Category: Daily life

Ar poull-neuial – The Swimming pool

We went to the swimming pool in Guingamp today. I must say that I am not a big fan of water, and usually avoid this kind of places. But as we say in French: “Il n’y a que les imbéciles qui ne changent jamais d’avis” We all had fun, me included. No pictures to show, as we are not allowed to take pictures there, but you can check on their website: http://www.cc-guingamp.fr/piscine/piscine.htm. It was also quite cheap. We only paid € 9,80 for the four of us (that’s about £8).

It was also a new cultural experience. The changing rooms were mixed, as well as showers and toilets. That’s the kind of things you have to do when you are a missionary. Off course, you don’t get changed in front of everyone, but go in a small cabin. Although I am a Frenchman, I was a bit surprised at first. Maybe I have lived in th UK too long.

Slowing down

Since we got married, Esther and I have lived in Cardiff and Ferney-Voltaire. Cardiff is a big city, it is buzzing, busy, and everything goes fairly quickly (although not as fast as bigger cities of course). Ferney-Voltaire was a small town, but on the outskirts of Geneva, so things were quite similar to Cardiff, always rushing around.

We have now been in Guingamp for almost two weeks now. Esther noticed yesterday that things were slower here. She is right. No traffic jams, people do not seem to be running around like headless chickens. It is a bit early to come to a definitive conclusion, but I am sure our own pace is also slowing down, taking more time to enjoy life.

My kids will always amaze me

Esther often tells me I am too soapy. But I cant’ help it. Some months ago, we tried to teach Jean-Baptiste to ride his bike without stabilisers, with little success. Today, he decided he wanted to try, so he took one of them off, and I helped with the other one. And off he went. I was rather sceptical, but I saw him climb on his bike, and he was gone, no stabilisers. By the end of the afternoon, he was quite confident. I was gobsmacked. These kids will always amaze me.

Our first Sunday in Guingamp

I did not know what to expect for our first Sunday in Brittany. Although I have been brought up in France, I had got used to busy Sundays in Cardiff, with two services, and Sunday school in the afternoon. What would we be doing? How would we make the most of the Lord’s day?

The building was full, which was an encouragement (there were a few visitors, including 9 people of Mr Higham’s family). We were blessed by Emmanuel Hartiel’s sermon on Luke 10:1-3. Then, we went home, had lunch, and went for a long walk behind the house. Our location is great. We are on a small estate, and the Breton countryside is right behind the house. So we did a loop, went throught some lovely wooded paths. On the way, a nice lady gave the children some raspberries. She had a lovely English accent, but I let her speak French for a while before telling her we’d lived in Britain until last week. Her name is Penny, she comes from the Isle of Wight. I am sure we’ll meet her again.

Then, we went home, had our tea and family worship before a quiet evening. Praise God for this first Sunday which went much better than expected.

Rencontres/meetings

I am sure you have had the same kind of experience as well. They are not unusual, but always take us by surprise.

On Saturday, I went to shop in Leclerc. Having seen a car on the car park with Cymru written on it, I tuned my ears to see if I would hear some Welsh. I quickly spotted a group of 9 people speaking Welsh. As I was pondering wether I would speak to them or not, I turned around to look at them, and saw a very familiar face. It was the Rev Vernon Higham together with his wife, his son Alun and his family. You can imagine my schock. It was great to see them. They were on their way to the second part of their Holiday, not too far from Guingamp. They took the address of the church for the service the next day.

They joined us for worship on Sunday morning. It was a pity they could not understand a word of French.
I will always be grateful for mr Higham’s ministry. The Heath Evangelical Church was the first church I joined in Cardiff, and I never moved from there. I was blessed by his preaching and grew a lot spiritually during the 2 1/2 years before his retirement. It was a privilege to see him again in Guingamp over the weekend.

On the same day, I met one of our neighbours, a lady. She has only recently moved in as well. When I told her what I was doing (an Evangelical Pastor sounds better than missionary in a French context), she told me that her son was also an evangelical christian. Praise God for bringing us to this part of town.

No need to say that after these meetings, I felt like we are in the right place in Guingamp.

We are in Guingamp

We have made it accross the channel and have safely arrived in Guingamp. We moved out on the 9th. About 12 people came to help us the lorry. It was really quick, and the drivers were able to be on their way at around 10 am. We stayed behind to do some cleaning, and some ladies from the church helped us. The journey to Portsmouth was uneventful, the night on the ferry short, as we did not have a cabin. We arrived in Guingamp on Tuesday morning, sorted out Insurance for the house and got the keys by lunchtime. The lorry arrived at around 4pm, and a van driven by my dad a bit latter. A few people from the church here came to help unloading, and we were glad to get to our beds that night.

So here we are, settling down. We were cut from the world for about a week with no phone or Internet. But we are now back online, much quicker than expected. Orange had told us it could take about two weeks, but we got the Internet much quicker than that, about 5 days. Keep checking the blog regularly in the next few days, there’s more to come.