16 (seize) Into the Ardennes…
Bonjour tout le monde,
It's been quite a while since we wrote! So, it’s time to fill you in on a few of the happenings around here! ( This might get long “I’m sorry!! ahead of time!)
At the end of April, our new field secretary and his wife (Paul and Rhonda Litwiller from Elkton, Virginia) came to visit us and learn about France.
Tyson and Sterling picked them up in Paris on a Saturday afternoon. The rest of the afternoon was spent taking walks and allowing them to recover from traveling.
Sunday morning, we took them to a Patisserie/Boulangerie called Feuillette. If you visit us, we will likely take you there, too. I'll put a link below so you can see it. :) we returned to the house after stopping at the local vegetable fruit market to grab some mushrooms for Boef Bourguinon for Sunday dinner and some good oranges imported from Spain.
We had a nice Sunday school and took a walk after lunch. We packed a lot of tracks, then jumped in the Peugeot and headed for Tournaii, Belgium, where we walked in the city center. Tournaii has a beautiful Cathedral and Belfry.
From there, we drove through the countryside toward Ypres, Belgium. (Field of Flanders area) Ypres is a very interesting town, and as we walked around, we noticed something different from the norm. There were posters of cats, stuffed cats in shop windows, and cat figurines throughout the city! The local Chocolatiers were even making chocolate cats! After a little research on my phone, I discovered the story! Click the link below for an interesting read! :)
A City with a Medieval History of Killing Cats Now Celebrates Them
There is also a lot of war history in this area. From 1914 to 1918, Ypres was a major battle theater on the Western Front. The Battle of Ypres was a series of engagements (5) during the First World War. During these engagements between the German and the Allied armies, it is said that the casualties may have reached and surpassed more than 1 million soldiers. I'll post some links below for those of you who like history. :)
In Flanders Fields, famous poem
On the drive back, we saw a nice chicken farm. Sterling and Tyson had driven by it on a previous drive, and they pointed out something interesting! In the chicken yard, maybe 20 war artillery shells lay on a pallet. The farmer had found them! We have seen similar sights as we drive through the country.
In Belgium and France, it has been common for farmers to find artifacts when plowing the land. This is called the Iron Harvest. Unfortunately, some of these findings have resulted in casualties! It seems almost every year, farmers have been killed by unexploded ordnance(UXO = bombs, grenades, bullets, shells, mines, etc.) being caught in the machinery and blowing up! This fact is interesting as well… there are parts of France that are called the Zone Rouge where farming, housing, and forestry were temporarily or completely forbidden because of the human and animal remains and UXO contaminating the land. Restrictions still apply today, though they have been reduced in many areas. I'll link a few articles; you can read about it if interested.
We took Paul and Rhonda to see our friends Bart and Annet in their Ardennes cabins on Monday. Their home is in a different part of Belgium, but they own vacation rentals and invited us to stay with them. It was a lovely drive to the Ardennes!
As we got closer to the cabins, it was interesting because one minute, you would be driving in Belgium, the next in Luxomberg, and you could see the markers in the fields separating the two.
When we got to the cabins, we pulled out the bag with the baguettes and croissants I had picked up at our favorite boulangerie in the morning. We brought them at Annet's request so we could have a lunch of bratwurst on baguette! Wow! That was sure good to sit in the fresh country air and eat by a fire!! Later, after we cleaned up, we chopped wood. It gets frigid in the Ardennes, and they use a lot of firewood. So Paul ran the wood-splitting machine, and the rest of us would stack. It was SO lovely to be in the country doing some work!! Sterling went with Bart into the woods, and they would haul back wood to be chopped. It was a really fun afternoon, and we ended the evening by having a special spaghetti dinner indoors because the evening was quite cool.
The next day, we also spent time with Bart and Annet touring around the countryside and going to a big World War 2 Museum in Bastogne, Belgium, which they wanted us to see. The museum focuses on the pivotal Battle of the Bulge and is one of the best museums I have been to. I'll post a link below.
Bastogne Battle of the Bulge War Museum
The people of Europe have seen so much war and heartache. As we walked through the cemeteries, seeing the young and old alike was very sad. War is a horrible thing….I read entries in a log book of people who come to see the graves, and the repetitive theme was "Lest we forget." It made me cry reading the entries. In the Battle of the Bulge alone, about 19,000 American soldiers died, 47,500 were wounded, and more than 23,000 were missing. The British suffered 1,400 casualties, with 200 killed. The Germans had 100,000 soldiers killed, wounded, or captured.
