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Over the last weekend, we had the privilege to spend some time with members of the Hmong Christian community. I had been invited to preach at their annual youth camp, south of Le Mans.
The Hmong are originally from South East Asia. Their territory covers Vietnam, Laos and southern China. But the Hmong helped first the French during the Indochina war, then the Americans during the Vietnam war. As a result, they were tracked down and many of them found refuge in the US and France.
Most of the Hmong are still animists, but many are Christians. In France, there are Hmong churches, mainly in the West of France.
We had a great time. They gave us a warm welcome. The food was plentiful and tasty. 4 mums from the community had been enrolled for the cooking. They were up at 6 am each day to prepare the meals. There were about 60 young people, including their youth leaders. If you think that’s a lot, you’ll be surprised to hear that this is a low number. They usually have about 100 and must refuse some. Same for the cooks: there is a waiting list of mums who want to help out. One reason for these big numbers is that most families have at least 6 children. Some have more. One of my friends has 10 brothers and sisters.
God’s word was clearly at the centre. Each morning, the young people were expected to meditate on a passage for 1/2 an hour before a meeting where I preached for 45 minutes at least ( I was given 1 1/2 hour). This was followed by bible study in small groups. In the afternoon, there was free time, and more Bible study in smaller groups. I don’t think French youth camps would have such high expectations. In a French youth camp, you would have much more “entertainment” and “fun”. We had plenty of fun, but that was outside of the official sessions, during the afternoon free time.
The age range was between 14 and 34. In spite of that, people mixed very well. Even our children found their place among the teenagers.
I am grateful for the experience. I was impressed by their desire to know the Lord, but also to understand His Word. It was clearly important for them, and they took it seriously, and are trying to equip the young people so that they can read and understand the Bible.
Same for the praise evening on Saturday. It was sober, the choice of song was great with a few traditional hymns and some more modern ones. They had been chosen for their words.
I’ll stop here for the time being. But pray for the Hmong community. It is not easy. These young people are the first generation born and brought up in France. It’s challenging for them, and sole feel the pull between their culture and the French culture they have been brought up with. Pray also that these Hmong Christians will be able to reach out to those who are still in darkness. Pray also for those who are still living in Laos and Vietnam and are tracked by the local authorities.

I count it a privilege to be able to travel around France. Last weekend, we were in the Deep South for a Wedding. This weekend we are in the Far West for a youth conference. On Wednesday and Thursday, we drove several hundred miles to get here, South of Le Mans. The views are so varied. The local architecture as well.

We had a lovely trip. The first part was on motorways, from Chambéry to Montluçon. We hoped to see my grandmother who live there but weren’t able to do it. For the second part of the journey, we travelled for some miles on a roads. It was beautiful. The roads were wide and quiet. Without us knowing we drove through some cultural places. We came across George Sand’s village and house and we had our picnic near the “mare au diable” which is the setting of one of her novels.

Most parts of France are very rural. You can drive for miles without seeing anyone. There are houses scattered around. You drive through sleepy villages, wondering whether you are in 2014 or 1960. This is la France profonde. It lives in the 21st century yet, it seems that many things haven’t changed over the last 40 years. The pace of life is much slower than in other parts of France. The countryside is lovely it the sea and the mountains are very far.

There’re few churches around, and Christians must be easy to drive for a while if they want to get to church. There is still a lot of work to be not here. But it is not glamorous. It needs people committed to building relationship over a long period of time. Pray for the Lord of the harvest to raise workers for the harvest.

Since we came back in the area, I wanted to visit some old friends from many years ago. So yesterday we decided to go and collect chestnut near the house where I grew up and to visit the old farmer who was our landlord at the time.
He is a widower now, and getting older : he is 83. It was good to see him and I think it was a good surprise for him. We chatted for a while. As usual, we were received in the kitchen. That’s the room where guests are usually received. We saw one of his daughters who live near us, we learned.
We had collected chestnuts before going but didn’t have much success. They had either been eaten by wild boars or there weren’t many this year.
There’s a few more people I want to visit. Well do this another time.

It is still nice and warm. We were in the South over the weekend, and we were out in the warm sunshine. Even here it has been a lovely weekend. It was already 13 degrees Celsius and the weather should be fine today. What is going on?

We’re in the Deep South for the weekend where we are attending the wedding of a cousin of mine. We are somewhere between Toulouse, Castre and Carcassonne, in the countryside. It feels remote and wild. It took us 5 1/2 hours to get here.
Everything is different here. The countryside is different. People here are different. They have an accent and strange customs. Some of them speak another language: Occitan. We even saw a couple of bilingual road signs around. They also eat differently: lot of duck product, things like Cassoulet…
It is exciting. We are exploring the Deep South of France.

Last Friday, we decided that we wanted to go to Decathlon, a sport shop the other side of Chambéry. We thought that if we left at around 17:30, most of the traffic would have gone. It would be a smooth ride. But we were greatly mistaken.
A few hundred yards after leaving home, we hit a traffic jam. We didn’t know that every Friday, between 17:00 and 19:00, the town turns into a big car park. Traffic comes to a halt as everybody tries to get home. It was horrendous. There were cars everywhere. Wherever I turned, I hit a traffic jam. We gave up the idea of reaching the shop we wanted to go too.
Eventually, we reached MacDonald’s and stopped there. It usually takes 15 minutes. It had taken us 1h15 to get there.
There was a way to get through the traffic. But we hadn’t thought about it. We’ll know next time.