Traveling Mercies? Done! – Aug 2017

Russian school

Our last newsletter described our spring trip back to Indy and traveling mercies continued throughout the summer…

In July, our intrepid Olivia took buses, planes, taxis and trains to get herself to a language school in Petrozavodsk, Russia. It is near the Finnish border – a 1700 mile trip even from the eastern border of France! While I was having flashbacks of “Taken,” she was befriending wild dogs in the park, making a video with her Italian classmate (far L) in a restaurant as a homework assignment, and discovering dill as an all-purpose seasoning. I believe it rained almost everyday, but she had a great host family set-up, learned A LOT of Russian (see the video for proof!) and got to speak at a church while seeing iconic Moscow on the way home. Putin’s anti-terrorism legislation went into effect while she was there and she was able to encourage evangelical believers there who had been fasting and praying against it. Why? Here’s the scoop for the uninformed.

Once Olivia was safely home, our Anna, who boarded with us in 2013-14, returned to spend her last days of vacation with us while we house sat in the countryside the first week of August. David completely unplugged from computer screens and relished passing his days creating music for pleasure and devouring our nephew’s first novel! I relished the peace and quiet without traffic or neighbors, drying clothes in the sun, taking care of pets, a yard and a garden and eating out on the patio everyday. With Olivia in recovery mode, I think the girls enjoyed doing absolutely nothing!

The following weekend we were invited to give our testimony and speak about the spiritual state of France at the YWAM base in Freiburg, Germany during one of their evenings open to local friends of the base. It was a lovely time of connection with about 20 people, complete with crepes. The base leaders housed us and fed us and the next day we took the scenic route towards Zurich to meet up with Tim and Sue Ellis who were in the “neighborhood” for an AIA (CRU) mission trip and to celebrate their 30th anniversary. They were married 2 weeks before we were and David and Tim were each other’s groomsmen, so it was fun to be together to mark this milestone!

Our own 30th anniversary trip was the grand finale this summer. In a newsletter 2 years ago, I mentioned that I wanted to do the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg one day. But David thought it would be too expensive since the 10 hr train trip would demand more than a long weekend stay.

And then we heard about a “Worship Vacation” offered by the Salzburg HoP – Free room and board for each day that you do 2 hrs in their prayer room, and perfectly located for sightseeing. Suddenly, a week in Salzburg was feasible! Not knowing the comfort level or privacy of the rooms, nor the food quality, we reserved 3 days there and our last 2 nights in a nice studio for guaranteed romance.

Salzburg HOP Prayer RoomThe trip exceeded all our expectations! The HoP is in a Catholic missions base that is beautifully decorated and backs right on the Salzach river. Bike and pedestrian paths pass right between the river and the HoP and they were still constructing an entrance where the public can walk in or have a drink in the adjoining café. We loved worshipping mainly in English together and praying into the river of worship joining the physical river to touch everyone passing by! Staff were busy with a leadership seminar that week, but the young people in attendance were delightful to share meals with. The icing on the cake was that our room was hotel quality, freshly renovated, overlooking the river! HoP entrance will be on the right!

After re-watching The Sound of Music, reading reviews and checking the weather forecast, I booked the 3 things we wanted to do the most in advance and David made sure we got there at the right time with as little walking as possible. I had fallen twice over the summer and couldn’t walk more than 5 min. before feeling discomfort in my foot and leg. But the city is small enough that transport is reasonable and convenient. A taxi got us to and from the hotel and Mozart dinner concert. A cable car got us up a mountain and we LOVED the Fraulein Maria Bike Tour! I unconsciously started singing The Sound of Music songs as soon as we arrived and they carried me through the week! Salzburg romance!

Now that we’re home, David is working furiously to get our new website up and running before he has to return to school briefly to orient his IT replacement.

And it is now possible to give to us on-line through the Bread of Life church website! Thank you supporters, for your generosity this summer that allowed us to celebrate our 30 years so well!!

Till next month, Angela

Blest be the Ties that Bind – May 2017

I have a good reason why you didn’t hear from me this spring – the last couple of months were spent planning the details for a trip to Indianapolis to surprise David’s parents and I couldn’t talk about it!

