Dear friends,

           It was Rip Van Winkle revisited as we woke up in an erstwhile familiar place after a long absence.  The purpose of our recent trip to France was to investigate ministry opportunities at Sophia Antipolis, the French version of “silicon valley” in hills above Nice and Cannes.  It’s our conviction that the legions of uprooted scientists, both French and foreign, who sojourn in the area should go home with more than an enhanced appreciation of the beautiful Mediterranean countryside. 

    A few years ago, the French director of an international para-church organization, convinced of the strategic importance of the region, considered relocating in the area but couldn’t find affordable housing, so he shelved his project.  Meanwhile Drs. Royce and Susan J., a couple of retired  ophthalmologists from Arkansas, caught the vision and now share the gospel here with a growing list of mostly English-speaking contacts from the international community. The question is whether we should forsake our work in S. Florida and the Caribbean to join them?  Is this a providential opportunity or, as a friend suggested, a satanic ploy to take us away from the ministry with the more receptive French-speaking Antilleans of the Caribbean? That was the question we hoped our trip here would answer.

 It was fun being an ‘innocent abroad’ again, and I resolved to note right away contrasting cultural impressions which diminish rapidly as one becomes too familiar—like a fish in water—with his new environment.

Claustrophobia hit us as soon as we stepped off the plane in Nice:  so many people in so little space.  There’s no place to maneuver anything bigger than a Vespa, and our hotel room was roughly the size of an American’s wardrobe closet. But a month ago we were in Haiti where even running water and electricity are luxuries.  It’s all relative.  

 Expensive was a second impression: the equivalent of $5.50 for a small glass of OJ; and almost $7. for a gallon of gasoline.  Ouch.  Worse still are housing prices which are on a par with those of New York City.  If the Master of the Harvest wants us here, there will be significant logistical obstacles to overcome starting with new support-raising, which one looks forward to about as much as root canal work.  Still, is there anything too difficult for the Lord?

It’s Sunday 7:00 AM and I’m writing this from the café across from our hotel while Aline catches a few winks of sleep undisturbed by her husband’s nocturnal snoring.   I remember why I always preferred Sunday mornings in France.  The tranquility of our normally congested street is disturbed only by the occasional passing car and devoted Sunday morning bicyclists. Today’s “Nice Matin” (the regional newspaper) has a feature story on Lance Armstrong who’s training in the region for this summer’s Tour de France.  No one his age (almost 38) has ever won cycling’s most prestigious race.  Can he do it?  All of us over 40 are rooting for him.

More revealing than the depressing headlines in today’s paper are the forlorn looks on the faces of the few locals in the café as they puff on their ubiquitous cigarettes and sip their morning espresso.  To say that there’s not much joy of salvation here is a gross understatement.  Jay Leno once quipped that all seven of the dwarfs at Disneyland France are named “Grumpy”.

The morning’s headlines include the death (from lung cancer) of a noted French singer (Alain Bashung) who only a fortnight ago received several coveted music awards for his work.  I wonder what those awards are worth to him now?  “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity, says the preacher.”

Others, including our own son Calix—just two hours away in Marseille—seem more concerned by the immediate fate of their favorite soccer team than their eternal destiny.  Tonight (March 15) is a big game with the “Paris Saint Germain” team hosting the “Olympic de Marseille”—roughly the equivalent of a Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, with even more potential for violent confrontations between the two rival’s fanatic supporters.  2500 additional Parisian police have been called to cover the match, which constitutes a major distraction for a nation of millions of disgruntled welfare recipients.  Government allocations and soccer are the modern equivalents of bread and circuses, drugs of the decadent Roman Empire.

