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Raclette Party

Last month we got to experience a really unique meal at a birthday party we hosted for our friend and neighbor who is French. The meal is called Raclette and consists of potatoes, hot cheeses and different meats (as you can see pictured in the photo). This is a dish that is native to Switzerland and France.

We had never heard of this before, but we ended up loving it! You prepare your potatoes ahead of time (like little baked potatoes), but do the rest of the cooking at the table. A raclette machine (called a coupelle or raclonette) is placed on the center of the table and has two levels. The top level has a warming plate for the precooked potatoes as well as little grill tops on either side of it for warming up various thinly sliced meats. The lower level is where the heating element for the cheese is, as well as lots of little slots for each person to put their individual pan of cheese. You place your pan of cheese into a slot until it is melted and a little bubbly on the top. You then smash up a potato on your plate, top it with warmed meat and pour the melted cheese overtop everything. We ate it with a side salad and pickles as well as various beverages.

While the food itself was delicious, my favorite part of the experience is how social it was. Instead of spending lots of time having to cook and prepare a meal, each person essentially prepared their own meal at the table. It allowed for an extended amount of time laughing, eating and talking together. This is a great picture of what we are learning are important values when it comes to meals in French culture: Slowing down and being together while enjoying delicious food.

As people who love food, community and hosting, this event was one of our favorite experiences here so far! We look forward to discovering much more about the culture and food here, and sharing it with all of you!

Bon appétit!

Selina

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ER Visit

As many of you know, a couple weeks ago we were dealing with a lot of sickness in our household. Mia had a fever and a rough day of constipation, but it was mostly Desmond who has struggled. Over the course of three or four weeks he had three different stretches of fevers ranging from two to five days in a row with high temps. This was both exhausting and concerning to us.

The third round of fevers lasted four days and involved very high temps and vomiting if he wasn’t consistently taking Ibuprofen and Tylenol so eventually we decided to take him to the emergency room. This was a daunting task to consider since we do not have a car and are still very early in our language learning, however it ended up being a great experience in which we got to see God provide in a really neat way!

We live in on-campus housing so everyone in our apartment building is attending language school, however we happen to live across the hall from one family who has a unique situation. The husband of this family is American and attends our school to learn french, but the wife is from France and so she speaks fluent french. Apparently this is not a common situation for our school, but has been such an incredible blessing to us in so many ways. In this particular circumstance, the wife of this family not only agreed to drive Desmond and I to the ER, but offered to be our translator as well. As I reflect on this experience I am amazed at how incredibly stressful it would have been to try and explain Desmond’s symptoms as well as understand all the questions they asked me if I had been on my own. Thankfully, with this sweet friend accompanying me it was a smooth trip. Here is a little glimpse into our experience:

Basically the whole experience can be summed up in the word “waiting”. This refers to the extended time we spent waiting, but also for how many different places we ended up waiting. I am used to the experiences I’ve had in the States where you generally check in, wait in a waiting room then spend the remainder of your time in an exam room, assuming you don’t get admitted or need additional testing. My experience here was very different.

First, we buzzed in and waited on some chairs outside. Then we were let in through a first set of doors and told to wait on some chairs in between those doors and the next set of doors. Then we went into small room no. 1 and a nurse took Desmond’s vitals and asked some initial questions. Then we waited in a big, general waiting room until it was our turn to go into small room no. 2 to fill out some paperwork. What was tricky about this room is that no one calls you in, you just go when you think it’s your turn and the room is empty. Thankfully my friend knew that we had to just go in. I’m certain that had I been alone I would have definitely sat in that waiting room for a long time, expecting someone to call me back.

After small room no. 2 we were taken back to the pediatrics part of the ER to wait in a waiting room meant for kids. Then we were brought into an examination room where we waited the longest. Eventually several people came to examine Desmond. Despite all of this occurring during his normal nap time Desmond was a very cooperative patient. He even did deep breaths when they listened to his lungs and opened his mouth wide for them to look at his throat. If you have ever witnessed us trying to brush Desmond’s teeth, you know what an incredible thing it is that he would willingly open his mouth at all, let alone for a stranger!

