And we're off...

The last two weeks have not been easy, though at the same time they could have been a lot harder. God provided for us amazingly in our two weeks' flat-hunting in Nancy. For a start, we were able to leave our kids in the very capable and loving hands of their French grandparents. Half of me was happy to have some time away with Marc, but as the time got longer it did get harder, and at least I knew they were enjoying themselves.

On arrival in Nancy, we had a flat to stay in (some friends who were away) and a car to get us around (another friend who offered us her car). And lots of friends to catch up with, which was great.

The difficult part was the flat-hunting. We soon heard from other people that it has got more difficult to rent because of changes to the law. Agencies don't want to take any risks at all, and we are not ideal candidates. We are used to not fitting into categories, but in some contexts people are willing to listen and to do their best to accommodate us (no pun intended!). Not really in this case. Our last payslips show our pay in Benin, which is a lot lower than our pay here in France. We do have a document from SIM attesting to our higher salary, but it also says we'll be in France for "at least a year", which agencies tended to read as "a year", also not an incentive for renting to us.

Having always had the impression in Benin that "everything would be simpler if we were at home", I was faced with the unpleasant truth that things can be just as difficult at home as elsewhere!

So the first two flats we hoped to rent fell through, and when we went to the third agency, a week after visiting flats, and having spent most of that week just waiting to hear from agencies, I was feeling pretty discouraged. If it had just been us in the equation, I wouldn't have been too bothered about it taking a while, but I knew we needed an address to be able to register the kids at school.

But at this third agency, as she asked us to remind us of our surname, she wrote it out and then said, "Oh, but I already know you! You lived in rue Emile Gebhart ... I used to work for the agency you rented from!" I immediately felt much better knowing that we had a connection with her, and that she knew we'd been good tenants before (and Marc for another 3 years before our marriage). It still took a long time to get everything done, because the agency wanted a guarantor, and so papers had to be sent back and forth to Marc's dad, but at last on Monday we were able to sign for our flat.

Things moved fast after that, as we rented a van to pick up some furniture which is being lent to us, and more which has been given to us, and with help from friends from church got it moved into the flat. It was an odd feeling to only be seeing "our" furniture for the first time as it arrived in the flat! On Tuesday we picked up some furniture we'd bought, and with help from friends got most of the furniture put together again. I was even able to make up the beds before we left for Paris on Tuesday afternoon to go and pick up the kids. And another friend went to the townhall to get our kids signed up for school ... it is such a blessing to move somewhere where we already have friends in place!!

When we arrived at Marc's parents, we had a wonderful reunion with the kids! Lots of smiles and cuddles!

We then drove back to Nancy on Thursday morning, spent the afternoon and evening with friends, slept in our new flat overnight, had a quick forest-then-shopping trip on Friday morning, and came away again for the weekend to stay with Marc's brother and his family in the Vosges.

At some point I expect we'll come down to earth...

Waiting...

Marc and I are now in Nancy, having arrived here last Tuesday. We are staying in the flat of some friends who are away at the moment, and another friend has been lending us her car. We are very thankful for this, especially as flat-finding has turned out to be a longer process than we thought.

We found a flat we liked easily enough, but then discovered that (probably since new laws have been passed recently) we had to give in a form with a whole lot of documents to be able to "apply" for the flat. We asked how long it would take, and the receptionist was a bit vague, and said that her boss was on holiday but they were still sending her things. She was sympathetic to our situation ... but that isn't going to help much!

We have been enjoying catching up with friends - and it sounds like the kids have been having a lovely time with their grandparents near Paris - but the wait is getting frustrating! While we appreciate the novelty of having some child-free time, I am starting to miss them, and don't like the idea that I don't know how long it is until I'll see them again! (We can't really bring them here until we have a flat and a minimum of furniture.)

Anyway, I am trying to trust that it will all fall into place in God's timing, because I know it will, whether it is this flat or another!

Here are the two of us in Place Stanislas:

They call me the wanderer...

