Bonjour!
"I’m headed to France for two years.” That statement seems like a miracle in itself. Since graduating in December from John Brown University with a degree in English, I’ve been preparing for the move, and before that, God was preparing me. I had made the usual plans for an English major en route to teach as a university professor. I planned on going to grad school and beyond (possibly infinity and beyond only I would be in school forever). Even though I love learning and college, I wasn’t at peace. I had this inescapable urge to do good without any specific direction. In part, I blame this on an intercultural communications class with a unit on missions I was required to take. The rest of the blame falls directly on the call to be hands and feet of Christ in a fallen world.
I met a GoCorps recruiter during the tail end of my final semester of college and was directed to a placement in Grenoble, France with One Collective. In Grenoble, I will be working in a holistic capacity to reach the university students through teaching English, leading Bible studies, and food distribution. One of our main goals is to engage in community transformation and make invisible people visible, something that I have been passionate about for years.
I was initially worried about the gap between graduation and going, but God has used every second of my time to prepare me for this placement. Things eerily fell into place to such a degree that it would take several pages of text to describe it. Even in the middle of America, in "cowboy country," I’ve met numerous French natives. I had the opportunity to work at a local French cafe run by immigrants from Versailles who happened to know all about Grenoble and the university there. Plus, working in the cafe has exposed me to French music, culture, and cooking. I also enrolled in a French class at the local community college to further expand my knowledge of French and was made the vice president of the French language association in our first meeting. From that, I learned about the language, culture, and needs of the people in a more formal setting. Not only have I fallen in love with crêpes and mousse chocolat, but I adore the French.
Unfortunately, everything is not roasted pepper and béchamel. France is an incredibly lost country. Considered post religious, at best people see religion as outdated and at worse, they see it as divisive and harmful. Christ and Christians are not looked upon with any kind of fondness. The cities are spiritual cemeteries built on the bones of religious wars. My French professor confessed that most French people go to church three times a year: when they are baptized to have water thrown at them, when they are married to have rice thrown on them, and when they are buried to have dirt thrown on them. My French bosses told me that students are known to resort to prostitution when their bills become too much.
I can’t wait to see how God is at work in Grenoble. Though I did not know a year ago that I would be going to France, I am more excited and at peace than I have been. It’s very much Jeremiah 29:11 unfolding for me, “'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future,’” and I want to see those plans work out in the lives of others as well.