Drowning

I managed to get more than half the class moved to the same spot for a picture.
Sophie, Kati and Olaya Lillian before class.
Dia Xio'ou and Kati at a cafe after we finished our first week of class!

I think starting school in a foreign country must be something akin to drowning. I am suddenly deeply out of my element, dark waters swirling above my head, obscuring my ability to understand those still on land, and I'm unable to push my head above the water barrier to clearly hear their words. Caught underneath such an oppressive barrier, my head grows dizzy, and the water becomes crushing. Yeah, I think that's an accurate comparison for school.

Though the week was utterly overwhelming, I don't mean to imply that the week was horrible. I actually had a lot of fun finally starting classes. I'll probably never grow out of being such a nerd that I adore going to school to learn new things. The university is situated on the banks of the Rhone in the middle of Lyon, and I really enjoy my walk from the main square to school, despite the fact that summer has definitely already passed in France. I had been to the university a few times to take placements tests and register before this week, but Friday concluded my first real week of classes.

I must have performed above my abilities on the placement tests, because I was placed into a much higher level than I had anticipated. The day I went to school to take placement tests, I met a girl named Kati (say "catty") from Romania who I liked very much, and so I tried in all the tests to match her level so we would be in the same class. I succeeded, which is very lucky, because the 150 or so students in the program are divided into levels of 12 - 14 students each. Though I'm so thankful to have all my classes with Kati, I must say I'm now wondering a bit about the sagacity of throwing such effort into the placement tests. Oh, well. I'm certainly not in France so I can be coddled. I'm in France to learn French, so here we go.

Our classes are in block format, which means that I'm going to have to keep up with 13 different classes this semester. I go to class for a total of 20 hours every week, but I stay at school much longer because not all the classes run right next to each other. We have oral classes, comprehension classes, writing classes and culture classes. All the professors seem very nice, some are individual characters that I find quite interesting. I can't quite explain this next statement, but I feel like my oral comprehension and oral tools professor belongs in a Harry Potter novel. She is a very tiny person with a high a squeaky voice that emanates from her sharply pointed nose. She seemed a bit terrified of the class, but meekly approached us in the cafeteria during the coffee break to get to know us a bit better. She very quietly corrected every pronunciation error any of us made, eyes downcast with a tiny smile. I really can't fully explain her except to say she seems to me like the feminine counter part to Peter Pettigrew.

Coffee and lunch breaks at school have given me some time to get to know my highly international class. I'm having a very nice time getting to know people from such diverse backgrounds, though that getting to know process is slow since the only common language in the class is French. Meet level IB 21: Kati (Romanian), Bunyamin (Turkish), Samer (Lebonese), Sophie (Venezualan), Olaya Lillian and Andrea (Hispanic), and then the Chinese contingency with Yang Qinglei, Tang Jing, Ye Zhenjia, Xu Ning, Li Fei, Zhen Zhang and Dia Xio'ou. Maybe my ability to learn French this week was hindered by my attempts to learn my Chinese classmates' names. I can't complain, though: my name absolutely blows everyone's mind. Kati finally made the connection to Halley's comet, which she can pronounce correctly, so she sometimes just refers to me as "the comet." After much spelling of names and pronunciation correcting, we are developing quite a sense of camaraderie in IB 21. My closest friends so far are Kati, Sophie, Olaya Lillian and Dia Xio'ou.

So even though I feel like I'm drowning in French, I don't feel too discouraged yet because I don't plan on completely drowning. I plan on thrashing around in the water until I can push to the top to see and hear clearly and shake the oppressive pressure to my head. We'll see how my plan works. I have accepted that this first month is going to require quite a lot of Advil.

Vacation Slideshow

Here are a few other highlights:

Weekend Vacation #1

I took about a million pictures of Mont St Michael, attempting to capture in a photograph the sense of awe that overtook me when I saw the abbey through the bus windows for the first time. Over the last few days, I journeyed all the way up to northern France to see just this one church that I had decided years ago was a must-see. Mont St Michael is a very small village on a rock slightly off the coast of Normandy. The crowning glory of the village is a great abbey built on the highest rocks that is dedicated to the archangel Michael.

Construction on the abbey began in 708 when the Bishop of Avranches had a series of visions of the angel requesting that an abbey be built in his honor. Nothing of that original abbey remains as there have been various phases of construction through the eighteenth century. The oldest parts of the abbey remaining are from the tenth century, and the bulk of the construction was completed by the beginning of the fifteenth century. The structure is truly a testament to the genius of Gothic and Romanesque stone masons as the buildings are perched on the peak of a great rock formation. The cavernous halls and stairwells constitute a journey through centuries of innovative techniques in the construction of a great religious monument.

