...I didn't know how my first Christmas away from family and a home I've always known would go...but the Lord did a great job of blessing me during a time that could have been disheartening. It began with my first train ride ever...and in FIRST class...thanks to special student passes. It was so fun to travel with two of my roommates, even if carrying around a ton of luggage around Paris and on and off trains isn't so fun. We stopped through Dijon on our way to St. Amour...and yes, I was a typical tourist and bought mustard! I couldn't resist. Once we arrived in St. Amour, we were greeted with friendly faces at the train station and carried away in our own personal carriage (a fabulous minivan) up to the chateau of our dreams!! I'm not kidding or exaggerating. As we drove up the winding road, our mouths gradually (and not so gracefully) dropped open at the beautiful sight of real grass, tons of trees, beautiful fields, rolling hills, and a beautiful ancient castle a top of a magnificent hill. Was I dreaming? I actually had to pinch myself at least once. Especially as we got the insiders tour of the chateau and were shown ancient furniture, paintings, and amazing stone fireplaces.
The 5 days in St. Amour were spent with families...lots of children all around...baking...Christmas music, a whole table of sweets!!...and so much more. We lead the music at the Christmas Eve service in the freezing cold Chapel that is adjacent to the chateau and played Santa by helping stuff stockings and wrap presents until 2 in the morning. They gave us presents on Christmas, we watched tons of movies, and even saw snow fall on Christmas day...it was my very first White Christmas...I took TONS o pictures...I think it was about 350 over the five days!!! Amazing. Couldn't have asked for more and I was actually quite sad to leave.
But the blessings kept coming.
We made our way on the trains again over to Evian...yep, the place where the water is from. I have now showered in true Evian water! We arrived pretty early for the retreat, so we decided to walk around town a bit. We ate at a cute little restaurant, shopped a bit, and walked around on the streets as it was snowing (yep it snowed again!!!). The retreat was great. The Lord taught me a lot and began showing me parts of me that need to be smoothed over. I felt great intimacy with Him there among the huge Alps Mountain range covered in snow. What an amazing Creator we have!!! So imaginative. I had a great time meeting a lot of new people and hanging out with friends I know from Paris that came along. I also had a chance to improve my understanding of French...since the whole retreat was in French (but luckily I had some really nice personal translators!). One of the highlights of the retreat was on Thursday afternoon. We had the opportunity to spend the afternoon skiing in the Alps! It was so incredible. I still can't believe that we walked fifteen minutes in the snow from our retreat center, rented equipment, and before I knew it I was at the top of a mountain overlooking Lake Geneve, seeing the land of Switzerland and more beautiful mountain tops with snow covered trees than I've ever seen in my life!!...and all for the low price of 21 euros!!! Blessings. Blessings. And more blessings. So...yep...lots of pics (pictures) of those few days as well. I'll try to get some up on my blog asap.
So...now I am back in Paris and getting ready to go out with some friends for New Year's. We are going to hang out at some friends' apartment and then head over to the gardens at the Louvre and watch the spectacular fireworks. They're supposed to be really good to impress everyone because Paris is trying to become the olympic city for 2012. I hope so!! I'm sure I'll have lots of pics of that too!
This holiday season has truly been a time of rest from the Lord. I didn't even realize how badly I needed it until I left the smog city full of darkness and relaxed in the hand of the Lord on top of fresh air, snow covered mountains. Isn't it amazing how perfectly the Lord knows and fulfills our needs. What an amazing, personal, and loving God we have! And we have a relationship with Him because He sent His Son to be born and to be sacrificed. Blessings.
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