So it is Saturday morning August 30th of 2003 and I treated myself to a 'graisse matinée' until 8h30 because I successfully finished my first month of school at the Sorbonne's langue et civilization program. You would think that by now I would be competely straightened out concerning that powerful little instrument in my mouth and of course entirely civilized now, but alas, I am not. Sometimes the fact that 'the more you know, the less you know' really takes on reality.

Two days ago I had one of those very strange experiences where I was sitting in a little chinese joint on the fringe of the 5th and 6th. I looked out the window and watched the traffic for a minute and was thinking through a fog of grammer and drowsiness. I suddenly realized that those funny looking trucks and little cars and crazy motorcyclists who drive up on the sidewalk as a short-cut were becoming familiar. So I did a quick brain search for what american cars and drivers are like. I remembered but then I was hit with that crazy question that pops up every once in a while, "How in the world did I get here, and what in the world am I doing here?"

The answers are simple: I followed the God I love and my dreams, and I am greatly profiting from my time here. Although I am far from 'rica' where all my family lives and a large part of my closest friends abide, I am equally stoked to be in a city as amazing as Paris. Everyday I see people from what seems like hundreds of nationalities. Last night I ate in the Indian quarter. As Sev and I walked up the sidewalk the city turned into a neon light show and Sarees where being sold in every other store; the markets were transformed on shows hosted by hindi speaking shop-owners. The married women wore little red dots on their foreheads and gold jewelry was abundant.

An hour earlier, I was one of two white people in a métro full of different african-origin people. I live in one of the most multicultural cities in the world.

Today I'm giving myself a break. I slept in and I'm going to talk about ministries in the area with a fellow believer for lunch (in french). I live far from what was most familiar. I now live in a world that is going to stretch me and push me to my extremes-- and its only going to make me a stronger and better person. So today if it is hard, I'm giving myself a break.

I've been discovering the neighboring arrondissements to my school. Since the temperatures have cooled down, I've taken to promenading in the 6th and 5th. A day ago, I sat in the place at St. Sulpice and watched the few tourists and the pigeons.
Its a huge square with a magnificant fountain and plenty of benches and too many pigeons. They all waddle over to a suspect and eyeball their lunch with those beady eyes. One woman tossed the rest of her sandwich over her sholder and they all blew in a torrent to it and devoured it. The birds came from every direction. Then another person across the place dropped their sandwich causing a rucus to ensue. Every bird seemed to have seen it and they flew like a herd of turkeys toward the opposite corner of the place. My hair blew with the rush of their wings and I watched as a unsupspecting Parisien got hit in the face by one of the flying missiles. The bird did a few corkscrew flips before it regained its equilibrium. The young man was smiling and laughing as was I.

Pigeons are one of the ugliest birds known to mankind. These grey, homely creatures in the late summer waddle along until they find a good spot on the cement or perch themselves on unknowning cement and bronze statues, fluff up their weathered feathers, even pick at them with their sharp lips. Then they pretend to sleep, feathers sticking up like Alfalfa's hair. Every once in awhile, a jerk can be spotted- as if he had something more than all his forelorn family, he'll dominate, attack and peck the others who may or may not have both claws. That's my analysis of parisien pigeons.

Of an easterly sunrise: 6:39am
A sea of blue, thin creamy foam in winded patterns, toasted on their undersides with firey white heat and a hint of orange...only momentary until its glory is overtaken by its creator.

wanna read about how hot it is here?

Phenomen this morning as I woke up and jumped from the shower into my clothes: It started to rain! I haven't seen rain in what seems like a lifetime of heat wave. So now we have a small luggy breeze flowing through the house and I don't get to stay and enjoy it. Instead, I'm off to fend for a seat on the RER.

So I survived another week, only to be thrust this morning into another. I am actually excited to be busy studying and learning and practicing my french. The only bummer about another week is the predicted heat.

Things I'm learning about myself: 1. If I sleep on my hair wet, it will be curly in the morning. 2. I have very high arches in my feet and must buy comfortable and, unfortunately, expensive shoes. 3. I hate to get the cash register and give up my carefully selected peaches because I don't have enough change.

so I wrote the previous post yesterday but the blogger was on strike so they didn't post it... I've come through another friday and survived. Today I met a couple french gals. One is a photographer and the other, her agent. It was a very cool contact. I'm hoping to meet Clara again some day.

The evening, as the sun boiled down on us Parisiens, I noticed a Kraft style piece of cheese being melted to the sidewalk. I passed by an Indien family and the little baby girl with wide eyes and frizzy black hair stared at me from her stroller. She must have only been about 1. A little gem was planted squarely on her forehead.