Today, the abbey again has a monastic life, after going through several conversions in purpose from fortress to prison. I went to mass in the great Romanesque cathedral, and I was very moved by the presence of monks and nuns cloaked entirely in white as they sang psalms from the chambers surrounding the sanctuary. The job of those living at Mont St Michael is to ensure there is constant prayer coming from the abbey.

After the abbey grew to be a place of religious pilgrimage, a town sprung up around the base. I was truly enchanted by the small Norman town. The people of Normandy seemed to be much more of a rural background than those of Lyon. The architecture was very different, as was the food. In the interest of continuing the cuisine-associated part of my blog, I'll say that crepes and creme brulee both have ancient roots in Normandy. I was in love with the food in the northern part of the country - everything was much heavier, and quite a lot cheaper. And as something of a creme brulee connoisseur, I will say the best I have ever had was from the small restaurant at which I ate the night I arrived. I had to restrain myself from licking out the three miniature pots in which the dessert was served. Sorry to dwell on food, but it's obviously one of the most important facets of daily life in my mind.

Due to some strange train connections (I think the woman who booked my ticket was confused), I also ended up getting to spend a few hours in Brittany. Brittany is another rural region in France with a very distinct culture. Because the area was in English possession for so long, the countryside looks very English, and the people have their own way of doing things. I found the people to be not very friendly; I think like any set of farm people they are very set in their ways and dislike change and outsiders. However, the towns were truly charming. I was in Dol en Bretagne on Saturday morning, with the market is full swing downtown. I thoroughly enjoyed the market until I saw one woman surrounded by crates of ducks and chickens. After a customer pointed to a particular bird, the vendor yanked the bird from the crate and with one swift motion broke the bird's neck. She was obviously selling the freshest fowl in the entire market.

Despite that one highly unpleasant experience, I had a most fabulous trip. I was thrilled to visit two regions of France that were entirely new to me, and I can't really relate in a post how magnificent I thought Mont St Michael was. The church was far greater than I had imagined it would be. So I guess that's the reason I couldn't get a picture that I thought did the structure justice: I had never seen one before. Wonderful photographs of the island prompted me to visit the particular bay in Normandy, but nothing prepared me for something so moving. But that's the joy of actually getting to see something in person for the first time. I'm very lucky to have had the opportunity to take such a wonderful weekend trip.

The word "bizarre" stands out this week . . .

Being in a foreign country, day after day I am constantly running into new things. Some of those things are actually enjoyable, and some are downright bizarre. Following is a completely incoherent blog entry of my new experiences of the past week.

1. I went to my school to take placement tests, and was told upon arriving that I after I took the tests, I didn't need to return to school for the next two weeks. Before school even starts, I'm having a surprise holiday to continue exploring the city. For some reason, the school does not tell the students until they arrive for tests that normal classes do not start until September 22.

2. I do think the food here is alright, but I have long since decided that the food I most love is thick comfort food. I'm sure the light French food is better cuisine, but I already miss processed bread, battered meat, and ranch dressing. On the weirder side, I would like to highlight the fact that when "ham" is on a restaurant menu, or Martine makes "ham" for dinner, it means they open up a pack of lunch meat and put the cold cuts on the table. I have also for the past few meals at the house been eating pre-toasted bread. It's like if you bought a package of Sara Lee at the grocery store that had been cut into slices and browned in the toaster before arriving in the bag at the grocery store. I find the bread to be odd. What's the point of toast if it's already cold and stale? I guess French people can simply not stomach soft white bread. Also, I noticed the expiration date on the boxed milk we have been drinking: November 20. The milk is so heavily homogenized that it doesn't even taste the same.

3. I have been on two adventures to two different Carrefours, the French equivalent of Wal-Mart. Believe it or not, Carrefour makes Wal-Mart look like it has a small selection. I was so amazed at the size of both stores that I plan to take a camera when I return. Aisles and aisles as far as the eye can see - the stores really are a sight. I spent nearly an hour trying to find the four things I needed at the Carrefour in Ecully. I had to go to a different Carrefour yesterday in Part-Dieu, and this one is of note because it is a two-level grocery store. There is a large slanting conveyor-belt type apparatus at the far end of the store, because shoppers need to be able to get to the second level with large carts. I have no idea why the French require such a large selection of goods. They buy most of their produce at markets anyway.