It had been 4 years since our last 6-week marathon visit and David’s mother in particular was feeling it. So after friends here reminded us that God cares about our family connections as much as our missional life, we overcame our own reluctance.  We decided to believe that God would cover the finances needed, that our kids and parents needed real hugs and that we could still survive 15 hours of travel with 2 layovers, jetlag and high security pat-downs. We timed it around Memorial Day weekend for David’s mother’s birthday, the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 and our kids’ move to a smaller rental in town. We limited the trip to 2 1/2 weeks in one city to keep it simple, praying that my parents would be able to fly out to see us from New Mexico.

We wrote to our intercessors in April to keep us and my parents covered and started preparing a 30 min. video of family memories to show at the surprise birthday party that also honors David’s parent’s 60th wedding anniversary this year. It was a wonderful heart exercise to go through 30 yrs of photos and videos and see the generational blessings that have come from a drama-free family of faith.

At the church, David was organizing a HOP conference for the weekend before we left. I deep-cleaned 2 large renovated bathrooms we needed to open in order to host a larger group of people for the Friday-Sunday event. We also housed a member of the team that came from Geneva. So when we got on the plane on Tuesday, we were definitely ready for a long, boring sit, reassured that Olivia had the house covered in our absence. Here’s the 10 biggest highlights:

  • The travel day wasn’t nearly as painful as before, and it was good to leave our cold, rainy weather behind. Summer arrived here only yesterday!
  • David’s mother’s reaction upon laying eyes on us was priceless, and she’d also always hoped that someone would create a memory video for her.)
  • We got to love on David’s dad, who is losing his memory but not his dignity, and made sure David’s mother was coping well as the caregiver.Leigh reunion 2016
  • In return, David’s parents rented us a new Chrysler to make the hours criss-crossing the city a lot less stressful, and I got to bond with my 2 amazing grand nieces up close and personal.
  • Rachel was grateful for our help with the last minute push to get their previous rental cleaned, painted and the basement junk cleared out, and David got a break from the work when he was given a great seatAirport reunion! and chauffeured to the race by an old friend.
  • And another friend’s mother, who was still missing her husband taken too soon by cancer, graciously welcomed us to sleep in her basement after we moved out of Rachel’s house, perfectly located to be near my parents, who were staying at my brother and his wife’s house.
  • My parents did make the trip, despite physical attacks, and were so glad that they did, and my dad got on Instagram to strengthen our long-distance connection!
  • Glasses repaired!And when I broke the frame of my glasses, my brother was right there able to weld them back together perfectly with a laser machine at the jeweler’s where he works, saving me $800 for a new pair.
  • We got to experience Rachel’s art world first-hand all together and we were treated to lots of artsy, healthy meals in funky restaurants all over town. (And David was totally pain-free the entire trip, despite not keeping to his diet!)
  • Sweet vulnerable conversations were had with several family members, local supporters and friends that don’t communicate well at a distance.
  • And finally, our spirits were also ministered to during visits to three small congregations that were pursuing real intimacy with each other and the Lord, giving us an encouraging view of a shift in American church life!

Fun news about Olivia’s world next month!

Happy summer,

Angela

Eleven Days of Celebration (in the midst of tragedy) – March 2016

With my 54th birthday falling a week before Easter, I celebrated life in biblical proportions this month – Here’s a flashback of my calendar to prove it…

17 March  – My 3-month wait for a gynecology appointment finally arrives and I leave with a year’s worth of hormones in hand for a total of $10! I am believing that all of the physical and emotional struggles of the last couple of years will soon be a distant memory!! An early birthday box from my mom provides a new outfit for the weekend!

Family corner with banners, percussion and manual activities

18 March  – The church council decided to rearrange the sanctuary to create a corner especially for all the young families so that they have some breathing room with their toddlers. I spend the morning taping down the carpet, decorating it with an Easter theme and setting up multi-sensory pre-school worship activities. This kind of project gives me lots of life!

Afterwards, I take Nadine out for lunch for our monthly quality time to celebrate my hormonal reboot and we happily bask in the warm sun on the terrace afterwards.

