Check back soon - I'll be posting photos and maybe some videos from our Christmas Carol Services in Nice and Saint Paul de Vence!
The Sojourner
Regular updates about the life and ministry of Jill Senechal, missionary in Southern France. Bienvenue! Welcome!
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
Jack-o-Lanterns
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Car Accident
So, I had my first foreign car accident this week. The bus driver left the scene without giving me his information, but other than that, everything is fine. Well, except for the car.
I'll post photos soon - I especially want everyone to see how well the new bumper I put on held up!
I'll post photos soon - I especially want everyone to see how well the new bumper I put on held up!
Monday, October 25, 2010
Avignon
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Half Day of Prayer
Every three months our church hosts a Half-Day of Prayer, where we get together and pray for one another, for our church, and for the world. This time we all met at James and Jen's house on a sunny Saturday to pray, and then had a barbecue to celebrate Independence Day. The prayer time was great: we modeled our prayer time after the Lord's Prayer. Here are a few photos from our day together:
Our New Home
Friday, June 25, 2010
Baptism!
This Saturday five members of our church family were baptized in the Mediterranean. It was truly an international event, as those baptized come from France, the USA, the Ukraine, and India. Each one gave a short profession of their faith before getting in the water. They were all very moving, though perhaps most moving of all was our own teammate, 9-year old Rebekah, who was baptized by her dad.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Marie Durant
While we were at the castle last month, we visited a museum dedicated to the Huguenots, the French Protestants of the early 18th century who were persecuted for their beliefs. I was especially touched by the story of a woman named Marie.
Below is an excerpt from an article called "The Ultimate Meaning of True Womanhood" by John Piper (full article here, who tells her story.
The opposite of a wimpy woman is a girl named Marie Durant. In the late Seventeenth Century in . . . southern France, she was brought before the authorities, charged with the Huguenot heresy. She was fourteen years old, bright, attractive, marriageable. She was asked to abjure the Huguenot faith. She was not asked to commit an immoral act, to become a criminal, or even change the day-to-day quality of her behavior. She was only asked to say, “J’abjure.” No more, no less. She did not comply. Together with thirty other Huguenot women she was put into a tower by the sea. . . . For thirty-eight years she continued. . . . And instead of the hated word J’abjure she, together with her fellow martyrs, scratched on the wall of the prison tower the single word Resistez, resist! The word is still seen and gaped at by tourists on the stone wall at Aigues-Mortes. . . . We do not understand the terrifying simplicity of a religious commitment which asks nothing of time and gets nothing from time. We can understand a religion that enhances time. . . . But we cannot understand a faith which is not nourished by the temporal hope that tomorrow things will be better. To sit in a prison room with thirty others and to see the day change into night and summer into autumn, to feel the slow systemic changes within one’s flesh; the drying and wrinkling of the skin, the loss of muscle tone, the stiffening of the joints, the slow stupefaction of the senses - to feel all this and still persevere seems almost idiotic to a generation which has no capacity to wait and to endure.
A painting of Marie Durant and her fellow inmates at the tower of Aiges-Mortes.
The stone from the tower wall where the women etched "Resistez".
Thursday, April 22, 2010
A Week in a Castle!
Here are a few more pictures of our week in the Cevennes, near La Salle. We stayed in a Chateau on a hill, and the trees and flowers were really getting ready for spring! These are pictures of the grounds of the castle. Later on I'll post some photos of the surrounding area, including a story from the Musee du Desert, a museum we visited which commemorates the Huguenots of the early 1700s. The Huguenots were the French Protestants who were persecuted heavily for their faith and lived mainly in the hills of the Cevennes, where they could hide from the French troops. It was a really moving and inspirational museum - I'll tell you more about it soon!
Monday, April 19, 2010
House Guests
I've been out of touch for about a week as the entire team, along with our visiting guests Dr. and Mrs. Young, traveled to a International Church Conference at a castle in the Cevennes. It was such a beautiful region, the Cote d'Azur almost pales in comparison! (At least, for those like me who prefer mountains and rivers to the blue of the Med.) We had a great week of teaching and meeting together with church leaders from all over Europe, and I realized my childhood dream of sleeping in an actual castle for a week!
Now that we are back, we have a couple more house-guests to add to the party, as the volcano in Iceland has prevented Dr. Young and his wife from flying home for a few more days. Never a dull moment here!
I will write soon and post more pictures of our lovely week in the Cevennes!
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