Ten Totally Trivial Tidbits

1. We have this new app on our phones called Vivino. All I have to do is photograph the label on a wine bottle, and the app then gives me all of the information on that wine--such as where it's made, how it ranks, any distinguishing characteristics, price, and where I can buy it. It also creates a wine database for me for future reference. This is a very cool app to have when one lives in France.
2. I was in the States for ten days for my classes at George Fox, which was super fun, as always. In my missional leadership class we were asked to look at our hand to see if our ring finger was longer than our index finger. My ring finger is significantly longer than my index finger. And apparently, that's significant. Curious? Here and here are some articles I found on the topic.
   
3. Apparently, all buildings in Old Lyon are susceptible to rat and mice infestations. (Don't tell my mother, or she'll never come visit me!) Yesterday some building manitenence guys came by to place traps in our home. Fortunately, I think Jack and Gemma keep the critters away. So far, I haven't seen any unwelcome rodents. Which means I haven't seen any rodents, because no rodents would be welcome in my home.
4. David flew a plane this week. Hoping to be able to say the same next week.
5. I've been working on creating surveys for missionaries and mision agencies to get some information to help shape the organization that I want to create to help missionaries transition to the field. All I have to say is this: Google Docs Rocks!
6. We still don't have a church building, but that's not keeping us from being the church in our neighborhood. Today some local YWAM students came to our neighborhood to help with our outreach efforts, engaging people with a faith-realted questionaire. We will use the information gathered to shape another outreach event that we are planning for December.
7. I'm thinking of starting a photo collection called "French Men and Their Pants." Because I never cease to be amazed at the various colors of pants that French men wear. Yesterday at the Metro station I saw I guy wearing chartreuse-colored pants. The kicker was that his conservative looking grey blazer had elbow patches of the exact same color. I'm still smiling about it.
8. It's chestnut season! I had a chestnut mousse yesterday afternoon that knocked my socks off !
9. While in the States I was telling my dad about our regular ministry activities, and after telling him about our daily prayer meetings he asked, "Do you do prayer meetings in English or in French?" I thought, "What a weird question. We live in France. We work with French people. Of course we do them in French!" But apparently this is not something that Americans would assume. So just to be clear, we do 100% of our ministry in France in French. We pray in French, we worship in French, we preach in French, we plan in French, we evangelize in French, we teach in French, we train in French, we share meals in French, we encourage in French, we joke in French. We do speak English in our own home--but only when we are home alone as a family. When our French friends and neighbors come over we speak French. This is even more true in Lyon than it was in Loches because in Loches we lived and worked with several anglophones. Here we are the only ones on the team. And we like it that way.
10. Our coffee maker got broken in the move to Lyon, so after doing some research, we finally bit the bullet and bought a Nespresso machine. Oh la la. I now start every day with 20 minutes of silence and a fresh cappuccino. Because spiritual formation and coffee just GO together. 

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