4. I found a department store that I adore. Printemps is heavily associated with the French Vogue, and the displays are great. The store shows mostly mid-range French designers with a few Italian stars in the corners. It's like a very nationalistic Neiman Marcus.

5. I attended a ballet last night as part of the great dance exhibition going on in Lyon during September. Have you ever stood in front of a great piece of modern art and thought it was interesting, feeling at the same time that you were surely missing part of the point? The ballet was like looking at that piece of art for two hours. The show was dedicated to William Forsythe,who has built a career in choreography on his intense examination of the motion of dance through exaggeration. The dances were done to modern "music" - that most exploratory of types that often sounds just like static noise or crashing metal. No melodies, in other words. I can hardly begin to describe the dancing, except to say that it involved lots of contortion. For the first ballet, the stage was entirely set in grey, with fourteen grey chairs at the back and a small black and white sign that read "THE." Fourteen dancers in grey danced (never as an ensemble) in between walking randomly around the stage, leaving the stage, sitting on the stage, and sitting in their chairs at the back. For the end, a violent looking woman dressed in a white sheet with wild blond hair streaming down her back and blood dripping from her mouth ran onto stage to danced even more violently than the others. She beat on the stage with her fists and stared into the audience a lot. Then she and most of the other dancers walked off and someone kicked over the sign that said "THE." I have no idea what the thing was about. I won't describe the other two ballets except to say that one involved choreographed sighing and the other involved dancers running around with metal operating tables. It certainly met the theme of the dance celebration, "Retour en avance," which roughly means "Past Forward." I don't know if it was supposed to be scary, but it was.

6. On my way to the ballet, I walked by one of the major squares to see a man on stage teaching the salsa to hundreds of people in lines on the square. Dancing in the street seems out of French character to me. I suppose I have a lot to learn about the French character.

7. I visited a museum in Vieux Lyon that didn't seem to have much of a theme. The first half was about setting scenes in movies, because some Dustin Hoffman movie about perfume was filmed in the basement. The third floor had a lot of dolls, and the top floors were miniatures scenes by several celebrated miniatures artists. Everything was interesting, but I found the arrangement strange.

I suppose that's about all of interest I have encountered. I've done some other sight-seeing, but nothing that seems worth special mention among the ranks of pre-toasted bread, Carrefours and William Forsythe.

Great is Thy Faithfulness!

Great is Thy faithfulness!

Great is Thy faithfulness!

Morning by morning new mercies I see.

All I hath needed Thy hand hath provided;

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

I can hardly believe that only one week has passed since I stood at First Baptist Church in Oxford, Mississippi and sang this song! The song struck a special chord with me last Sunday as the lyrics reminded me of God's unconditional promise to provide all we need. I really can't fear that much about a semester abroad with the knowledge that I will not lack anything I need for God to use this semester to fulfill His purpose in me. I have been very blessed and had far more than I needed the past two days!

I spent Saturday exploring the center of Lyon. The picture above is from the great square Bellecour looking towards Vieux Lyon, the oldest part of the city. I explored Bellecour for most of the day, enjoying the many streets of shopping that branch off the central square. I also visited the Museum of Fabric; apparently Lyon has been a center for luxury fabric manufacture for centuries. The museum was just the type of place that I found extraordinarily interesting, so I stayed for several hours. It was probably best I was alone - I don't think I know another person who would have wanted to look at ancient material for that long. For the record, the museum housed fabrics starting from 200 A.D. from ancient Egypt, and the central exhibit was the fabrics from the bedrooms of many kings and queens made in Lyon. Louis XIV, Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Napoleon, Josephine de Beauharnais, and the emperors and czars of Russia all decorated with fabrics from Lyon. Nothing in the museum was translated, but I still managed to learn a decent amount about the weaving process of satin and taffeta and silk, the most celebrated Lyonnais fabric. I hope I didn't put anyone to sleep with that part of my blog.

Today I woke up and left early to find a church about which a friend in Amarillo had told me. L'Église Réformée Évangélique is a very small church in the center of Lyon started ten years ago by Mission to the World missionaries. Now, a daughter of the missionaries and her husband, Alex Sarran, run the church. The church met in the downstairs part of a house, and about 25 adults and 10 children were in attendance. After the service, everyone helped move the chairs to make room for tables, and the group ate lunch together. Though everyone spoke in French, the pastor's wife is American, and she spoke to me some in English. She understands the importance of me being surrounded by French, though, so even she addressed me in French most of the time during the meal.