We are safely in the UK, and enjoying our holiday, catching up with family and friends.

I love being here, and most of the time it feels very natural to be an English person in England. But just occasionally, in a supermarket or other public place, I feel a bit like an imposter. I look like I fit in, but those around me would never imagine what my "normal" everyday life is like! And I'm always slightly nervous I'll make a cultural faux pas from being away for so long.

Off to France for similar feelings in a few days time...!

End of the Picnic Era

Six years ago, when we moved our family to Benin, we bought a second-hand Toyota Picnic direct from the Port of Cotonou, where it had been shipped from Europe. It was eleven years old.

Over the years our trusty car has served us well, despite the state of the roads, and the long journeys we had to make. We love the fact that it has six seats (two-two-two), the back two of which can be removed. Before Eve was born, we got a roof-rack made because we were going to be having to use five of the seats and lose part of our boot!

However, the boys' legs just keep getting longer, and since we are leaving for a year, it seemed the right time to part company with the car. A year sitting around in heat and humidity was hardly going to do it any good.

None of the ex-pats we know were looking for a car, so we asked a friend in the village how we should go about selling it locally. He said we would just need to put a sign in the window ("À vendre" = for sale) with a phone number. It certainly was effective. For every trip into Kandi we had at least one person contacting us, interested in buying. It was almost overwhelming! Some of them were obviously not going to be able to pay an acceptable price, but after a lot of back and forth negotiation, Marc has agreed a sale with a taxi proprietor.

Since the car actually belongs to the Mission not to us (officially to our own ministry account, and we pay into that account if we use the car for personal reasons), the papers have to be signed, and the money paid, in Parakou. This suits us well, as we want to travel down to Parakou in it when we leave. We then have a private taxi lined up to drive us down to Cotonou.

Goodbye, faithful friend, we will remember you fondly!

We plough the fields...

We had a good rainfall here on Saturday night. The local farmers will be hoping for more like it. On Sunday we drove over to Kandi-Fô, where the rains have been more frequent, and saw some people preparing their fields. A few people can afford to use a tractor, but for many, everything is done by hand or by oxen.

Also, computers are too clever!

Today I did a bit of revision with my team on using LibreOffice Writer (an equivalent of Word). They had made notes in an exercise book when they went out to test our translated texts in other Monkolé villages, and I wanted those notes safely copied into a computer file.

Philémon began the work, and I checked whether both translators remembered how to create a file and how to save it. They automatically changed the language setting to "Afrikaans" so that they could use our special phonetic alphabet with the font we need for Monkolé (called Charis SIL).

Philémon was continuing with the work, typing up the notes, while Pastor Samuel and I got on with other work. Suddenly he called me over and said, "I don't understand. How come whenever I type 'si' it changes it to 'is'?"

Oh, the joys of AutoCorrect! I found the menu for Afrikaans, and sure enough, if you type "si" it gets changed automatically to "is". I deleted it from the list, and made sure there weren't any other automatic corrections that were likely to be a bother for us.

But it made me realise yet again just how many unforeseeable difficulties could pop up while I'm away! Please pray for the team!

Computers are complicated things...

I have been training my team to use the internet to send emails and exchange files via the central Paratext server (Paratext being our translation software package). I thought it was quite simple. The problem is that while doing it right is indeed relatively simple, the number of things that can go wrong if you miss a step in the instructions or click on the wrong thing is nearly infinite.

I also realise that for someone like me who has been using computers for over 30 years (and regularly for about 20 years), I have some idea about what to do if something goes wrong. Even that doesn't always get me out of the mess I've made - computers can be very unpredictable - but if all fails I shut everything down and start again. If you are relatively new to computers they are scary things, and if something goes wrong, there can be a tendency to freeze. Which definitely doesn't solve the problem!

We need lots of prayer for the year ahead in which efficient teamwork will be reliable on communication via the internet! (I will be phoning them from time to time, but there are drawbacks to the telephone as a means of communication too.)