   10AM:  There’s not a single Reformed Evangelical church in the entire ‘Cote d’Azur’ region (almost three million people!); neither could I find any Christian radio station on as I lie awake in the wee hours due to jet-lagged insomnia.  So we head off to worship at the “Eglise Evangélique Libre” (a congregation of a denomination formed in 1838 after a split from the liberal Reformed Church of France) near Cannes.    The church (which meets in a building provided by the foresight of its 19^th century Scottish founders we’re told) is a friendly group of around 75 believers of diverse ages and sociological backgrounds.  The worship service was a well-balanced blend of traditional hymns and modern instrumentation with forty year old pastor Pierre playing the guitar.  Aline and I went away encouraged but nevertheless convinced that the preacher would benefit from Dr.  Bryan Chapell’s homiletics lectures we’ve been listening to via Covenant Seminary’s website.  Christ-centered preaching such as one hears in many Reformed churches in the U.S. is virtually non-existent in France.  A subsequent visit with the pastor revealed that his understanding of the Scriptures has been tainted, alas, by his evolutionist beliefs.

Sunday afternoon we did a bit of tourism, making the short drive up to nearby town of Grasse to visit the French perfume capital.  We learned from Vanessa, the vivacious 25 year old “Fragonnard” museum guide, that it takes 3.5 tons of rose petals to make one liter of perfume essence.  I couldn’t help but see the parallel between the manufacture of perfume and the making of disciples in France: both labor-intensive activities with the goal of producing a rare sweet fragrance.

   A friendly conversation with her after the tour allowed us to share some Scriptural aromatic allusions, including the story of a prostitute’s magnanimous gesture, anointing the Savior’s head with fragrant “oil of spikenard” (Mark 14:3), and the Christians “olfactory identity” as the  ‘sweet odor of salvation’ of which Paul speaks in II Cor. 2:14.  She graciously accepted a copy of “l’évangile selon Jean” and promised to read it.

Tuesday March 17:  We made some morning calls to speak with a few local pastors about our project.  In the afternoon we boarded a small ferry boat with about twenty elderly French folk to visit the nearby St. Honorat monastery on the smaller of the two Lérins islands, a center of Christian learning since the 5^th century.   Saints Patrick, Hilaire, Césaire, Vincent and other great luminaries of the early church, all studied there.   The monastery still exists, and is inhabited by about 30 monks who earn a living producing wine and lavender and selling some of their production to the few pilgrims to the island. 

While visiting the monastery’s somber gothic chapel, we were absolutely blown away by an impromptu rendition of Gounoud’s “Ave Maria”, sung with soul-shaking reverberation (due in part to the chapel’s acoustics) by the sublime soprano voice of a visiting member of the Paris Opera.  Noble for its aesthetics aspirations, but woefully misguided in its theology—it seemed a fitting metaphor for much of what we saw in France.

   We capped off our trip with a visit to Marseille to meet with MTW church planter Pete Mitchell and our son Calix.  Our older boy’s spiritual and professional welfare continues to be our greatest earthly concern.  He’s been blessed with musical talent, better than average literary skills—he’s perfectly bilingual—and the strong-willed determination that allowed him to pass the difficult European aviation exams.  But at 28, he’s still without a job, and more importantly, still not walking with the Lord.

March 22: We spend our last Sunday with a group of folk who worship at the Anglican Church in Cannes. It’s a convivial, cosmopolitan, if not visionary group comprised of about half Brits and half others. They appear to worship the Savior with a matter-of-factness which reminds one of how much residual grace still lingers in the Anglo-Saxon world.  Lunch is at a golf course with Dr. Royce and his wife and a dozen guests who use the opportunity to plan an evangelistic outreach with some of their English-speaking golfing friends and acquaintances. My game is the more French proletariat pétanque.  But I’m told that golfing is great for teaching humility; a precondition for accepting the gospel…  That could open up some new opportunities to witness….

  As for ourselves; the jury’s still out with the decision about the future of our ministry. We welcome any feedback from our supporters. We rely on His Word, a light for our path.   We’ll  continue to seek the Lord’s will even as we prepare for next week’s radio broadcasts, the next series of courses at our Florida Bible school as well as those in St. Martin (April 20-25) and in Togo (May 17-23).   There is hardly time to get bored.

                                                                         In His service,

                                                                         Marc

email: MMailloux50@comcast.net