After everything we were told that, thankfully, they were not concerned, but think his immune system is just adjusting to a new place and so many new germs which is why he keeps getting new sicknesses. They encouraged me to continue caring for him with medication as needed and monitoring for dehydration or any new symptoms with the fever. Finally, we packed up and went to go wait in the big waiting room again until it was our turn to go into small room no. 2 for a second time. We had accidentally been discharged from the system too soon so we waited in there awhile for Desmond to get readmitted so we could pay for the visit (a remarkably inexpensive 47 euros!) then we were on our way!

I thought it humorous to share the experience in all it’s many steps because it was so different than what I, and maybe many of you, are used to, but I mostly wanted to share all the details to emphasize God’s provision. While I could not understand much of what was said and in my nervousness struggled to answer even simple questions well (example: I told the nurse Desmond was born in 220 instead of 2020 haha!), my friend understood all that was going on and had been to that ER before so she knew exactly where to go. Additionally, the hours spent waiting allowed her and I to talk and get to one another better. God also provided very kind medical staff who were so gentle with Desmond. Some of them even tried to speak to me in English, even if they only knew a couple of words.

The day after our visit Desmond woke up fever free and as if he had never been sick, but I’m still thankful for the experience. On one hand it was great to have peace of mind after bringing him in, but in a bigger sense it allowed me to see, yet again, the ways God provides.

-Selina

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Goûter

A couple of weeks into being here in France, I met the dad (I will call him Henry) of one of Mia’s classmates while waiting to pick her up from school. Thankfully, he spoke a good amount of English so our conversation could last longer than a minute or two :D. Before I knew it, he was inviting our family over to his house that weekend for a “goûter” (pronounced GOO-TAY). I accepted the invite (without knowing what a goûter was) as I was just thrilled to have received an invitation to a French family’s home.

As I would come to learn, goûter is an afternoon snack meant for children, usually around 4 of 4:30pm. Two important things to note. First, French families don’t usually eat dinner until 7 or 8pm so the goûter tides the kids over since they usually eat lunch around noon. Second, this is typically the only snack French children get during the day, so it is very precious to them. This was very shocking to us, as our kids pretty much snack continuously throughout the day.

After having to cancel two weeks in a row due to sick kids, we were finally able to head to this family’s house for goûter last weekend, although it was only Mia and I that went since Desmond had another fever. This was a really neat experience as it was our first time inside a French home and it was Mia’s first play date with someone from school. They served crepes with Nutella, coconut flakes, honey or jam as toppings. Much to my delight, I was also invited to eat. We ended up spending about three and half hours there and it was a really fun time to get to know Henry and his family better. It was also excellent French practice for me as Henry’s wife doesn’t speak any English.

We plan to have this family over to our house for a meal sometime soon and to visit a local pool with them during our two week break from school (2/12 – 2/27). Watch out for another post about our French pool experience!

-Adam

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First Day of School!

The day that we have been anticipating and praying about for months! God has given us several good days of settling into our new home and adjusting to the time change which made our first early morning for school so much easier. I was particularly nervous for Mia as she is attending a French maternelle (or kindergarten) about 15 minutes from where we live. She has never been in school, let alone a French one so I have, admittedly, been fairly nervous for her.

Ready to go in her “Hello…Bonjour” shirt – how cool that a friend was selling this shirt on their Facebook resale page right before we left!

This morning was smooth until we arrived to the school and had no idea where to go! Thankfully the director of the school (the principal) spoke enough English to help us get sorted out and soon enough Mia was whisked away into her classroom. The process was longer than expected and my class started in the morning so we had a brisk walk home (I would have probably cried more when we left the school, but I was too out of breath and sweating haha!).

