Last Sunday - French worship, fish bread and conker hunting

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This Sunday we were called to a big rapprochement of all the Evangelical churches in the area - I had been looking forward to going to our usual church service so I could at least meet some new people, have an English conversation with some of the Americans and maybe practise my dance moves.

Despite Laetitia and Cedric doing their best to make sure we left on time and avoid making an embarassing late entry at the meeting, we still left 20 minutes later than planned. So at 9:50 with ten minutes to go before the meeting and a thirty minute drive to get there, we trundled out of the house laden with coats, Bibles, children and pizza (for the buffet - the part I was looking forward to most).

Due to our late arrival we were forced to stand at the back, something I wouldn't have minded if I had at least been able to understand what was going on.Having said that I did understand some of the worship songs - it's kind of hard not to recognize the tunes of 'In Christ Alone' and 'Here I Am To Worship' even when the words are in French. It's very hard to get into the worship though when I'm singing in a different language. I try to translate the words as I'm singing but that means I don't focus on God. I'm hoping this will change soon, perhaps the Holy Spirit could give me a supernatural gift to worship in French.

I stayed for the beginning of the preaching but seeing as I couldn't understand anything, I decided the kids' creche would be a more fun place to be. It turned out to be a very noisy and unruly place with some children making the most of freedom from their parents and running rings around the exasperated creche-workers. I had to defend the baby Gabriel on more than one occasion against a hyperactive child who seemed intent on stealing everyone else's toys.

We returned to the service in time to hear the end of it including
including the tangible sigh of relief which erupted as soon as it was over. Luckily we were standing closest to the food so managed to dive in and get some but only as much as our hands could carry because unlike British buffets there were no plates. I soon discovered some tasty fish bread which must be some kind of French speciality because I'd had it the night before at the prayer meeting. When it became too difficult for me to get to the table because of the huge swarm of people I sent the children to get me more - they do have their uses.

That afternoon after it had stopped raining (so much for Wikipedia telling me that Alsace is a dry region) we decided to go for a walk in the grape vines. I was glad to get out the house but if I'd known how long the walk would be I don't think I'd have been so happy.

The family were keen to show me what they called the Bear Cave - I wasn't sure if they were joking at first - it is in fact a cave which was used for the vine farmers to store the grapes in.

After the Bear Cave the children noticed chestnuts (I thought they were conkers) and it was suddenly as if Christmas had come early. When the family told me that they collected them to eat I thought it was a bit strange and told them that in Britain the only thing they're used for is for fights (it wasn't until Tuesday after sifting through the dictionary that I realized they were actually chestnuts). The children ordered everyone to fill their pockets and so the walk turned into a 'conker' hunt which meant we didn't get home until 8pm - I was absolutely nackered!

For tea that night we had crepes and 'conkers' - everyone apart from me seems to think they're the best thing ever - to be honest they just taste like normal nuts.

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