We had a meeting for our French association in France last week in Marseille. It was fun to meet and interact with other workers stationed in Marseille and Lyon. Here are a few pictures from our day there:
Tina (pictured on right), from Switzerland, is volunteering with our team for a month. It has been fun to have her around!
Marseille is the largest city along the Mediterranean. It was my first view of this body of water, and it was a rare day in Marseille without a ton of wind. Perfect for taking a stroll by the port!
This monument was created out of the leftover scraps of the Eiffel Tower. If you can't have the tower itself, I guess you might as well take the leftovers?
Our team during our hike.
It was annual team retreat time last weekend. Our whole team along with a couple volunteers headed out to the French countryside to learn from each other, determine our thematic goal for the next year and just enjoy each others company.
**A brief language point**: There isn't a precise French word for retreat. According to my French teacher, "a calm place in the countryside" is the complete phrase needed to describe a retreat. If you said, "Je vais à la retraite," you would actually be saying that you were going to retire :).
An ad for McDonalds in France.
One theme that came up again and again was contextualization. Missionaries have sometimes gotten a bad reputation for forcing their ways of doing things on the indigenous people of a culture.
Here in France, we don't want to merely import the traditions of our home cultures or, in the case of a church plant, coerce the French into worshipping our way. Our message (the Gospel) doesn't change, but the way we share it changes with the context (in our case, French culture).
McDonalds has been very successful in France and is a great example of contextualization. While the trademarks of McDonalds (like fast service, economical prices, etc.) haven't changed, the restaurant chain has changed parts of its menu and advertising to fit the culture.
In the advertisement above, you might notice that the sandwich is served on a baguette instead of a bun and that there is a menu called "le casse croute" (a tradition of the French of sharing a snack or small meal together). These small things have helped McDonalds make its successful entry into French culture.
One of the ways that we practice contextualization here in France is by serving our city through our French association called Connect. Social justice and community are important cultural values and one way that we can show Christ's love in tangible ways. By connecting with people through serving, hosting events and sharing meals, we can provide a picture of the Christian life that makes sense to the people here.
Our retreat wasn't only just serious sessions and goal setting. Check out the photo album to see our team having a little fun.
Being silly with friends in front of the Capitol building.
When you think of France, what image pops into your mind? Maybe a Caucasian man with black hair and a moustache. He is dressed rather formally and sporting a beret. And is that a baguette and a bottle of wine in his hands?
While there is some truth in these French stereotypes, France is much more diverse than you might think. The phrase
tout le monde means "everyone" or literally "all the world."
In the short time that I have lived here in Toulouse, I have met people from the following countries:
- Syria
- Egypt
- Spain
- Mexico
- Honduras
- Greece
- England
- The Netherlands
- China
- Hong Kong
- Germany
- Japan
- Poland
- Mongolia
Over the course of my two weeks of language school, I have only encountered one other native English speaker in my class. The class is taught all in French, but during the breaks, we tend to speak English and Spanish among ourselves. My current classmates come from Chile, Egypt, Greece, Mexico, Spain and Syria. I'm loving the chance to learn more about my fellow students and their cultures. What a beautiful and multicultural city I live in!
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