This video was played at Deerbrook Covenant Church July 25, 2010.
Video from the Anderson’s
Posted in Church, home
Tagged Cameroon, Family Life, France, Language Learning, Massy, Pleasant Hill MO
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IT Missionaries
Wycliffe USA is featured on the cover story of this month’s Christian Computing Magazine. It gives a great explanation of Wycliffe’s “IT Missionaries.” I also like the support that the EC Group has given to Wycliffe. Click here to read the article.
Mixed Bag of Emotions
I’ve been having a mixed bag of emotions lately. I was very excited to hear about another family from my sister’s church sent out as missionaries – that is 3 families in 1 year from their church. I’m excited and nervous about moving to Yaoundé. Transition seems to make me more emotional and reflect on what we’ve left behind – family, friends, selling our stuff, etc…. I spent hours packing suitcases and trying to get them to the correct weight.
Once I had 4 complete, the boys arranged them to make a house. They were playing and giggling. As I watched them it hit me that they were surrounding themselves with our possessions that we take with us from place to place and that is their house. Feeling teary eyed, I continued on with the things I was doing.
Overnight I had a dream about visiting the USA and trying to buy a jar of peanut butter. I needed a penny to complete my transaction and I dumped out all my change and couldn’t distinguish between the brown colored euro coins and the penny. The cashier was trying to help me and I explained that I spent the last year in France with different money and apologized. She looked at me without any empathy and I had an overwhelming feeling that I didn’t belong there. When I woke up I was reminded of how I’m a foreigner on earth. In my daily reading, My Utmost for His Highest today ended with, As Jesus said, “First…go…” Even at the risk of being thought of as fanatical, you must obey what God tells you. In Voices of the Faithful 2 today it ended with, Satan’s stronghold is temporary; God’s grace is eternal. In Isaiah 43, “When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you.” “Do not be afraid, for I am with you.”
-DeAnna
Tour de France
The big race has been marked on our calendar for several weeks and we knew the route that the Tour de France would be taking through Massy. It’s not every day that the Tour de France passes a few blocks from where you are living. The boys have watched it on television for the last few weeks and the anticipation of watching all the bikes zoom by was about to happen. We arrived at the location about 2 hours before the first bicycle passed by us and in less than 60 seconds it was over, at least all the bikes that were still in the race had passed and all the people began to disperse.
We were planning on only arriving slightly in advance of the racers but Team Radio Shack (Lance Armstrong’s team) arrived at the race today wearing black shirts with the number 28 on it, for the 28 million people living with cancer worldwide. But the ICU (International Cycling Union) did not approve of this idea so they delayed the race until all the riders on Team Radio Shack changed back to their official race shirts. So when Team Radio Shack rode by us today I was surprised that they weren’t wearing the number 28, but I think the delay gave them more news coverage then actually wearing the shirts, since they didn’t win.
This race is 2263 miles, it didn’t start in France and there were 28 racers that started the race that didn’t finish it. The race is over and the streets of Paris were packed to see the racers finish the race.
Spelling Problems
I have always had a great excuse for not being able to spell in English. Our family moved while I was in 2nd grade and I somehow missed phonics between the two schools. This has carried onto a second generation of Anderson boys, with a slightly different twist.
DeAnna has been working with Joshua on spelling words in English. Last year he was picking up quickly on spelling words in English and could sound them out like a pro. This year since all his education was in French, he has become a very good speller in French and learned how to sound out French words. This week DeAnna and Joshua were working on spelling numbers in letters 0-10. DeAnna first does a little test to see what words he already knows and then focuses on the words he needs to learn. She started with zero. He spelled zeowé. An accent ague is definitely a French sound. As she continued with the numbers it became very apparent of the difficulties trying to spell, read and learn bilingually. He was delighted with six because he said, “I know how to spell six; it’s spelled the same in French.” What an eye opener. We compare our French learning with English, yet Joshua is comparing his English learning with French.
Building Bridges
Playing in the sandbox behind our apartment has become a great place for us to practice our French and also interact with our neighbors. It has also allowed us the opportunity to see how French parents interact with their children. Normally, 98% of the time, parents sit on the benches and allow their children to play on the jungle gym and in the sandbox while they watch from the benches. The other 2% of the time is when I’m playing or DeAnna is playing with the boys in the sandbox.