Carpool lunch break!Standing room only on the arena floor!

19-20 March  – We drive to Ludwigsburg, Germany with friends for Bethel Music Worship Night! Nothing pumps me up more than joining the voices of 5,000 Europeans singing my favorite worship songs with my favorite worship leaders (in English,) living out the Psalm that says, "I will sing your praises among the nations!"

Finished half bath with artificial grass flooring!Glass blocks and painted walls and stairs

21 March  – We finish covering the knotty pine paneling and stairs with paint – our dark Alsatian house is transforming! Here are the promised photos of the half bath and the glass blocks reflecting the new paint!

I open Olivia’s and my mother-in-law’s gifts – prophetic encouragements to remain joyful and childlike: sidewalk chalk, a Belgian children’s film, and a 2006 Newbery Honor book!

"Bloom" A birthday gift22 March – How dare the terrorists try to ruin my birthday (and our pastor’s trip to Africa!) My French penpal sent me a miniature spring garden that serves as a lovely In Memoriam for the victims. Our pastors got re-routed a day later. I go ahead with my plans to spend the afternoon shopping for Easter needs in Germany with Jocelyne. It is our first "girls day out" together – delightful!

Topping off the day, Nadine and Alana come by for a surprise visit with flowers and gifts – My friendship cup overfloweth!!

23 March – I get a new haircut, then bring lunch to share with Helen during our weekly get together. She gives me my third bouquet of flowers! Then I’m off to do a sozo and finish the evening with a Skype with Rachel.

24-25 March – These are big prep days for our Sat. tabernacle and Easter guests, esp. since everything is closed on Good Friday. David spends these days and more re-organizing the stage for better sound with the new sanctuary arrangement and coordinating all the details needed to make 6 groups and 12 hours of worship go smoothly for tomorrow’s event. Each year he does it with more grace!

Pierre-Nicolas de Katow, David, Samuel Olivier

26 March – Our church’s annual Purim 12 hr tabernacle.

This year we had the privilege of 2 nationally-known French worship artists doing a set since they were already in the area playing for the big annual youth conference at the local mega-church! Their drummer was sick, so David had the thrill of playing with them and I got to feed them dinner before they went back for their evening concert. The council felt that this year’s event carried more weight than past years, considering the times we are living in. With our pastors in Africa, we were proud of ourselves for carrying off this event smoothly in their absence. I was thrilled to have the energy to participate in all of it, which I couldn’t have done a week ago! It was a 14 hr day for us, so no Sunday service was scheduled after that colossal effort!

Prophetic moment for oppressed women!

Easter lamb w/roasted veggiesEaster Sunday

Olivia declares that her 20th Easter basket is the best one ever (thanks to G’ma for contributing a Serbian NT and marshmallow Peeps!)

We changed our clocks today and I almost didn’t get the lamb in the oven in time! Our 3 singles (too far from family) arrive at 4 and when the discussion turned towards wine or French literature, I feel like I am living out a scene in a French film!

We finish the evening off with a showing of The Little Prince – an award-winning French Canadian version that came out last year and is stunning in its spiritual truths and artistry! (You Americans can catch this gem on Netflix!)

He is Risen!

Angela

Out With the Old, In With the New

So many huge changes in our lives have come with the ringing in of the new year!

We are anticipating great things, even if it did start off with David and I getting a flu that kept us from being able to celebrate Olivia’s 20th birthday properly last weekend and my getting this newsletter out sooner!

So let’s start with Olivia: She finally had her interview for French citizenship this week and it was friendly, but they have a year to give her a final response. We fully expect it to happen before 2016 is out.

P1010324But her cat Gumdrop fell gravely ill just 6 weeks after Chester’s death. It fell to me to support her and have the vet put her down while David was out of town. We had been dreading this moment for years. (Here’s proof of their long and intimate relationship on the left.) But thanks to our new intercessory SWAT team, it was trauma-free. This cat was slightly neurotic and ran from everyone but Olivia, so we are thinking Chester’s disappearance, power tools and strangers in the house, combined with Olivia’s recent prolonged 3-week absence were more than her nerves could take. Now I can redecorate without fear of traumatized cat repercussions and we start the year with just one peaceful goldfish.