Approaching Mia’s school

One interesting thing here in France is that they take lunchtime (déjeuner) very seriously. So much so that you get a two hour break in the middle of the day for it! And you even go and pick your children up from school/daycare during this break (unless you pay to keep them at school). Such an fascinating cultural thing, but also a blessing to us today as it meant we got to see Mia for the afternoon and hear how the morning had gone. Adam picked her up by bike to help cut down on the travel time since 15 minutes of walking both ways cuts into our break quite a bit. Her report was that she loved school! What an amazing answer to so many prayers! She went back after lunch and had a great second half of the day as well. Tonight at bedtime she became pretty sad about having to go back tomorrow which was hard, but Adam spent a long time talking and praying with her. We won’t be surprised if she still runs into difficulties in the coming days and weeks as this is all so new to her, but we are thankful for such a positive start overall. We continue to pray for her transition to kindergarten!

Thankful for some fellow students in the building who are letting us use their bike and kid’s seat for now – we have been so blessed by this community!

Adam and I’s first day consisted of a tour of the school, which is just across the parking lot from our apartment building and then a placement test which assesses how much French you know so they can decide which class to put you in. Needless to say it was a quick test! Despite how little we currently know, doing the placement test gave us both a taste and excitement for all the learning ahead. Tomorrow we have orientation and will also find out which classes we are in. We have Wednesdays off every week and then begin normal classes Thursday. We feel privileged to be here! Thanks for following our journey!

Jusqu’à la prochaine fois (until next time) – Selina

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Saying Goodbyes and an Aching Heart (Selina)

Our first couple of days in France have been a whirlwind. I can’t even keep straight what day it is! We flew out of the Detroit airport on Tuesday and had an overnight flight to Amsterdam. Then sometime Wednesday we got into Amsterdam and quickly flew out of there to Geneva. We got to Geneva sometime Wednesday afternoon and a taxi drove us plus our 7 totes, 2 suitcases, 2 car seats with sleepy children, a double stroller and 6 various sized carryon/personal items to our school in Albertville, France. We arrived shortly after 4pm here and have been here two full days now…so I guess that makes today Friday!

In all seriousness though I have been amazed by this process and wanted to attempt to share what it’s been like.

The weeks leading up to our departure were far more stressful than I anticipated – Adam and I both ended up getting sick the week before we left which in hindsight was probably due to stress and lack of sleep more than anything else. Regardless, this made us particularly nervous for our Covid tests the night before we flew so we felt enormous relief when we heard our results were negative. We finalized packing that night – the end of a tiring process of constantly second guessing what was worth bringing.

Then came the morning of our departure which was probably one of the most difficult days of my life. Adam and I have both lived in Midland practically our whole lives and our family is very close. In our old house in Midland we lived minutes away from both of our moms, my dad and all my brothers. My sister and brother-in-law were only 30 minutes away so it was not unusual to see various members of our family several times a week, especially in the months leading up to our departure. Additionally we spent our final two weeks in the States living at my moms house which brought us all the closer to everyone since we were with many of them all the time, even my sister who was on Christmas break and spent several nights at my mom’s as well.

The morning we left my dad came to say goodbye to us in first so the tears started early. When it was time to leave for the airport we said goodbye to my four younger brothers (their ages range from 13-21) which were some of the most difficult goodbyes for me as we don’t know that we will see them again before we come back on home assignment at some point. Then both of our moms, my sister and her husband drove us to the airport. We had a long check in process (see earlier list of what we brought) which allowed us extended time with them in the airport. Moments I will always cherish. Then came those final goodbyes. So many tears shed. While our moms plan to visit us in France we don’t anticipate my sister and her husband coming since they are due with their first baby, my first nephew, in just a couple weeks.

We hugged each of them tightly then rushed to get to security. In our haste I remember realizing that I hadn’t turned back for one last wave goodbye, but they were already out of sight. Then my heart soared when we got up to security and I was able to glimpse the four of them one last time. The flights and travel were so crazy that I did not have a ton of time to think about those goodbyes.