Today Joshua and Jonah were playing with their cars in the sand when a little boy came up and began playing with them. I moved to the sandbox to help them build a road and a bridge for their cars and the 3 boys had fun playing and destroying the tunnel and the bridge. I built it again and as you can imagine it didn’t take long before someone jumped on it and destroyed it.
I was STUNNED when the little boy’s dad came over to the sandbox and began digging the tunnels to create the bridge for the cars to go on and under. His little boy was beyond excited that his dad was playing with him in the sandbox, I don’t know how comfortable the dad was but all the kids were happy that somebody was playing and building bridges with them. I also learned a few new vocabulary words for playing in the sand.
I hope I don’t forget how much fun it can be to build bridges in the sand and how much the boys love it when I just play in the sand with them. The bridges might not go anywhere but they build memories they will last.
Posted in France, home, Kids
Tagged Family Life, France, Language Learning, Massy, Sandbox
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Pharmacy Fun
This afternoon marked the day to look at filling our mountain of prescriptions so we can start the anti-malaria medicine next week. After David returned home from school he took the boys to the park to play ball and I had the job of going to the pharmacy. Since we had 8 pages of prescriptions, I wanted an estimate on cost before filling them. When I walked into the pharmacy, I was directly behind the housing director of our school. We had a brief conversation then were called to the next available counters. I explained all in French that we are leaving soon, that I have many prescriptions and would like to have an estimate before filling all of them. The pharmacy worker asked me to repeat what I wanted. I repeated myself than she walked over to the pharmacist and asked the pharmacist to help me because I’m an Anglophone. (it’s just like when others have English as a second language, the native speakers can automatically hear the accent) The housing director of the school loudly said to the worker that I spoke in beautiful French to her and that there shouldn’t be any reason for her to need to get the pharmacist because I have an English accent. I was surprised and flattered. I did receive the estimate and had our mountain of prescriptions filled. Tomorrow I need to return for the 3 that they didn’t have.
Bones
I thought going to the Catacombs would be a cross between Harrison Ford looking for clues to find some hidden treasure or Mike Rowe on Dirty Jobs walking through a dirty smelly basement. I am sad to report it was not really either of the two. After walking down several flights of narrow dark stairs and through a maze of damp corridors that were dated back to the 1700’s I came up to the remains of approximately 6 million Parisians from the 18th and 19th century. The bones are laid out in what they call a “romantico-macabre decoration.” It just seemed strange to me that the bones were just piled up and it looked like many people had tried to take a skull or femur over the years.
I’m glad I didn’t have nightmares from the experience but what happens to your bones is not what matters. What is important is what you do with them while you are alive. Life is short and some day all that will be left of each of us is a pile of bones.
The toe bone connected with foot bone;
The foot bone connected with the ankle bone;
The ankle bone connected with the legbones;
The leg bone connected with the knee bone;
The knee bones connected with the thigh bone;
Hear the Word of the Lord. (Dry Bones)
The top 10 signs we have adapted to France
10. We rate cheese by strength and not just the smell.
9. People stop us on the street for directions and we can help them.
8. We question when we are charged the wrong price for something.
7. We are now helping the non-French speaking people in the checkout line at Cora.
6. We understand the process to purchase produce.
5. Others are “loud” on the train or bus.
4. Enjoy watching French comedians and even laugh at their jokes.
3. An 8-pack of paper towels is huge!
2. Ratatouille with a goat cheese & honey appetizer and a baguette is one of the best dinners.
1. Wearing a Speedo at the public swimming pool seems normal.
There have been many times where we have struggled with language learning and differences in cultures but we are glad to see that we are adjusting to life in France. Now in less than a month we will begin the process of adjusting to another country and another culture. I’m pretty sure that Speedo’s are not required in Cameroon – but I guess I’ll take it just in case.
Language Lesson #324
This week was a special week in France, La Fête du Cinéma, and according to the advertisement that we received from the city we live in all movies were only 3 euros! That’s more then half off the regular adult ticket price. After waiting in line to purchase our tickets we noticed another sign that implied you needed to pay full price for one movie then you could go to a second movie for 3 euros, that must be for something else we thought because we READ the advertisement. Well I am disappointed to say that we did pay full price for the movie. They don’t sell snacks at the theater either but they did have very clean and comfortable seats and my shoes didn’t stick to the floor. I guess I’ll just add this to the cost of language learning, since the movie was in French and the boys enjoyed it.
Posted in France, Language Learning
Tagged Family Life, France, La Fête du Cinéma, Language Learning, Massy
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D squared + J squared = Anderson 