Vichy, France

Continuing the stories from the after travels....

On June 2, we left Switzerland and head up towards Paris. On the way to Paris we stopped in a little town called Vichy. The train ride was interesting. We didn't have reserved seats and I ended up sitting with the luggage on an in-between car spot. Right next to the WC. And the door wouldn't stay shut. So every time it slammed back and forth, people kept glaring at me. But it was fun! We did switch things up a bit and finally managed to grab seats as people got off. When we got to Vichy, we were hoping to spend just a couple hours exploring the town, but when we got there we discovered that the next train to Paris didn't leave for several more hours. We had a great adventure attempting to find a place to leave our luggage, since there wasn't any place at the train station. It took us a while, but we found a cafe that would let us leave stuff there for a while, and after that a presbytery. At the presbytery, one of the ladies kept calling us the "Obama girls". Finally, we developed a great plan where Hannah and I would wait in the park with the stuff while Jenny and Courtney went and explored. Then we switched.

When Hannah and I went exploring, we came across a really neat church that was decorated in the "art deco" style. It was super cool. Hannah was able to read me the various names of the saints, and we followed the passion story around the church. There was even a giant picture of Jesus that has something like sequins on it! And for whatever reason, the main alter has the crucifix with a serpent on it.

We also managed to find a beautiful park, one that made me really wish we had such things back home. We also attempted to find the natural mineral springs, but failed in the short amount of time that we had. We did find the main theater and proceeded to drool over the AMAZING program they had listed - orchestral works, jazz, blues, ballet, and a variety of others!

After eating our dinner of sandwiches and oranges in the train stop, we headed out to Paris!

On Prayer

Excerpt from "A Year with C.S. Lewis" - God in Our Prayers

An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him. But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God--that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying--the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on--the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. So that the whole threefold life of the three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom when an ordinary man is saying his prayers. The man is being caught up into the higher kinds of life--what I called Zoe or spiritual life: he is being pulled into God, by God, while still remaining himself. - from Mere Christianity

Our Daily Bread - Open Invitation

Ephesians 2:14-22 (New International Version)

¹⁴For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, ¹⁵by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. ¹⁷He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. ¹⁸For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

¹⁹Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, ²⁰built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. ²¹In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²²And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Versailles was made the capital of France by King Louis XIV in 1682 and remained the capital (except for a short time) until 1789 when it was moved back to Paris. The beautiful palace of Versailles included an opulent 241-foot-long Hall of Mirrors. When a visitor approached the king, he had to curtsy every five steps as he walked the entire distance to meet the king sitting on his dazzling silver throne!

Foreign emissaries to France submitted to that humiliating ritual to court the French monarch’s favor toward their country. By contrast, our God, the King of kings, invites His people to come to His throne freely. We can come to Him anytime—no advance appointments and no bowing required!

How grateful we should be that our heavenly Father is so much more inviting! “Through [Christ] we . . . have access by one Spirit to the Father” (Eph. 2:18). Because of this, the writer of Hebrews urges us to “come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16).

Have you responded to God’s open invitation? Come in awe and gratitude, for the God of this universe is willing to hear your petitions anytime. — C. P. Hia

You need to talk with God today,
Your heart’s bowed down with care;
Just speak the words you have to say—
He’ll always hear your prayer. —Hess

Access to God’s throne is always open.

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. —Hebrews 4:16

Voyage to Switzerland!

Now for the first of my entries about the trip:

Switzerland!

We were let loose to wreck havoc upon Europe on May 31st. That morning a bunch of met together to eat a final breakfast and have a mini church service before a couple of the mini travel groups had to grab the first bus into Venice. It was nice, but odd. In honor of Pentecost we read that section out of Acts. We all said goodbye while waiting for the bus. The first ones that were off were Kyle and Stew who were catching the city bus to go to the hotel they were going to be staying at for the next night. Then 3 different travel groups got onto the shuttle bus to the city to get trains out of there. To our unfortunate surprise, the Pearses (one of our professors and his wife) were also on that bus. My travel group at that point included Carter (Hannah Carter, but we just called her by her last name), Courtney and Jenny. Another one of the groups was also going to Switzerland, but a different section, so they were with us for the first part of the train ride. The train ride, while a little crazy since it was our first time figuring everything out, was nice. Especially as we came into Switzerland. It was such a contrast from Eastern Europe! Everything was clean, green, and nicely put in order. The mountains were spectacular. There's no other way to describe them!

