La Fête pour rendre grace à Dieu: AKA Thanksgiving

Hello Everyone,Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. And in case we missed anyone back in November, Happy Thanksgiving! Ok so our pictures aren't as interesting as usual, but we have been getting ready for and taking exams over the last month, so we haven't had a lot of time to do anything but study and go to school and of course all the other things in "normal" everyday life. I have to ask myself the question though, is our life really "normal"? I think not! However, normal or unnormal, we are grateful to God for all he has done in our lives and all that he blesses us with. He is so faithful even when we are faithless. And by the way, we did pass our exams. Kristen got a "good", and I got a "good enough" grade. I was a little annoyed, that I didn't do as good as I wanted to, but maybe next time will go a little better. Our proffessor is very pleased with everyone in class, and their effort on the exams, so I guess that means something.

Anyways, we spent a nice Thanksgiving here in Albertville with all of the other missionary families. We had a huge "Turkey Day" known to the french as an American holiday by the name of "La fête pour rendre grace à Dieu" which translates to The festival for giving thanks to God. And yes, they do drag everything out here. Even the names of our American holidays. But it's not so bad, the french people are very kind and usually open to American traditions. It is true that a lot of people here need Jesus, but the people here are not as rude as they are made out to be. I am not speaking about the Government that is a whole different issue!

Here are a few pics of our Turkey day, and also a couple of pics of our early Christmas presents. If anyone knows Kristen very well, you'll know how important a Christmas tree is to her. So this year I went all out and got her the biggest and best Christmas tree I could find!

Later,

Joel and Kristen


Ok, so it's not the biggest or best tree you've ever seen, but I say it's the thought that counts and it gets the job done but Kristen begs to differ with me on the subject. Hey, at least it's decorated! Along with her beloved Tree, Kristen is sporting her old Navy gifts from her Mom and dad, and you may also notice the bag of Hershey's chocolate chips she is holding sent from her sister Tammy. Yum, yum, chocolate chip cookies here we come! I know, we are a little too excited about chocolate chips.

Here is one of the sacrificial Turkeys that we enjoyed so much. There were probably around 75 people in total. So I think this guy had about 8 more cousins hit the chopping block at Le Boucherie. (aka: the Butcher)

Kristen says that this is my early Christmas, birthday, next Christmas and next birthday present. I really don't think she's kidding either! She's hoping she will not regret it now that she's been hearing me play Feliz Navidad a couple of times during the Holidays. Thanks Kristen!


Here we are right after our Turkey Day meal. I think the tryptophan from the "turkey boy" and his cousins is starting to kick in. It looks like we were struggling to keep our eyes open. Oh yes, and please, no fat comments!
Thanks to Larry and Cathy (aka Mom and dad, the inlaws, the outlaws, etc) I am able to sport the latest Old Navy Fashion while being in the heart of France. Another early Merry Christmas present to us. Thanks! We love ya'll.

I"m Dreaming of a White Thanksgiving?

Bonjour tout le monde,

I know it's not Thanksgiving anymore, but Happy Thanksgiving anyways. We actually will not even even celebrate until Saturday. We spent thursday in school all day, and it actually snowed a little in the morning and we were happy. Then we woke up friday and all was white! It continued to snow to the tune of around oh I don't know 18 inches. I know for you northerners its not that big of a deal but that is a lot of snow for us southerners. Anyways here a few pics of our first snow here in Albertville. It's supposed to snow for another 2 or 3 days. Too coooool....

By the way, our french is getting better. We have our days that are sometimes frustrating and we realize just how difficult it is to learn a new language within such a short period of time! Anyways, we won't be doing anything to exciting in the near future, except for maybe around Christmas, but you can check back and see how we are doing from time to time. Oh and yes to Holley with your comment. All the cool things we are getting to see and experience here does make the wait to Cameroon a little bit easier.

A tout à l'heure



I promise this is not rigged. I have never seen a sign so happy that it snowed. :-)


Sorry the pics are not in any order. This was taken about 3:00pm when the sun started breaking through the clouds. The Savoie region that we live in is such a beautiful place!

Kristen and other students warming up during our Friday morning worship time.

With a few ingredients and and little help from God with providing the snow, Kristen made some delicious snow cream. Yum Yum...

Joel and the Giant. Matt is a fellow student who hopefully will stay in France after his studies and work with youth. A really great guy, just not someone to stand next to when your trying to look tall.

This was right in front of our house at about 7:15am. We were really excited. I know we are silly.



