Here I am, back in Pontault after a very long summer. There were a lot of really fun days and a lot of really rough ones. I laughed a lot and cried a lot, as tends to be the case when you live in a room with nearly 20 other girls and all share the same shower (see attached photo).
But yes, now I'm back and preparing to head back to school in September. But before I head back into literacy mode, I wanted to think of one story from the summer to share with you, and I think I've finally thought of the perfect moment.
It was a Saturday in the hottest part of the summer. My team and I were headed door to door to invite people to the music festival that our church was hosting. I headed out alone, because there was an uneven number of us. I only had a few streets on my map, so it shouldnt have taken long. But going door to door in France is never, as the French say, evident.
French houses are so interesting. You don't often just walk up to a door and ring, because the houses are surrounded by walls that are at least the same height as the house itself, if not taller. (I've heard that, back in the day, people were taxed based on how many possessions they had, and tax collectors would decide how much to charge by looking in the windows. Now French people barricade themselves away inside their homes in order to avoid paying taxes at all, it seems). So, anyway, all this to say, if you want to talk to the people living in the houses (which I did), you have to ring the little bell outside the gate, and if you're in the south (which I was), you immediately start praying really hard. Why? Because everyone in the south has a huge sign on their gate reading Beware of Dog, or even, in some case, Beware of Cat. Then, after ringing the bell, these huge monstronsities of animals come leaping at the gate, clawing, biting, barking, etc. Finally, the owner of the house comes out (in various states of undress: one man answered in a white, lacy, woman's nightgown; another woman answered in a towel) and you try not to look awkward as you hand them a program of events for the music festival and encourage them to come to the events.
Anyway, this particular Saturday that I mentioned, I was alone and tired and it was hot. And on top of all of this, I should really mention that I can't really read maps. I have zero sense of direction. I was looking for an Impasse that didn't seem to exist, and I wound over and over again through the same streets, reading street signs I'd already read and becoming extremely frustrated.
Eventually, I found a grouping of houses that wasn't listed on the map. I walked up, and would you know, there were no gates around any of these houses. No dogs. No cats. Just a circle of houses with children playing out in the yards. I thought, Why not?
I began the process of systematically knocking on every door and saying, Avez-vous déjà reçu cette invitation? And none of the people in the neighborhood had already received the aforementioned invitation, so I just kept going and going and going.
Eventually, one of the little boys that who had been riding his bike nearby approached me and said, "What are you doing?"
I told him I was inviting people to the festival at my church and he said, "Oh sounds fun. I want to do that too."
So he wheeled along beside me for moral support. We approached one door and he said, "This is an old man. He's not going to answer."
And sure enough, he didn't.
We approached another door, and he said, "This lady has two houses."
"Really?" I asked. "How's that?"
"She's never at hers. She's always next door with the man next door."
Sure enough, she didn't answer at her house, but did at the house next door.
After a while, the little boy called over his sister and friends who trawled along on their bikes behind me shouting out advice for each house I approached. And we had a great time. We invited the whole neighborhood, and when we finished, the boy said, "Let's go around again!"
I was so encouraged by his enthusiasm. Going door to door is hard and scary and often really, really monotonous. But it was so great to have had those kids with me, cheering for me and encouraging me.
That's how I'll remember the south this summer. It was often hard and scary and monotonous, but every step of the way, God sent those little reminders that He was there, taking care of me. Streams in the desert in the form of a 8 year old boy, I guess you could say.
