tolls.  So, it will be an occasional visit, not something we can be a part of regularly.  Churches here are different from what we are used to, but as with everything else, we are just looking at it as different and an adventure.  Some things will take time to get used to, but I’ll just appreciate more what I have at home when I’m there again J So, here in Tours Nord which took us 15-20 minutes, the singing was nice, piano and guitar, they use power point, so we can read along and sing.  They had all songs we knew, both hymns and camp choruses and that were originally done in America, they just translate them and try to fit the words in.  The lady who does the playing and translating to power point is Irish, so she is making songs work in French that she knew.  One I remember part of the words:

How great is our God

Come sing with me

Translated to:

Dieu est son grande

Nous chantons

We also did How Great Thou Art, which was neat.   Then the message had the verses and the points on the screen so with our handy dandy itranslate app and my English/French parallel Bible, we got most of the message about Gideon.  Ross put it well when he said understanding the spiritual language already helped us with the real language.  We actually think that this will help us learn the language faster than any other way, even our language school.  Especially singing songs we know the tune already!  There are about 45-50 people which is a nice size for us. 

Then home to install a shower handle kit that stays on the wall above your head rather than one where you just hold the sprayer over you in the tub. Yea for progress.  We cooked a nice little dinner together and had a relaxing Sunday evening, complete with Skyping Ross’ parents( A first) We laughed together and it was nice to see each other even with the hiccups in service when faces would freeze.  We’ve been Skyping the kids too, so I am really going to like that!!