The meal lasted until well after three in the afternoon, and after everyone began to leave, the Sarrons invited me to come with them to a service held mainly for all the mission families living in Lyon. The service provides an opportunity for them to speak to each other in English, sing in English, and hear a sermon in English. At this service there were about 20 more people. The group was very fun to be with - they all have an admirable joy and dedication to God, especially considering the slow mission field to which they have dedicated their efforts.

Suzanne Sarron explained to me the hardships of mission work in France, and Lyon in particular. In the French culture, it is nearly unacceptable to attend church and profess Christianity. They work often with people who cannot begin to see the value of Christianity, and even the French families in their churches often do not come because they still do not see church attendance as important. She said often missionaries are looking at years, rather than months, before a person will both choose to become a Christian and begin to attend church with some regularity. "You really can't produce any conversion figures here. The process is much too slow," she said. The other missionaries agreed, but all said that it is possible to do any work, no matter how discouraging it may seem, when it is the work to which God has called you.

I cannot believe that after spending months praying that I would get to speak with a few missionaries about their work in France that I met most of the evangelical missionaries in Lyon in a single afternoon. I cannot wait to get to know all of these people better; they were all so kind to me today, and they have so much to say about the kingdom in France. Today was a constant reminder to me of how faithful God is to meet our needs. My heart skipped a beat this morning when the French service concluded with a translated version of Great is Thy Faithfulness.

Dieu, ta fidélité,

Ton immense bonté

Se renouvellent envers moi chaque jour.

Tous mes besoins, c'est ta main qui les comble,

Dieu, ta fidélité dure à toujours!

And so it begins

In order to update family and friends while abroad and to keep a personal record of my semester in France, it seemed most effective to do something far beyond my technological abilities and write a blog. Nevertheless, because the theme of this semester already seems to be stretching beyond my bounds, here I sit in my room at the end of my first full day in France composing a blog post.

The blog is named for a beloved book by Mark Twain which I read years ago when my grandmother gave me a copy. The work tells the story of the author's own journey through Europe and to the Holy Land. Though my semester will have a far narrower scope, I thought the title somewhat appropriate for my account of my exploits in France. I hope also to spend a part of this semester searching for the "Holy Land" as it exists in the advancement of God's kingdom in France. In other words, perhaps I'll cover much of Twain's journey within the borders of one country. For my grandmother's benefit, I will point out that I am aware that Innocents Abroad also covers a journey into skepticism for much of the text. In this case, I hope my experience diverges from the book. So there you have it; even in France I shall remain somewhat true to my original love for English literature. Forgive me if you think the blog title kitschy.

I've had a funny day, being twenty years old and returned to the world of seeing small tasks completed as great triumphs. I literally only have the capacity to face one challenge (and I use the word "challenge" here extremely loosely) at a time, giving myself continuous pep talks as I go: "There you go, Halley Anne. Get on the bus. Now put the ticket in that slot. Now find a seat. There you go! Surely you didn't look too much like a complete idiot!" Today, I successfully:

1. Read the bus and metro map correctly, and made it to the central terminal, where I

2. Managed to purchase a bus and metro pass for the month

3. Found my school and the room I need to go to on Monday

4. Bought a voltage converter

Though it sounds mundane, I consider all four considerable victories. More than that, I did have two people address me as if I were French, so I must not have looked too incredibly lost. One woman asked if I bought my shoes at Hermes (a great compliment, I think) and another asked me for directions (which I could not give her). No one would mistake me for French after I open my mouth, though. I hope progress comes quickly; the language is overwhelming, and true to promises, not a single person has been able to speak to me in English. They did lead me around the electronics store looking for an employee who could speak English to understand what type of converter I was asking for, but none was found, so we made do.

Despite a considerable language barrier, everyone has been beyond kind, especially the family I am staying with. M and Mme Bardel have a beautiful, quintessentially French house, and I have a very nice room. They make an effort to speak slowly and clarify what they are saying so I don't have to stare at them like a total fool. One of their sons, Thomas, is here for a few days while he negotiates an apartment. I have much trouble speaking to him. His mother reminds him to slow down for me when she is in earshot. I certainly have a lot of room to become better at French!

My mom cited a verse from Joshua in her e-mail about the move to California, and I will write it again here, because it has given me much encouragement today. "Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave or forsake you . . . Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go" (Jos 1:6)

I would appreciate prayer beyond anything else right now. Please pray that I could be strong and courageous, relying on God for all comfort, and please pray that I would learn quickly.

Second to prayer, I would love a letter! My address is:

Halley Anne HARGRAVE

2 Chemin Louis Chirpaz

69130 Ecully FRANCE

So day one has come to an end, and now I look to day two. Never have I so fully understood that each day has enough troubles of it's own . . .