Happy Thanksgiving!!! (Sorry it's a little late.) Being in France (with a French host), I didn't have the opportunity to take part in a Thanksgiving celebration. I did manage to keep up an annual ritual of mine-- a special edition of praises and thanks in my personal journal.

This Thanksgiving, my team and I are especially thankful for God's protection over us. We had quite a scary incident last Sunday night while on our way to meet our playdate hosts. We were in a not-so-nice section of Marseille (France), stopped at a red light, when suddenly, a man with a scooter helmet ran up to the front passenger door. At first, I thought he was just a hoodlum begging for money, but that quickly changed when he opened Valerie's door (which unfortunately was unlocked), ripped the purse she was wearing diagonally across her torso, and took off, leaving us in a state of shock and unbelief. It happened so fast-- in a matter of 5 seconds, I would say. I don't think we really could have done anything. Unfortunately, our Marseille friends say this is not at all an isolated case. Nevertheless, it was very scary and as you can imagine, we're still a bit on edge at times.

Fortunately, Marseille is one of two places in France with an American embassy and Valerie was able to schedule an appointment and has been issued a temporary passport, enabling us to continue crossing borders-- especially important since she, too, is flying home this Christmas.

Also, Friday, we received an unexpected call from our office. They were off for Thanksgiving break but our treasurer wanted to get a hold of us right away to fill us in on some wonderful news. Word had gotten around within our ministry quite quickly and our brothers and sisters responded right away. Enough money was being set aside by "anonymous donor(s)" to be able to recover all our unit money that was lost (since Valerie was keeper of our unit's finances)-- a total of over 500 Euro-- including money that was set aside to help cover our petrol costs to get us back to Germany at the end of mission.

We were in total shock-- a pleasant kind, this time. We have been so blessed by the generosity and prayers of our brothers and sisters around the world-- especially since most of our co-missioners barely have enough money to make it through the week. We are very very grateful for our family of God.

Thus ends this edition of my special Thanksgiving blog. God bless and protect you all. Love, Amy

Thoughts of becoming a nun...

We spent three nights in a convent Monday-Wednesday night. St. Dominique Convent in Albi, France. It was the first place in France we stayed in after leaving Spain. As I wrote last time, part of me dreaded our return to France. But staying with those sisters impacted me in a way I don't even think I can fully explain.

I was so touched by the outpouring of God's love these sisters lavished on us. I didn't even care about the language difficulties all that much because they just accepted you as you were and sought to see you as you were whether or not you could communicate it through words. one sister, Sister Henrietta, asked me if it was hard to adapt to all the changes going from country to country-- adapting to the people, the climate, the food, etc. i told her (in my very broken french and with some help from another nun who could speak a bit of broken english) that it wasn't hard that hard for me to adapt to people. but the hardest thing sometimes is adapting to the languages. you know what she said/did? she looked me right in the eyes (and i felt she was looking into my soul) and said "no. the language is all the same. you can see it in people's eyes." and she just really took me under her wing, i felt.

all of them were so wonderful. by the time we left on thursday, we exchanged a lot of hugs, kisses (bisous) and tears. i was so greatful for the impact they had on me-- their love for me-- God's love for me. but i guess they were impacted too and many said that i was a joy for them and told me to come back soon. one nun from Guadulupe even pulled me aside to ask me if I was going to "continue". "Yes," I said. And she looked at me deeply and said "No, I mean, continue with us. Think about it. I'll pray about it."

funnily enough, that morning and the night before, i thought "Lord, I don't want to leave this place." At one point, I was even crying as I said that over and over to Him. So to hear that from the Sister kind of shocked me a bit. You see, i think I would actually be perfectly happy there. Perfectly happy being a nun. What could be better (on earth) than spending your whole day communing w/fellow believers who have an undivided heart for the Lord-- spending your day focused on the Lord-- listening to Him, singing to Him, sitting w/Him-- just enjoying Him. It just sounded so good-- to be that free from the cares of the world.