Our grammaire prof thought it would more convenient to take our test today rather than tomorrow as planned...so we did. Fortunately there was no passé simple in subjonctif. I don't know what I would have done if there had been. We spent 2 hours in the un-airconditioned phonetics lab while the rest of the world cooked outdoors in the sun.

Today I learned about the goods and bads of Franco. I'm slowly catching up on my spanish and french and german history thanks to my new classmates.

The evening, as the sun boiled down on us Parisiens, I noticed a Kraft style piece of cheese being melted to the sidewalk. I passed by an Indien family and the little baby girl with wide eyes and frizzy black hair stared at me from her stroller. She must have only been about 1. A little gem was planted squarely on her forehead.

Our grammaire prof thought it would more convenient to take our test today rather than tomorrow as planned...so we did. Fortunately there was no passé simple in subjonctif. I don't know what I would have done if there had been. We spent 2 hours in the un-airconditioned phonetics lab while the rest of the world cooked outdoors in the sun.

Today I learned about the goods and bads of Franco. I'm slowly catching up on my spanish and french and german history thanks to my new classmates.

Its been 7 months or so since I visited the coiffeur. About a week ago, I woke up and noticed a split hair... a long split hair.... with about 20 different splits in it. So I decided to gut it and go to the coiffeur here in France again.

The first time I made this enquête, I felt like a miserable failure and walked out with what the girl wanted to give me instead of what I wanted. It was frustrating and expensive and I gave up and returned to my mom who trimmed my hair for the rest of that séjour in France.

This time I started by hunting around in the little streets around the Sorbonne, my new school. Certain places advertised for student rates and so I began hunting for their prices and watching through the windows to see what kind of work they were producing. I say all this because I am quite attached to a talented hairdresser that I have in Portland- namely Jen at Salon 181. I miss that girl.

The going rate for students in spendy Paris is still 3 times what I payed Jen, but I took the dive today and met my new coiffeuse Marie. I chose a little place a block from my new school and across from a little park where they once beheaded people and just two steps from the café where Jonathan and Karen secretly met all of 4 years ago.

I took a photo along, trembling as I pulled it from my shorty's backpack as she said she couldn't "see the coiffe". Mince! I let her talk and tried as hard as possible to assimilate all the new vocab, but since I had been up since 6:30 when the glass recycler came by, and I had spent a good 3 hours in french class and the phonetics lab, my best was to follow what she said. She gave my head a good washing and quickly whisked it forward into a ponytail and wacked it off. I was a bit scared but I relaxed as I watched her mold it into a nice cut, layered around my face. The head wash was done in cold water which was quite refreshing considering its about 40 degrees Celsius, but she had to insist on styling my new head and swiftly applied her hairdryer to my rebellious hair. I thought my scalp would broil.

Voila! I have a new doo! still quite long but with all the possiblilities of "chic" to "rebel" and a new coiffeuse.

Well, the plan was to go to bed 30 minutes ago; that's changed. My homework took longer that I wanted it to- it always does, but I feel I did my best for the first time round. Tomorrow I have to be at class by 8:30 and I will spend a third hour in phonetics. When I untie my head from the headphones, I'll eat lunch and study and wait for the afternoon conference. I want to get a feel for these lectures.

I can say that after my hour of digging through the dictionary for a one-page exerpt from Maupassant, my brain is dripping with new words that I tried to "redige" back into my little notebook in complete sentence form for my new professor, Mme Vrillaud. I'll let you know what she thought of my few lines. I have a feeling that I will spend quite a bit of time digging through the dictionary, and I'm not talking about one of those French/English ones- I'm talkin' the real thing- french all the way through; so that when I don't know what a word in the definition is, I have to go and dig up its definition.

Well, we've done quite a bit of touring around these past couple days. I need to get back in the swing of bloggin'.

Sunday was a rainy day to start off but it ended bright and shiny with lots of "yellow"!! Yeah, we couldn't resist the crazed 'foule' that pressed all the barricades along the Champs d'Elysees, so we joined them. Michelle, Christina and I pressed in with a wild and diverse crowd of Tour gawlkers. Hours upon hours of standing just to see him speed by in his bright yellow jersey- Lance Armstrong! We came within a couple meters of him and watched him pull out the last 10 laps of the sprints. Among the gawlkers we discovered standing near us "Rowdy Rowdy Piper"- arms as thick as trees, gazing upon the crowd and racers from his perch on the Champs. ....Lance won for the 5th time in a row.

I've taken time to see a few sights before I launch back into school. Christina and I visited the chic department store La Samaritaine and enjoyed sandwiches and juice from the upper terrace. What an incredible view!

