Relaxing Sunday

Sunday was great. A wonderful way to end the week of craziness. We slept in, lovely. We needed it, for sure. We walked to the market and bought a few things, including incredibly amazing lavendar honey. It is so sweet, it is awesome.

Lunch was amazing. We went to the restaurant in front of the Anderson's house for a three course traditional French meal. Appetizers were loevly, and mostly all veg. And the olive oil was to die for. For main course we had ratatouille and roasted veggies, sooo good. Skot even ate the tomato- he is not fond of them. For dessert we had a half of a chocolate cupcake and a half of a creamy-fruity dessert. It was amazing. Then, all of us learned how to play boules...I won one round which was fun. Then we took some lovely photos and had a lot of fun, great relaxing last day and a chance to ask some questions we never had time to ask before. (I found a lot of kindred spirit social work types...)

Church was awesome, and it was great to be back at ICCP. It is wonderful that 4 years later and with an almost completely different staff, ICCP still has the same sense of community and love. The church they meet in is an Evangelical Reformed Church that has been around long enough to have had Calvin write them a letter. A portion of it is engraved on a marble plaque on the wall, there is a photo in there of it. The church even has a real pipe organ. We sang some of the songs from camp for the families who may not have went. Skot and I were ushers. It was great, we sat in the back just in case anyone came in. They keep the doors open so that passer-by-ers can look in, and boy do they! It was amazing the amount of curios people that popped their heads in, some even grabbed a seat or stood in the doorway the entire time.

After church we went for one final ice cream. We went with two of the missionaries, Adam and Tasha, and two of the interns, Erik and Danni. It was a lot of fun, and waaaay too much rich ice cream. Don't worry, we finished it. We had some great talks about what church should look like, our aspirations and goals for the church, reformed theology, and many other topics not generally discussed over ice cream. One of our main goals in the trip was to glean information from the church about their community and how they shape it. We had some great talks with a few of the missionaries to help broaden our perspective in some areas, and confirm our hearts in others. It was great to be in a community with such fluid boundaries (in a good way fluid) and such broad concepts of church. They are intentional with every person they meet, not in directly verbatim telling them the gospel, but in living it out in their interactions with them. Their circle is so large it is intimidating, but all they do is draw everyone they come into contact in with their love and respect: insurance agents, landlords, restaurant owners, students, etc. Any more on that, just come talk to Skot or I, we would be happy to share. But our hearts were opened, and I pray that the attitude that Christ has given us through this trip will not wear away or fade.

p.s.- sorry for the pics up front from previous days, i was too lazy to figure out how to take them off, but if you get like 10 in they are from this day.



france 2009