But I cried because I felt like I had to leave. That though I would be perfectly content there, my call was different. Interestingly enough, the Sister who was in charge of the place, Sister Paul said to me "You are an inspiration to us. You have given your lives to the Lord. He calls each one of us to something different." I guess my call requires me to be "in" the world (but not of it). Even though I don't neccessarily want to be in it, I think I'm called to affect the world in a way that's slightly different from the lives He's called those sisters to live. Still, I want to live as they live-- in such a way that I would be so close to the Lord and so filled with His Spirit that He just oozes out of me and every life I have an encounter with would be touched not so much by my love, but by His love. 'Cause that goes deeper than any human love. I know it.

Dining out in Spain...

This was it-- our last night in Spain. Tomorrow, back to France we go. We'll be in Marseille for a couple of weeks, I think. Tonight, I went out to dinner w/Valerie just 'cause it's nice to go out to celebrate before having to leave a country, I think.

Dinner was very interesting. They had a special menu where you choose two "entrees", you get wine or water, and then dessert. I chose "salmon with dill sauce" as my first entree. i thought it was going to be cooked salmon. it wasn't. sorry, sashimi lovers but i just have a hard time getting down raw fish. raw meat of any kind to me just grosses me out a bit. occasionally i can do prosciutto because it's so thinly sliced but it's still not my favorite thing. then came my second entree: "steak with garnish". The "garnish" was a roasted tomato and a couple of roasted scalloped potatoes cooked in garlic butter, I think. The steak was really thin-- not my preference. There are some foods I really miss in the States-- steak is definitely one of them. Few countries do nice thick quality steaks like the way we do it in the States. I also said to Valerie "Aww...I have an A1 craving now!" I miss that stuff w/my steaks. Ah! Then came dessert-- hee hee. Our choices were ice-cream (chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla-- nothing exotic here), pudding (no choice in flavors), or cheesecake. I opted for chocolate ice-cream and Valerie chose cheesecake. My ice-cream looked very interesting. When they brought it to me, it looked like it had a special caramel and cream topping above a nice layer of chocolate ice-cream. But when I dug into it with my spoon, it was so hard, I couldn't get any ice-cream onto my spoon. That's when Valerie asked "Did you take the plastic off?" "Huh??? Oh!" So I thought there was just some plastic around the ice-cream part to help it keep its shape. Then another discovery: "Oh! The whole thing is covered! Oh! It's in this little container [like a plastic pot] and it's upside down!" The "topping" of caramel and cream was actually supposed in the bottom of this tiny tub of ice-cream. It's a good thing I get a kick out of my own stupidity! Valerie was looking at me like I was insane. "Well," I lamely said, "I didn't expect to be served ice-cream in a plastic container in a restaurant!" Her cheesecake, incidentally, wasn't much better. "Store-bought" she succinctly described it. Our neighbors at the next table were served their desserts shortly after us. The husband chose "pudding" (--"He didn't ask me what flavor," the husband told the wife--) and the wife chose, vanilla ice-cream. The wife, looking at her husband's dessert said, "That's more a sponge!" [They were Scottish. The Brits refer to sponge-cake simply as "sponge". Then the husband asked the wife, "How's your ice-cream?" To which she matter-of-factly answered "Disgusting" just as I was finishing up my last three spoonfuls. That was it. I lost it. I couldn't help it. I just broke out in laughter 'cause it really wasn't very good ice-cream but here I was trying to stay polite about it. So that was our dining experience in Spain on our last night out. It was still a lot of fun and it was a nice treat for ourselves.

It's a bit difficult thinking about leaving Spain to go back to France. The cultures are so different and our month here in Madrid and Barcelona was full of very special moments-- some especially close encounters with the Lord. I also dread going back to a country where I'm the mute on the team when it comes to PR-ing and host-home ministry in exclusively French-speaking host homes. Ok, I'm not totally mute. I can communicate enough to still be polite. But I've a long way to go from being able to express who I am, what my thoughts/feelings/beliefs are. I understand a lot but not enough to understand everything that goes on, so I'm left in the dark a lot of times and that makes me feel stupid and disposable.

That's the inner demon I battle with in my language struggles there. I've gotta find a way of conquering it and I don't think the answer necessarily lies in becoming fluent in the language.