It was still coming down at 10:30am. We spent our whole 15 minute break playing in the snow.

I guess it would just be easier to walk!!!

"J'aime Paris" ( I love Paris )

Ok, as promised here are a few photos of your two favorite missionaries "suffering in France". Ok, we are not exactly suffering and we really love living here and we love having the opportunity to experience a little bit of Europe while learning french. We are truly blessed! Paris is an amazing city and a wonderful place to spend our 5th wedding anniversary. Yes it has already been five years! We personally really loved Paris and there is so much to do here and so much to see and experience with the history and beauty of the city but so little time to squeeze it all in. Here are a few highlights of our anniversary trip!



Sacre Coeur was an interesting place. It was a bizarre experience in that it reminded me of the story where Jesus went throught the temple and turned over the money changers tables. I believe he said you have taken a house prayer and made it into a den of robbers. I guess that's kind of what it felt like with all the tourist shops and prayer candles for sale for 2 euros a piece that you could buy to pray to a saint. There are somethings about the place just didn't seem so sacred anymore.

The Eiffel Tour is a lot bigger than it looks on television and pictures!

I guess you can never go wrong with a little Van Gogh. This was in the Musée d'Orsay. We also saw the Mona Lisa and tons of statues at the Louvre. The Louvre is probably the best value for money, but I really liked the Musée the best.

What do you expect? We were celebrating our anniversary! :0)

The Arc d' Triumphe was actually more than just something to look at. You can actually go to the top and have a great view of Paris or check out artifacts from the Napoleon era.

"Riots"

As far as the riots go, everything has pretty much calmed down. It was a very bad situation and a lot of people were affected and some people even lost their lives. Thousands of cars were burned and many schools and business's were destroyed. I'm sure many of you have seen a lot of news on the subject, probably more in the states than here. We were not affected by the riots in any way, but it is kind of interesting that we had just left Paris the day the riots began. We were actually staying fairly close to the suburb were the two young boys were killed while running from the cops. The violence spread to many other cities and two of which were within two hours from where we live. Hopefully now, the government will begin to take a look at some issues, but more importantly that the church here in France begin to address the situations and the spiritual conditions of the nation.

Thanks to all of you who expressed your concern for our saftey during this time and prayed for us. Please continue to stand with us and ask God to do a miracle in this country. France is a very beautiful and wealthy country, yet very poor in Spirit. We really need God to move in France!

Also please continue to pray with us as we learn french and prepare for Cameroon. Pray that God will give us wisdom and direction as we make certain decisions for ministry in Cameroon. Thanks again to everyone and please feel free to write or comment anytime.

Love from,

Joel and Kristen

Long time no update... Désolé (Sorry)

Hello everyone and yes it has been nearly three weeks since we last updated. But I guess it's better late than never. It's been good to hear from everyone and read your comments. We hope that you will continue to check back in the future and leave more comments. We love hearing from everyone!

"Moving Mountains"

This morning at approximately 4:40 am Kristen and I were suddenly awakened as our apartment shook back and forth for about 5 to 10 seconds. Still dazed and confused from our slumber, we didn't realize that we had just experienced our first earthquake. I'm sure there are plenty of people who have gone through larger earthquakes but when you have never been in one they can be quite scary. After 30 minutes of my investigating possible scenarios like planes crashing or boilers exploding, I had come to the conclusion that we must have just been in an earthquake. Then right after we laid back down to "faire un grosse matinee" or sleep in for you english speakers, there it went again. The aftershock was nothing like the original quake which I later found out registered a 3.71 on the richter scale, nevertheless still a bit scary for us. There was obviously no structural damage to anything and it wasn't even big enough to make the news I don't think but I will say that it did provoke some thoughts in our minds. I can't imagine what the people in Pakistan felt about three weeks ago when around 40,000 people lost there lives to the devasting earthquake. It makes us realize just how quickly things can change and how little control we actually have over our lives. Without warning we were totally out of control. We felt helpless. Today we are grateful that we serve a God who takes care of us and tells us that we don't have to have everything under control in this life. We just need to surrender to him and trust him completely.

Thanks to everyone who has been posting. We love to hear from all of you. Keep checking back for new posts. If anyone is interested, we had the opportunity to go to Paris and we will post a few pics from that trip. Keep in touch.

Joel and Kristen

La Belle Etoile

Pictures of our recent hike on La Belle Etoile. This is about a 15 minute drive from our house, then about a 2 and half hour hike of the mountain. You can see Mont Blanc which stands right at 3,800 meters and sits on the border of France and Italy. You can also see the city of Annecy which is about 45 min drive from us.

