Doing Church in La Mazure

On Sunday we finally made it to church. There is only one protestant church in the valley and the website told us that it was not meeting on last few Sundays of August. We didn’t know quite what to expect when we arrived at the community center of Bourg St Maurice down the valley from Ste Foy.

But God had a surprise in store for us. 

Turns out, it’s a small church. A very small church. The presence of our family more than doubled the attendance on this particular Sunday. There was Vincent and Elizabeth, a husband and wife pastor team. Caroline was only attending for the second time. She is a British teacher on a sabbatical of sorts and looking to find work in the valley this winter.

   

The other two attendees were our neighbor, Viviane, and Agnes, one of the school cafeteria ladies! What a surprise! Of all the people in this valley to attend this church! We felt God's hand and were grateful for how He has orchestrated all the details beyond what we could imagine for us to spent a year in La Mazure. 

We worshiped and celebrated together in French and English and the kids were quiet for 1.5 hours that the service lasted!

After church we drove up the mountain above Bourg to the ski area of Les Arcs for a picnic. The scenery was beautiful yet the ghost town feel of the resort was a bit unnerving.

Annelise holding a Cannele, a cinnamon desert the local bakery in Bourg makes which is quickly becoming our favorite reason to drive down the valley to Bourg!

This week all the regional protestant churches are meeting near Grenoble about 2 hours away. So the church decided to have a potluck on Saturday since few of us will make the long trek tomorrow. Viviane hosted us at her house and we spent a good part of the afternoon under the sun enjoying a great meal and conversation.

 Lunch in Peps and Viviane's yard in La Mazure. 

Steve Montgomery and John Creasy, check out the oven that Peps build for his bread baking!

Back in La Mazure

Joy and I have returned from our respective trips. I will let her write about leading the women's Wales trip  in another post. I got to wrap up the third module of a leadership program with high potential leadership of a tech non-profit. It was held at this wonderful retreat center and we got to make use of their outdoor classroom under the beautiful oak tress. One my way back I stopped by Pittsburgh to kick off the fall course at Pitt.

This morning we said good bye to Amanda as she takes a few days to travel before returning home. We are so grateful for the ways she cared for our kids during their first week of school in France. You rock, Amanda!

 Then we took the kids to the bus stop in downtown La Mazure (i.e. the village parking lot). The kids have this luxury passenger van to travel the mile down the mountain to school and they look pretty excited for their second week of school. Tonight is the parent teacher meeting so I'll get to hear about Annelise's class.

Last few days of summer vacation

With Joy gone, we continued our discovery of the Haute Tarentaise Valley. Today we went to visit Villaroger, a small and beautiful village on the other side of the valley. We got a nice perspective on La Masure. Then the kids took me on a hike to the local climbing crag not far from home. Of course we stopped and build karrens in the stream (or used them for target practice in Seb's case!). Friday we headed to Bourg St Maurice for food shopping and discovered the fitness park.