I hit the books on Friday at 8:30am. I am reverted to the morning schedule but I think it will work out just fine. I have morning classes and then a few seminars 3 days a week. It will be nice to be in a bigger campus setting. I hope to glean from the French culture in a new way these next few months. I also hope to get to know a bit more this grand city in which I find myself.

We're saying good bye to Sophie who has a teaching post in Austrailia. I'm sad that she is leaving; I wish I could have spent more time with her. Her flight is Monday.

"its raining, its pouring, the old man is snoring..." Some days are grey and so is the case today. We feel lazy and have been hanging around. I did get my email inbox cleaned up a bit. Now I can write another newsletter and get blasted again. So to top off the day, we're taking Christina into Paris to see the Champs d'Elysées at night. I'll take my camera and finish the roll that I started the other day.

I have decided though, that I can't keep shooting film. This must come to an end! I can't afford it. So I'll be looking for a digital camera that will be more useful here on the ministry field.

Tomorrow the chasers of Lance Armstrong will cross the finish line in Paris and I plan to be there. A friend predicts that Lance has already won and followed his comments with "vive les US!"

I did get enrolled to start my next leg of language studies. From August 1 til December, I'll be studying at the Friends of the Sorbonne.

Amazingly I'm back at bloggin'. The OIKOS team has survived another summer of evangelism, the joy and tears of hard work, and, for me, what it is like to slip back into life in France. I watched a terrific team of new friends leave on airplanes from Charles de Gaulle, but I was left here in Paris to begin another chapter of life here. Instead of going "home" to rest or return to school or work- I'm here. Shopping again for bagettes, creatively slapping together my best salsa, and considering the fall.

To be honest, the outreach was very tiring and I've decided to stay in hot Paris for the month of August. Today I go to enroll at an affiliate school to the Sorbonne to begin my studies again on the 1st. This means I will be back in school, but like I have never been in my entire life. The Sorbonne is huge. It is ancient and renown and I am a pitily american trying to learn the language they will teach in. I am so glad that I am not to be enrolled in Paris IV, but that I will occasionally receive the lectures of those profs. My courses will be advanced language learning, phonetics- lab and all, and culture and civilization lectures. August will be my running start for September. It all starts on the 11th and will culminate mid-December with exams.

So I'm going to get to experience August in Paris- and I'm grateful that today and the next couple days are cooling down. There are places to explore, classes every morning and La Rentrée to experience. I have also enlisted myself in an exercise discipline. We can pray that I will be faithful to my commitments and that I will physically benefit from the blood-pumping. Yippee!! I certainly would love to find a program a little more interesting than a morning jog, though.

So I survived my second Bastille Day in the heart of Paris. 2000 was pretty spectacular. We were seated in the front row, if there is such a thing: right up under the Eiffel Tower and just before the bridge over the Seine. We were sprinkled with the cinders of the artificial fire accompanied by a very powerful sound system that stretched the entire length of the Champs de Mars.

This year, 2003, we were again joined by the masses to view the light and smoke display. My perspective was a little different, though. I sat nearly at the end of the Champs, out of earshot of the powerful speakers and my view was blocked by that large pointy monument known as the Eiffel Tower. The show took on a new nuance as the Tower lights were exstinguished and the smoke and lights backlit the scene. They used similar plumes of sparkes as in 2000 and even the same twirly white ones that I had so admired. Our little clan was fortuante enough to take the 3rd to the last train home from the city, while our other half was separated and took the scenic route home..., at 8am. In some ways I'm jealous of the grassy sleep-over they had and the moonrise silhouetted Tower they witnessed.

I am reminded so easily how pitiful man is. Tonight, the 15th of July, God had another light show scheduled. The french are amazing architechs, and serious pyros when it comes to their independence day. But their show only reaches so far into the heavens and their fire leaves smoke, and their sound system sounds like the cheap paper speakers that get blown on the first trip out in comparison to the light show God put on tonight.

Tonight I witnessed, for free, from my own house, viewed from any window or perch with a view of the sky, the spectacular power of a living God. I started into the dishes and a few flashes of lightning lit up the clouding sky. The wind had picked up and the humidity and heat that still clings to the cobble and pavement collided with fantastic bass and frantic white light, fingering out across the sky- 20 times the size of anything we saw at the Tower. It started slow and began to gain momentum. I dropped the dishes and ran for the windows and threw them open to have a clearer view. The storm moved around the house so I went outside and joined 10 more worshipers of our amazing God and his fire show.