"En Classe Nous Parlons en Francais"

"In class we speak in French" is supposed to be the rule now after 1 month of class and we pretty much stick to it most of the time. However, there are times when you just can't find the french or maybe you brain has been "french fried" as I coined the phrase. It was good to be able to begin the year with already having some french and we are are learning a lot, but now we realize how much french we do not know. It can be frustrating at times but we will prevail. We have a total of 11 people in our class from different countries like Australia, South Africa, Germany, USA, and Brazil who are all at different levels of french. Class is very often like a roller coaster ride. Sometimes you get everything and you feel like your at on the top of a mountain, then there are times you feel totally lost and everything seems downhill and you will never be able to speak at the level you desire. However me being the optomist I am, I believe our comprehension and speaking has progressed since we have been here. Also you have to remember that we are trying to cram about 8 years worth of language learning into 10 months. Maybe we should have learned to speak english correctly before we started trying to learn french!

"Bon Anniversaire" Happy Birthday"

Happy birthday Mom! We can't wait to see you in April. Have a Great Day!

Flower in the Night

This has absolutely nothing to do with anything, except the fact the I like the way this picture turned out. I thought I would share it with all the other aspiring photographers out there. By the way, in french the person who "takes the picture" ( prends le photo) is called the Photographe, and the camera is called "un appareil de photo".

Lac D'Annecy and the Ville

Here are couple of views and the Ville of Annecy along with a couple of nice views of the lake. I don't think you can see it in these photos but they often have 50 or more people paragliding at the top of the mountains. We will actually go back to Annecy this Thursday for a school field trip designed to practice the french we already learned!

The Best "French Fries" of Annecy

I love this picture. I took it in city called Annecy which is about a 45 minute drive from Albertville. Annecy is a really neat city that boasts about its fine french cuisine like Tartare and the fact that it has the purest and most beautiful lake in all of France and some say all of Europe.

Notre voiture d'occasion (Our used car)

This is our ticket to freedom in France. We got a really good deal on this car and we really feel it was a great decision for us to go ahead and get a car. They don't have a transportation system here in Albertville, so we would be doing a lot of walking if we didn't have this. Also it gives us the freedom to travel about the France and other parts of Europe when we have time. Many thanks to everyone who helped us be able to have a ride. By the way it is a 1996 Renualt Megane. A very popular car here in La France.

At the top of Conflans you will find some of the actual fort and canons along with a little park to hang out and have a picnic while you enjoy the amazing views of Albertville and the surrounding areas.

Here are just a few shots of Conflans. Above you have the old Catholique Church and a view of some of one of the streets in Confans.

Conflans "A Medieval Village"

This is the small village of Conflans. It rests on the side of a mountain overlooking albertville. It was was used as a fort when the french and Italians were fighting over this region. (It actually used to belong to Italy back in the 1850's. These pictures depict the entry way into the village. Believe it or not people actually live here and drive up and down the narrow roads.

Around the Village

This is called rue Gambetta. It is one of the main streets in Albertville. Along with the cool looking church we also have shops to buy almost anything you want. From internet cafe's to Boulangeries (bakeries) to clothing stores you can find everything except it is usually a little more expensive than US prices. We also have stores that would compare to Super Wal-Mart and local grocery stores.

The Kitchen View

This is a nice little view we have while eating breakfast, lunch or dinner. Right now it doesn't get dark until around 8:00pm becuase they do daylight savings time here as well. This picture was taken around 10:00 or 11:00 am. It has actually only rained one day since we have been here but I expect that to change.

Our Apartment Building

This is a limited view of the side of our apartment building. We live on the top floor while two other single people occupy the other two apartments. We have a terrace with shutters we can open and close. The view from the terrace is in the previous picture.

Above is the view from our terrace. We also have a nice view from our breakfast and kitchen area as well. We are so grateful to actually have an apartment here in Albertville. We have a really nice situation being that we are not off campus but it feels like we are. The other families are in the family building connected to the school while som are off campus about 10-15 walk away.

Bienvenue au Albertville

Hello to everyone from the beautiful city of Albertville, France. As most of you know, we will be here in the Southeastern part of France learning french for the next 10 months before we continue on to Cameroon. Many thanks to all of you who helped us get here! We are new at the blog thing, but will do our best to keep you updated. Check back from time to time and see what's been happening with us.
Au Revoir