We were staying with a missionary family that Carter knew from Africa. They live in Thun, which is close to a lake (though I'm not sure which one). It's a cute little town, but not too small. We arrived there Sunday night and Mrs. Dolitzsch had vegetarian lasagna prepared for us (the family is vegetarian). It was amazing! And it was our first home cooked meal in weeks! We were in the German speaking part of Switzerland, so the four children all spoke German and no English. But they were still adorable. It was no nice to be in a house again! Having a nice long, warm shower was honestly one of the highlights.

On Monday we set out to explore the sights. Since it was Pentecostal Monday everything was shut down for the holiday. It was so peaceful walking into town and doing a little exploring. We visited the Castle Thun which also had a church that dated from the medieval ages right near it. The view from both of those places was amazing! The church is actually a Reformed church now, and has a magnificent organ. Someone was practicing on it when we walked in, and the acoustics blew me away. We also explored the church museum which had various parts of the church from all the different times it was renovated. From there we walked down to the water and walked to another castle. It was right on the lake and had some magnificent views. We ate our picnic lunch there, then hopped on a bus to visit yet another castle! We stopped outside of a chocolate shop there and bought some Swiss chocolate! While exploring the grounds of the third castle we found a park where we enjoyed acting like little kids again, and a random monument to Winston Churchill, the defender of freedom. The pictures that we were able to take that day were breathtaking. When we arrived back in Thun we wandered around the neighborhood for a while before coming back to ANOTHER home cooked dinner! This time it was some different salads and grilled mozzarella cheese! The next morning we got up early to catch the bus into town and take a train to Vichy, France as a day trip on the way to Paris!

Life in the States

It has been such a whirlwind experience being back! I'm still waiting for a chance to catch my breath, which will hopefully come this afternoon.

Being the crazy girl that I am, the night I returned home, I stayed up giving gifts to my parents. I could have waited until today to do it, since we were doing a combined Mothers Day and Fathers Day celebration, but I simply didn't want to wait that long to show them what I had found for them. I was so excited while I was travelling to find things that I thought would be perfect that I kept telling them in my e-mails "I can't wait to show you what I found!!". I was just so proud of myself that I was able to find meaningful gifts rather than cheesy tourist souvenirs. Later on, I was reflecting on this, and I remembered being a little child and picking little flowers, which turned out to be weeds, and proudly presenting them to my parents as a gift that I had picked all by myself. It was with that same child-like pride and confidence that I was still giving these gifts to my parents. Regardless of the true quality of the gift, I had spent time thinking of them and no matter what anyone else could tell me, I knew that my parents would love them.

Why don't we still go to God that way?

Too often we get stuck in the rut of saying "I'm simply a miserable human being who can't do anything on my own. There is nothing I can bring to God that He doesn't already have.". That's all very true. But that never stopped us as kids. Those flowers were in the backyard that my parents owned. If they really wanted those weeds, they could have picked them themselves. But I never thought about that. I went ahead and brought them anyway. Yes, everything we have is God's. But don't let that cause us to stop bringing it to Him. How much more terrific would life be if we could run into the very presence of God saying "Daddy! Daddy! Look what I have for you!", bringing our gifts, talents, time and our very selves before Him. We can acknowledge that He already gave it, but that shouldn't keep us from running in with any less joy.

But on to other matters...

Saturday I spent the day with my high school marching band. I had breakfast at a local restaurant with them, and specifically with one of my best friends and her mom. I went to their final parade (which was always my favorite one) and saw their terrific show which helped them beat the crosstown rival bands a couple weeks ago (for the first time in 20 some years!). It was so great to see how far they've come compared to last August when I first heard them at band camp and wondered "will they really pull it together?". That evening was my good friend's grad party, and it was so amazing to see so many people I haven't seen - some of them in a year! I got to catch up and start to make plans to spend more time with everyone this week. As I was driving my best friend home, we were discussing what it was like to be home at this time of year after finishing a whole year of college. It's so different because "the old gang" isn't around anymore - everyone is off at summer activities. And so many others we've failed to stay in touch with, simply because of how busy college kept us. There's also a feeling of not quite belonging anymore. As if we're still trying to find our place in our own hometown now that everything has changed without us. It will be an interesting summer for sure!

