Life in the Paris suburbs..............

We tired quickly of the busy city and the pension, of cooking on an alcohol burner and not having a private toilet.  And we waited for the day when our house in the suburbs of La Garenne-Colombes would be ready for us.  The Child Evangelism family finally left for their furlough and we were given the key to our new home. 

It seemed spacious after living in one room - there were two floors: living and dining room downstairs and a tiny kitchen; two bedrooms on the second floor; a toilet on the first floor and a tub and shower room on the second floor.  It was fully furnished with dull shades of brown everywhere.  But it looked good to us after what we had been living in for six weeks!  The windows were long and covered with draperies, and according to good French custom, we had to close the shutters every night and open them in the morning.

We were not alone in the house. On the second floor was the Child Evangelism office which was occupied by their personnel mornings.  On the third floor lived a Swiss couple, newly married.  The phone was in the upstairs hall and whenever the Child Evangelism personnel was not there, it was our duty to answer the phone and take down messages.  Every time the phone rang and we answered, we had to reply with the phrase: L'Association pour l'Evengélisation des Enfants!  What a mouthful! In return, we also had the use of the phone for local calls. 

We moved in with our few suitcases and you girls, Cheryl and Debbi. But before we could do much living we had to do a lot of cleaning. The kitchen was especially dirty, with greasy shelves that Dad cleaned with hot soapy water. We soon had the place settled to our satisfaction and were glad for the space we had. We could also cook proper food for our family.

Cooking food meant going out to buy that food. And that was another learning experience. When we were in France there were no super markets - those came in later, after us.  We had to learn how to shop in our little suburban village.  There was a village square and numerous shops: the butcher who sold beef and lamb; a general grocery store; a creamery for butter and cheese - and oh yes, pork or sausage.  The vegetables and fruit were for sale in an outdoor market twice a week, fresh from the farms.  It took a long time to shop - you had to take your own sacks to contain the groceries as nothing was wrapped for you -  but this also gave us the chance to have conversation in French with the shopkeepers.  There was one store we avoided - a rather large meat shop, with a brass horse's head on the front of the store.  The French were great lovers of horse meat and sold that in a separate store from the beef.   We were not on a budget. We bought what we needed for food and school supplies, kept track of it all in a notebook, and collected from national office at the end of each month and then we were reimbursed.  Kind of a strange system. 

Our house had the most room of any of our group, so we hosted all get togethers there. There was a children's play park down the street from us and in warm weather you girls enjoyed that.  We had taken a lightweight double stroller with us to Paris since we had two heavy girls to take everywhere - it turned out to be both a bane and a blessing.  It was good on the straightaway, but we had to carry both children and stroller up and down the metro steps, which was quite a feat! 

Not long into our year in Paris we picked up the VW bus we had ordered and that made outings easier for us.  It was also a large enough vehicle to take us for sorties to various places in Europe during the year.  School continued in the main part of Paris and we found the train system especially efficient and cheap.  I went in the morning to finish up my classes while Dad took care of your girls. I ran in the door at noon, and Dad kissed me as he ran out to catch a train to the city for his afternoon classes. This was not ideal - morning was the best time for classes and Dad needed help in French more than I did. So when I had finished my course, we switched and Dad went to school early each morning. 

I had finished everything they offered at the language school, and so I had a Christian prof come to the house to give me a course in business French. He was a nice man, very jolly and friendly - but he had the most awful garlic breath and body odour of anyone I had ever met!  While you girls played happily with your toys in your bedroom, I was seated with this smelly man at a desk in our bedroom next door.  Was I ever glad when I finished the course he taught!   Actually, he was a nice man and he and his wife even invited our family to their home for dinner one night.

Grace Nelson, bless her heart, would periodically tell Arnolds and us to take off for an evening out and she stayed with our three kids. They loved her and we had fun getting out as adults.  Uncle Dave always wore a French beret so that he would look like a Frenchman. When Dad and Aunt Jan and I were walking along laughing and talking in English, he would walk a few steps ahead, sporting his French beret - so that no one would think he belonged to those loud Americans!! 

When we moved to the suburbs we found a small evangelical church, run by American missionaries but with a French congregation and we made friends there. Dad met a young man, Guy Vogt, who became a language helper to him and they corresponded years after we went to Africa.  I was also friends with a young woman who went to that church and also worked for CEF at our house and that was helpful for me and conversational French. 

Grandma Pierce came to visit us for two or three weeks and while she was there we took her to our church where we attended each Sunday.  They always served communion each week and the cup was real liquor. We never thought to tell her this beforehand and she was so embarassed when she drank the liquor and had a choking spell as a result!  These were dear Christian friends and we attended their camp in the south of France before we left the country.  They were also connected with a French-American Bible School, Chatou.  That was about another half hour on our train line and once a month our missionaries all went out there and had fellowship with the students and attended an English service. 

Dad and the others had no direction in their studies. We were there at a hard time, as the people who had been in charge of the Alliance language students had left and no one else had been appointed and so we were left to our own devices as far as French study was concerned.  You girls were not among French speakers often enough for you to learn more than a few greetings and simple sentences.  You had to learn your French later on in Africa when you were older.

We made some trips while we were in France, and our VW bus was big enough to take others of our colleagues with us.    But that will be for another day.....Touring Europe on a shoestring!