And speaking of renovations:

oldwcIMG_0223

Our old "water closet" is now a new half bath with a real door, sparkling white tile and green trees replacing the black mold. But 10 weeks later, the toilet is still not installed correctly and we’ve been without flooring on the entire landing. This delay has put a damper on my joy and David has reached his grace limit as well. Hopefully I can post my "secret garden" next month…

IMG_0077IMG_20151121_063531

Above was the end of the den where David’s desk was located. But it had to be moved to the spare bedroom in order to remove the old gas furnace on the L side. The new furnace (L) was installed in the laundry room (behind the above wall) and the den will have to wait its turn for a complete overhaul before we can move back into it. (David has cleaned it up and is using it as a temporary music room, at last clearing our living/dining room of all his growing gear!)

David also moved out of his office at the school at the end of the year and has been spending extra time with God trying to feel out a new schedule with new priorities. Noah followed in his footsteps, graduating in December with little fanfare and will start his first full-time job this month with Rolls Royce as a data improvement specialist.

So though we took on debt for this renovation last year, we can see God completely providing for our children and intervening to reduce our expenses this year. The government will give us a tax credit for our energy-efficient furnace. We no longer have pets with expensive health issues. We recently received free water-saving shower heads and taps. And the utility companies wrote out of the blue to say that we would be receiving a subsidy for our bills this year!

Back WC removedfinishedback

The back of the house is the most marked change from old to new and it’s no surprise that the timing matches a new relationship with the neighbors! The follow-up event was when I went back over and talked to them about our church Christmas party, but I only had room in the car for 1 child. So the night before the event, the whole family came to the door to say that they were leaving the kids with "mamie" to go Christmas shopping and couldn’t guarantee that they would be back in time for Noémi to come. She was despondent. So I offered to babysit for all 4 of them. The kids begged, saying how much nicer I was than "mamie," and then she actually pulls up and insults them with "What kind of b*s* are you kids up to?"

Sitting on the stoop with the kids draped over me, I corrected her by testifying that these kids were making me feel more loved than anyone on earth at this moment in time and then got up and went back into the house.

The parents got the picture, so the next afternoon, the kids were dropped off, meeting and falling in love with Olivia and her bestie Barbara. We made chocolate-dipped pretzels and Rolo Turtles to take to the party, did hair and painted nails. Then I took the kids to church an hour in advance, asking church friends to bring my family later. Another couple from church met us there and helped me and the oldest boy, Lucas, do some last minute decorating. He has a beautiful servant’s heart, which speaks my love language! Then my Sunday school kids arrived for a last minute rehearsal of a banner choreography of Il Est Ne Le Divin Enfant. By the time people started trickling in, we had a tree up, candles lit, hot apple cider simmering and luminaries lining the drive to welcome them.

Every year we do a variety/talent show and then have a potluck afterwards. This year the sanctuary was packed out, with a strong youth presence, bringing lots of energy and enthusiasm to the evening. Everyone had heard David testify about my autumn party and they were thrilled to see the kids there. They were like chattering spider monkeys on our laps, but easily greeting others and cheering the loudest when David and I were singled out for our contributions that evening. Their favorite act was a rap/breakdance of O Holy Night. The evening ended with a circle dance and the kids joined right in. When their parents picked them up out in the parking lot 6 hrs later, I was ready to collapse. (Sorry, David had been too busy on the tech team to take souvenir photos.) But it was so much richer not to keep the love and joy to ourselves this year! (And the bonus is that now I have the mother’s cell phone number and don’t have to knock unexpectedly on the door anymore!)

And that’s not all that’s new about the house – we used Christmas money from my family to finally buy some proper mattress support for our latex mattresses that we’d thrown into our old waterbed frame where they were slowly suffocating (and we weren’t sleeping that well either!) As of this week, they are breathing happily on adjustable and repositionable IKEA slats and we are loving the difference!

Our outlook on life has also been radically changed simply by altering the lighting in several rooms. In summary, 2016 is already looking much brighter!

