Today we traveled from Fiegnies to Douai for the second half of our ministry. We stopped in Arras on the way to do a little bit of touring. First we wandered through a small market in the main square, then traveled up the town bell tower to check out the view. That ended up being the setting for our traditional VISION picture! We planned to see the caves below the bell tower too, but as the tour wasn't available for a few hours we drove to Vimy (a Canadian WWI memorial) to kill some time. Luke and Danny, our two resident "Canadians", were absolutely thrilled! When it was time, we went back to the bell tower and toured the caves, which were originally used for mining but became storage areas for merchants when the ground above became too heavily populated for mining to be safe. The caves were filled with lovely sculpted garden areas as part of an annual attraction. Awesome stuff!
Around seven we arrived at Douai and met our France Pour Christ hosts, Sam and Mary; their teenage son, Florian; and their 16-mo. daughter, Esther. There are also three other people living with them who volunteer at the coffee shop they run as a ministry, L'Equitable (literally translated Free Trade). We have a huge variety of nationalities and languages here! Sam is French, Mary is Scottish, Priscilla is German, Tabea is... I think Swiss and German? And Ephraim is Swiss and Bolivian. All of them speak English to some degree, along with French and their home language. Also to be joining us soon is a German man named Heiko who speaks FIVE languages, including German, English, and French, all of which he is mostly fluent in, and Chinese, and Hindi, which he is still learning. According to Sam, learning multiple languages is required in schools (including English), but almost everyone essentially forgets all that they learned by the time they reach adulthood. This is why our French songs are so important! Looking forward to doing ministry here. For now, bedtime in the upstairs room all the VISION girls share. :)
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