Walnut capital of the world

So I was told today that Grenoble is known as the walnut capital of the world. I went out walnut hunting and came back with a whole bag full of them. There were several little kids and old people that had got most of them on the ground, and I was walnut-hunting with two little French girls to whom I could not make an apology or an excuse for my lack of manhood that put me at a disadvantage to provide for the needs of such helpless babes, so I got the bright idea to climb up into the tree and do the unthinkable. I thought to myself, "why is no one else doing this? why settle for nasty rotten ones on the ground when you can pluck them waiting and ripe off the tree." Since I was giving myself an A+ for bright ideas I decided to shake the branch to knock down the ones I couldn't reach and well, gravity took care of the rest. The only problem was that I was nestled in branch underneath several hundred shaking walnuts unable to remove myself from their path. Suddenly, disadvantage to provide seemed glorious compared to utter stupidity with which I am now hoplessly labeled.

for the record, I miss you Ariel!!!

JLK

The sun came out today and here is a picture of the mountains that i see when I step out my bedroom door. You know what this means, Andrew, we have some new peaks to conquer- and we can walk to them from my house! I just stood and stared at them every chance I got today. People probably thought I had smoked too much marijuana for breakfast or something. The view is worth the weird "you-smoke-too-much-marijuana-too-early-in-the-morning" looks.

Speaking of marijuana, I was telling my French family about the weeds I pulled in their yard this afternoon and their oldest son exclaims, "we have WEED?!?!?!"

the first picture is me in my room. i am wearing my new french jacket because it snowed today.
the second is the town one over from where I live. Beautiful, eh? and yes, that is snow up on the mountain. the third is Woody Lewis, the man that I am interning with. He is a very cool guy, very patient and kind. It is a privilege to learn from him. We stopped at a little cafe here in Fontainille to get fat. the pastries here are unreal. Like buttery, chocolaty, goodness, packaged by angels in heaven...you get the picture.

Yesterday I went to La Feu, the ministry I will be working with, and stayed there for about seven hours meeting and trying to converse with students from the Ukraine, Canada, Germany, Singapore, France, America and Italy. It was an eye-opening experience and a humorous one as well. Take for instance the time I was standing in the kitchen talking to the guy who was preparing dinner and a girl walked in and towards me, leaning in as if she was trying to get something behind me. I instinctively leaned out of the way prompting her to almost fall over trying to kiss me on the cheek. Akward! When she caught her balance (slight hyperbole) she kissed me on both cheeks in her tradition and then walked out. I had just been introduced to the tradition I can't spell or pronounce in the most akward way possible. Until the next embarrasing incident, bonne voyage!

Jon

Ariel and I

mijn vriendin

France

Today is day three of the French adventure. I will be visiting la feu, the ministry I will be mainly working with. I am taking my French placement test for the universitairie on Monday, which I will probably fail. Today, just after the host family had left the house for the day, I recieved a phone call from the youngest boy's teacher saying he needed to be taken home as he was not feeling well. I called the dad at work, hoping to relay this message- here is the conversation;

me: "hello, Georges, i got a call from the school, your son is sick and needs to be brought home from school. i can get him if you tell me how to get there."

Georges: "repeat, please?"

me: "(repeat)"

Georges: "hold on"

Georges: (putting phone on speaker) "repeat please?"

me "reapeat"

Georges: " you want me to visit you?"

me: "no, you need to visit your son at school."

georges: "you need ride to school?"

me: "no, william needs ride from school."

georges: "ok, I come visit you in one hour"

me "no, your son is sick, he needs you to get him from school."

georges: "OH! You at universitairie! you want ride to house!"

me: "no, your Son! Sick!
(after about 10-20 minutes of this, other people interjecting comments in french)
georges: "OH! MY SON! SICK! i call teacher now."

me: confused

this is the language barrier. sort of like God talking to us. Repeating the same things over and over, but we already have our minds made up and we hear him affirming our thoughts. When we finally let go of our own assumptions and presuppositions and step into His realm, we understand what HE has been saying all along.