Happy New Year to all of you, Angela

No More Powerlessness

I sit here typing to the happy sounds of home renovation, taking potty breaks with a brisk walk to the center of town at the public toilets, (in awe of the mid-Nov. balmy weather God has set aside for the work) and reflecting on the very emotional last several weeks.

Backing up, I mentioned last month that I was going to sozo my body issues.
Well, in the end we dealt with the spirit of misogyny coming against my body and the lie of powerlessness in my emotions. And the dominoes started falling…

Working in the church bubble, I had a powerless mindset concerning my neighbors (described here.) But after feeding on teachings for the last few years that one has to start taking risks to continue growing in faith and to see God move in the lives of others, I started getting hungry. I even asked Nadine to keep me accountable to invite the neighbor mom over before the month ended for added pressure.

Then during my Sozo, the Holy Spirit showed me the connection between my  feelings of powerlessness linked to the next door neighbors during my childhood and my current ones. With that healed, the Holy Spirit gave me with an even better plan that would not be so intimidating. So I marched over, knocked on the door, apologized to the dad for not inviting the kids over sooner and invited the mom and kids over for an autumn party on Halloween afternoon. best attic shot

I kept it simple – they were at the perfect age to enjoy playtime in my attic at 5, 7 and 9 yrs old. I bought a pumpkin for the 11 yr old boy to transform with an electric drill. Then we had a simple snack time that was completely new for them: mini pumpkin pies (made with the 9 yr old the day before,) popcorn, walnuts to shell and hot apple cider.

best toy rm shot

Apparently the 7 yr old had been praying every day that I would invite them over, ever since I made a serendipitous connection with them last Easter. So they arrived promptly with bells on, bearing colored Halloween pages. The mom was quiet and simply observed her kids having a ball without interfering. They left the attic spotless and hunted for hidden suckers before leaving. I was smothered with hugs and kisses on their departure and sent them home with the pumpkin to light and put out on their balcony so that we could enjoy it from our bedroom window that night. pumpkin

 

We had to take a photo because it was the first beautiful thing in 8 yrs that we’d ever seen in the courtyard. And just when David was finally ready to snap the picture with a long exposure on a tripod, the tea light burnt out! So I grabbed some matches and a second light and ran out back to re-light it while they were out trick or treating. It was soooo worth it because while the letter A is their family initial, it is also mine, and it felt like a living, breathing thank you note.

Other neighbor encounters have happened in the same time period: the Jehovah’s Witness neighbors across the street have never been too friendly, but I struck up a terribly frustrating conversation with the husband one evening when he was out hanging up the laundry. Turns out his wife had been in the mental hospital since August and he said she was coming home soon for a trial visit, but that there was no such thing as a miracle. I replied that I saw miracles weekly and let him know that I was available if she was interested in seeking more help.

She’s still home several weeks later and I’ve been wondering how to love a little more concretely, knowing that at least he is very wary of non-JWs. For my devotional today, the assignment was to think of an unsaved person and draw them a prophetic picture. I chose this woman and made it in the form of a card with calligraphy and watercolors. I included some chocolates and my cell phone number and popped it in their mailbox with the hope that she will be touched!

And then it was like Jesus wanted to reward me for risking love by loving me back: We actually do have one neighbor couple who actually does act neighborly every time they come out of the house to walk their dog. And one day just recently, they motioned me into their garage and offered me a used leather recliner cloud in perfect condition! Just what my body was craving now that our Salvation Army chair bought 5 yrs ago is no longer comfortable! Aaaaaaahhhhh…

And that brings us to the Paris tragedy on Friday the 13th. Sunday morning we had planned to honor the Richards for all that they brought to our church over the years. I was in charge of filling up a little album during the worship and announcement time with love notes from the church family. But when the band started playing this song, I ran in and warred against the spirit of powerlessness in the face of terrorism by dancing and spinning with Olivia, waving the French flag in the middle of the worship banners and exhorting the church to take this as a unique opportunity to offer God a sacrifice of worship during this time of grief, mocking the enemy with songs of victory! And then we loved on the Richards.

Because in the end, powerful love will always conquer death.

Love, Angela