After the museum, Bart took Sterling, Tyson, Paul, and Bella on a Range Rover ride through the forest and countryside while Annet, Rhonda, and I made supper. Sterling and Bella rode on the top of the Range Rover…I never saw it, but I thought it would have been quite a sight! :) They saw animals, and Bart pointed out monuments and other historical things about the area!
We ended our day with a "cheese meal" at the cabin. (13 different cheeses, Boars head pate, and sausages with bread) We also whipped up a Belgian Waffle recipe (one of Annet's favorites) and cooked them in a waffle iron outside over a fire. At about 11:30 p.m., we returned to our cabin after many good talks and good times.
The next day, we packed up and headed over to tell Bart's goodbye. We had such a memorable time with them. They are very dear people, and we think a lot of them!
We pointed our car towards Paris. We showed Paul's some of the high points with what we had left of our day! (This post is getting long!! So I won’t put all the links!) We came home from Paris the next day, stopping by the Palace of Versailles and walking around the FREE part of the grounds. :)):))
We made a little stop through Chantilly and walked with our umbrellas shielding us from the rain, to a cafe selling bowls of Chantilly cream with many different toppings. We headed home to Lille after a trip that didn't seem long but had been packed full! It was nice to sleep in our beds, but sad to think of Paul and Rhonda having to head out the next morning to London!
L’Atelier de la Chantilly, Tea Room
After Paul’s left, life went back to the norm. Normal here consists of schoolwork….We are done with that now until the fall!! HOORAY! (Sterling finished 8th grade, and Bella finished 5th!!), as well as some tract work, visiting around town, running a household, and taking our language classes.
The temperature keeps hanging around the upper 50s and low 60s. It's green and lush, with lots of blooming flowers. It’s just a little colder than we would expect in May—almost June! Usually, there is a little window of sun each day. If you see it, you head out to be in it because it could be gone in 15 or 30 minutes!!! Also, there is usually some rain and clouds in between.
On the Saturday of Mother's Day weekend, we took a little hike at a nature reserve. (We had two full days of sun!!!) We returned to the house around 3ish or so, and our Landlord, Herve, showed up unexpectedly on a bicycle around 3:30. He spent the rest of the afternoon and into the evening with us, leaving at 9:30 p.m. Time always flies when Herve comes over. He's a nice guy and a great Landlord.
On Mother's Day, it was in the mid 70's with full sun!! !! !! We packed a little picnic of fresh baguette, ham, and cheese, with some apples and chips, and headed to the Dunkirk region, about an hour away. There are many dunes next to the beach that the children like to slide down, and we all like to hike there. I enjoyed sitting on the beach in the sunshine, listening to the waves, and watching the horses riding along the shore with their owners. It was a great day. (Tyson even rode with a potato farmer in his planter on the way to Dunkirk. We had pulled off the road where a grandpa, his son, and grandson were planting potatoes and struck up a conversation with the grandpa. Very nice people!) We ended the day by listening to Guntersville and Glenn's church service.
This last Saturday, the 25th, we loaded up and headed to the Somme River Valley for a tract tour. We had put 100’s of tracts in little plastic bags the night before. The drive through the valley was gorgeous! There were brilliant green fields of wheat, and sprinkled through the field would be bright red poppies waving in the wind. What a sight! ( I looked for a picture online, but nothing did it justice…I would rather you picture it in your mind. :)) Also, field after field of potatoes, the plants are just starting to take off. We finished the day by taking a hike by the Bay, hitting a Brasserie for supper on the way home, and returning at about 10:30 p.m. (The Somme Valley is rich in historical value as well.)
The next day, Sunday the 26th, we had Sunday School and lunch and headed towards Belgium. It was raining and windy as we drove through the countryside and headed towards Bruno and Marie’s. (remember, Bruno was Brother Albert’s son..) We sang together, prayed, and talked into the afternoon. We ended our visit by walking through their extensive garden and continuing the walk on the field roads behind their house. (As we walked through the garden, Bruno would throw SNAILS into his chicken pen, and they would rush! to eat them. LOL! Chickens like Escargot, too! There are snails everywhere in France!!! :))) The rain looked like it might set in, but no worries! Bruno and Marie’s daughter Julie had equipped us all with umbrellas! :)) We parted, and they extended an invitation for us to come again. We arrived home just in time to hear Uncle Rol preach at Glenn.
In June, we are looking forward to some friends visiting and the London missionaries heading this way!
Please keep us in your prayers and pray for the work in France. We hope you all are enjoying school being out and the last days of spring! -L-