Then today I went to my home church, which was incredible! It was so nice to see all those familiar faces and to have people welcome me back and tell me how much they were praying for me. I told Pastor Gary that his sermon was the best sermon in English I had heard for several weeks ; ) In reality, it was quite good. He was finishing his 6 month series on the Sermon on the Mount, challenging us to build upon the Rock rather than the shifting sand. Next week he'll be starting a series I'm really looking forward to hearing. It's going to be on Psalm 23 and God's stress busters that are revealed in there. It's his summer series, so I'll actually get to hear all of it!!

And now my family and I are spending Father's Day relaxing around the house. I'm reviewing over my book this for the summer to figure out how I'm going to tackle it. This is how it's shaping up:

The main goal is to read as many of C.S. Lewis's works as possible. I have already read The Chronicles of Narnia, Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and A Grief Observed. The summer list is shaping up like this:

The Problem of Pain
The Great Divorce
Miracles
The Abolition of Man
(those are the ones I already own)

Till We Have Faces
Surprised by Joy
The Four Loves
The Weight of Glory

...and we'll see how far I make it before I begin to add more than I can swallow.

I'm Back!

Well, yesterday afternoon I flew into the Toronto airport after spending 5 and 1/2 weeks over in Europe! It was such an amazing, incredible experience and it's going to be so hard to write about it to describe it! I saw so much and learned so much in that time, it's hard to believe that it actually happened!

One note - the picture on the blog is of a mountain in Switzerland, in case you were wondering.

I'll be writing several entries on the various parts of the trip as I have time, but I'd like to at least write an overview, in case you're saying to yourself "She went to Europe? How did I not know about this?" (The answer to the second question is: I was very busy and did not properly inform people that I was leaving)

On May 11 I flew out of the Toronto airport with 23 other students, Dr. Pearse and his wife and Dr. Woolsey to spend the Mayterm in the Balkans. It was part of an honors course that I participated in second semester. It was called "East Meets West" or EMW for short. We studied the develop and clash between Eastern and Western civilizations through history, with a special focus on the Balkans where the two cultures often met. It was a 12 credit course and involved reading about 500 pages a week (correct me if I'm wrong) and writing a 5 page paper every other weekend and a final 9-12 page paper (though we now have another final one to write for Mayterm). The 4 areas of study were: History, Theology, Literature, Political Science. Dr. Pearse lectured us on History/Theology and Dr. Woolsey lead our discussions on Literature. We had an overnight flight to Budapest, Hungary and we spent the next 3 weeks of the Mayterm traveling with our professors through the Balkans, visiting the places we studied. The majority of the time we were in Croatia, but we also did a day trip in Montenegro, and spent a few days in Bosnia and Serbia. We ended the trip in Venice, Italy where we spent 2 days before the group divided up. Some (meaning 2) people flew out on May 31 to head home, then other smaller travel groups went off through Europe, with another chunk flying out on June 9, and then the rest of us flew home on June 18. So I have spent a total of 5.5 weeks on a foreign continent!

During the second half of the trip I traveled with four other girls, and it was so much fun! After Venice we went to Thun, Switerzland where we stayed with a missionary family Hannah knew from Africa. We spent a few days with them, then went to Paris, France via Vichy, France. In Paris we stayed at a place called "Cheap Beds Hotel" which was actually REALLY nice. After a few days there we met up with Erika's dad and grandpa and travelled to Normandy and spent a few days with them, going to Stewart's concerts (her younger brother). Our next stop was Haarlem, Netherlands where we spent one night, then it was off to Hamburg, Germany. After two nights there we went to Berlin, Germany. There we stayed with a missionary family that was friends with Erika. From there we went to Nurnberg, Germany and stayed with a girl named Laura who become friends with Erika while she spent the past year in the US as an exchange student. Then instead of heading back to Venice we split the very long train trip into 2 parts and went to Basel, Switzerland for a night (but didn't see the city at all). Then we spent two more nights in Venice before flying out early on the 18th.

Wow. That's a lot of activity in a short period of time.

In the next few entries I'm hoping to write about, well, almost everything! But please comment with questions if you have them!