I can't help but wonder if one person in Chelles asked God for a sign, or if God was just putting on the show to put us Bastille celebraters in our place, or perhaps he was throwing a rave party for the angels. One can't say; but I know this- That a sky that is lit by fire that cannot be tracked, anticipated, or predicted; accompanied by bass and percussion like no other; and can be explained through scientific means, really is authored by something much much greater than any human ever has or will be. This is my God: awesome, powerful, renown, merciful, and patient.

We stayed out until the rain began to push us in, but I recovered a perch in my kitchen widows. I had a wide angle lens view of a diving lightning bolt that split at the tail and forked into the black sky. Over and over again, but never once the same. Clouds splintered one piercing beam making the lightning remind me of fishbones. Never in my life have I been so in awe of nature powered by my God.

I came to France with anticipation of seeing these lightning storms, but never have I seen one so powerful, expansive and magnificent as was tonight. I'll quote Roy on this one, "I wish my eyes had a record button."

After more than a week of long, hot draining days, the main thrust of our evangelistic outreach is coming to a close. 10 Korean Americans joined the 4 of us OIKOS girls, Jonathan and Karen (and Sammy), a crew from the church at Claye and Lagny, and a clan of Alsacans who love Jesus and play all kinds of brass instruments. We sang love songs to our Savior, talked about our God, and prayed to Him for the select lives that we would meet in the town of Chelles.

46,000 people later, we gleaned an astounding 60 interested souls, listened to Soul music, Gospel music and shared our lunch with neighborhood kids playing in the park. We trudged from door to door in 90 degree weather, trusting the Lord to direct our steps and our tongues. I admit that I have never felt so wonderfully tired in all my life.

Everyone made amazing efforts to keep the team moving forward. We were a generally calm team with few bumps in the road except that we were forced to give up one super team member, Audrey, on Thursday. She finished strong in prayer and in ministering to her hospital roommate. (It is now official that the OIKOS apartment stairs are quite dangerous and all persons must now used the handrail without fail.)

Pictures and video are available for viewing at Michelle's blogspot and at the LA Hanmi website. You can also meet the Korean team here and see stills of people that I know like Evrard and Swanson and the Hodapp family. Enjoy!

We are swinging full speed into our mission in the city of Chelles. We have a team of about 25 people, from France and the States. Tomorrow is the big day when we walk all over the town putting invitations in mailboxes. It is a crazy day and we all get very tired, sore feet.

My responsibilities are for the worship time each morning. So far we are getting in the groove and teaching a few of the main songs in french and english. Our american team is doing wonderfully as they learn to twist their tongues around the new words and sounds. This whole project of leading my team in songs to the Lord is a curious one: I am doing my best to go ahead and struggle- grow and not be perfect. I'm also challenged by coordinating a large populous of talented musicians with differing styles. I keep reminding myself that it will all work out, not to get frustrated.

Well I finally got some pictures up in a new album.

We are full speed into a 10 day mission. I hope to keep updating my thoughts. So far, I'm stoked to be meeting 10 Korean Americans from LA. They bring honest positive attitudes and fresh reminders of why I'm here for a longer time. They have reminded me of the differences and the reasons why I am struggling with certain cultural differences for the moment. I pray that I can reestablish my heart attitude and enjoy the change of pace, even though it is faster than normal.

The gromits of suburb Paris think 'bad' equals burning cars. Today, as I approached my train station for a quick run into Paris, I noted a burned garbage can. The gray plastic mini dumpster had been melted to a meer bassin with wheels.

I'm on the upswing from my cold. Yesterday's nap and long night sleep helped quite a bit.

Its been very tiring lately. I am exhausted and the heat of the sun hasn't been too helpful. In addition, nature saw fit to strike me with a timely cold and sore throat. I'm dealing with it all as graciously as possible. I have one week to recover.

I am beginning to anticipate our 10 day stint in Chelles. There is always an extra bit of energy that surges through the team when we work to invite an entire city to a Gospel concert. This time round, I am more excited to see how things have changed in the world of evangelism since I was last involved in a summer mission. We've been working hard on organization of the music, and others, like my roommate are planning the training of the entire team of 40 people.

Even with this new adrenaline pumping, I feel a personal frustration with language. I don't hear it much at home and only seem to speak it when I am outside the house which is considerably less in the last month. They say learning a language is like climbing a mountain: first, you go up and its super tough but exciting cuz you can see your progress. Then you climb along a flat place that is so dry and hot and, in my case, sun scorched; you can't see too well where you've been nor where you are going; in fact- you feel more like you're doing worse than you were a few steps previous.

Add a few wet tears to the already running nose, a homesick lump in the throat and cracked dry lips and you've got a pretty clear picture of life for the moment...and thank God, its just for the moment.