My Neighborhood....MY neighborhood....my home

I had a realization the other day that "Centre Ville" Marseille has become MY neighborhood. I was walking home from lunch and along "Rue d'Italie", my street, I was able to say hello to 4 people that I recognized on the street! Store owners, friends, and restraunt owners.

When you first move to a new place, whether it be a new neighborhood, a new state, or a new country, you can feel really lost. I know that when I moved here, knew no one, and didn't speak the language, I had moments where I felt very alone. Being a person who surrounds herself with friends and family, I was a little sad to find myself home on a friday night with nothing to do and no one to call! But how happy I am now to realize that I can walk down my street and see people that I know and who know me!

Also, the lady at the cafe where we hold English Club, which is right around the corner from my house "bisoued" me the other day. A "Bisou" is a kiss on each cheek. This is the way you greet friends or friends of friends. One day I dropped in to the cafe just to say hello and she stopped her work to come say hello and give me a bisou! It made be really excited!! The sign of acceptance was so COOL!

I am so blessed that even though God brought me here to a place where I know no one, he has brought so many people in to my life and Marseille has become my home.

I'm Sorry....WHAT?!?

Ok, so sometimes when you are in a different place, you see things that don't quite make sense to you. Well try this....

As I was passing a pub that is right down the street,
I saw a man who was already inside,
come to the front door,
crack it,
lean outside,
light his cigarette,
and then walk back inside to exhale a large puff of smoke!

Isn't the point of going outside to smoke the cigarette? not just to light it? And why didn't he just light it inside?

Guess I'll never know! haha

To Yahweh

In January, I went to a conference in Germany and was able to share some stories with other people who are doing jobs very similar to mine. It is always very encouraging to hear others struggles and victories and hear how similar they are to your own. But I thought this was one of the more interesting stories....enjoy.

A couple of our friends, also living in France, have recently been meeting a lot of new friends. During a discussion with one of their new friends his tattoo came up. He has a tattoo on his forearm that in Hebrew says "To Yahweh" which he explained means "Belonging to God".

The new friend turned to my friends wife and asked "Does that bother you?"

"Excuse me?" She was a little confused cause she had never been asked that question.

"Does that bother you that his tattoo says he belongs to someone else? Shouldn't it say he belongs to You?"

Hmmm, So I ask...

Who do you belong to?

Movie Night

So we had an English Club movie night. It was our first one and we had 8 students come. We showed the movie on the projector at Del's apartment and had lots of snacks. It was a good night.

We showed Shawshank Redemption in english and then we had a discussion about the movie afterwards. We discussed the theme of the movie, reviewed any words that the students didn't understand, and went over the meaning of the word redemption. The meanings given for redemption by the students were "its when you are forgiven for the bad things you have done" and "its like what Jesus did for us". Pretty good answers I think!

Del settin up the movie

I told you we had snacks!

French food!

So I'm a nerd, but here are pictures of the food from the party! The party was catered and they did a GREAT job with the food. Enjoy the marvels of French cuisine.

The "spread for the day" A lady with a ham dress, some kind of fish jellied pate thing, vegetable flan, and this dish I can't remember the name of (a chicken leg, where the skin was carefully peeled back, the meat removed along with all but the end of the bone, then the mean was mixed with vegetables and put back in the skin. It is cooked and then sliced.)

Yes Ladies and gentlemen...that is ham and butter!

Impressive huh?

The cakes...these were made out of cream puffs...

and this once was chocolate! mmm

HALLOWEEN

Well here they are! It took long enough...but here are the pictures from our Halloween party! We had a GREAT time and the man below us didn't get mad at us. In fact one of our neighbors said "Did you guys have a good Halloween? Your party was very calm." Phew!



The Apartment




The Spider



Graveyard Cake...Myriam did the footsteps!

Samira, Me, Nadjate

Bruno, Lea, Stephane, Me


Katie "forgot" her costume, so she borrowed part of Brunos

All the costumes

Katie, Kristina, Marianna, Manon

A devil, a dead prisoner by the electric chair, and a scary lady

Stirring her brew!

Uh...Scary!

Carving pumpkins, as you can see, we found one orange one and the others were this weird peach color and had wart lookin things all over the skin. oh well!

Lea and Benjamin

Right after this picture was taken, Bruno acted like he cut his hand with knife. He even used fake blood to scare us!

Before the face was carved

Katie and manon degutting the pumpkin

"Jack" and "Two Face"

All the pumpkins on our mantel!

ooooooohhhhhhhhh

Del was football player

Kristina with Somebodies cool mask! oh wait....

And the winners of the Jack O' Lantern contest...and me, I didn't help.

I dont know....


Benjamin impressed us with his card tricks!

Adrienne and Lea

Videos from Open Mike Night

Well here are the videos. I hope you guys enjoy them! Thanks for your prayers as I worked toward this night! :-P

Teardrops on My Guitar

Bubbly

Hallelujah