Then came our first night in France, which went well from a practical standpoint – the kids fell asleep quickly and only woke up once before sleeping in until 10:30am, but for me it was one of the more difficult nights I’ve experienced. I had been tearful the whole evening and exhausted from our trip, but then I woke up in the middle of the night and felt truly awful. I have never experienced such an ache in my heart. Every time I thought about each goodbye with our family and with dear friends the days leading up to leaving I felt my stomach drop. The reality of being away from home, from all that is familiar and those who we so deeply cherish was all hitting me at once. I was overwhelmed with feelings of sadness and even regret. Why had we chosen to do this? Why would we leave all those people we love? How would I get through this pain? In the midst of that I felt the Spirit remind me, “You can’t get through it, but Jesus can carry you through it.” And I knew I needed to cry out to God. There was no way to make myself “feel” better or to explain to myself all the reasons why we are here. So I cried out to God and prayed for the peace of His Spirit. I begged Him to minister to my heart which continued to ache. And even in the dead of the night He was there, comforting me and allowing me to fall back asleep.

The next morning I stepped into our apartment and saw all the natural light streaming into the living room. I looked out the window and saw the incredible mountains that surround Albertville. I thought of all the past couple of days had held and instead of a hole in my stomach and a throbbing heart, I felt at peace. The longing for my loved ones and the familiarity of Midland is still there obviously, but with ease the Lord has already lessened that aching. By His Spirit He is providing peace that only He can give and continually cementing a foundation in Him for why we are here and why all of this is so good.

He also prompted me to journal and reflect on all the many ways we saw His hand on the trip here. He allowed the kids to do SO well on the flights and taxi drive. He provided awesome neighbors in our apartment building who moved all our luggage in (we’re on the second floor), provided us dinner our first night and cookies the next day, took us grocery shopping and who have answered a million questions for us already. He has allowed our little apartment to already feel so much like home in just the time it took to unpack. He has given us such an amazing support system of family, friends and prayer warriors (you who are reading this!). He has allowed us to live in a place that is so breathtaking in it’s beauty we can’t help but praise Him for His creativity and workmanship! He has and continues to wrap His arms around me, around our whole family, to provide, comfort and encourage in ways only He can. This has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done and I know the difficulty and discomfort will only continue as we start school Monday and put our kids in preschool/daycare for the first time. In those things and beyond I don’t know what is in store for us, but I do know that God has gone before us and will be with us each step of the way. I’m so excited to see what He reveals of Himself through all of these changes and transitions as well as the heartache. He is so worthy of it all!

-Selina

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The Chief End of Man

Earlier this month we put on our first ever garage sale. As someone who is not very sentimental, I was in my element going through our house room by room and putting things into our sell pile. I was loving clearing up space in our home and making progress towards eventually getting rid of most of our things when we move to France.

One evening leading up to the sale I was going through some of Mia and Desmond’s toys. At one point Mia came over to me and started playing with one of her old toys which I had already put into the sell pile. I had a conversation with her about how she could play with the toy a little longer but then we were going to sell it. Over the next couple of days Mia repeatedly came up to me asking if we were going to sell some of her favorite toys. With each of these questions I felt a bit of sadness and guilt that we were making her part with toys that she still enjoyed and played with.

Thankfully, God brought to mind a passage from a book on parenting that I’m currently reading. In this passage the author is talking about the objectives we have for our kids. The passage goes like this, “If your objectives are anything other than ‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever,’ you teach your children to function in the culture on its terms. How do we do this? We pander to their desires and wishes. We teach them to find their soul’s delight in going places and doing things. We attempt to satisfy their lust for excitement. We fill their young lives with distractions from God. We give them material things and take delight in their delight in possessions. Then we hope that somewhere down the line they will see that a life worth living is found only in knowing and serving God.”

I realized that I was taking delight in Mia’s and Desmond’s delight in their toys. On a basic level, I think this is natural and it’s good to give gifts to our kids that they will enjoy. But I also realized that I was missing a golden opportunity to point them to Jesus; to communicate to them that their toys will not satisfy them. The only thing that satisfies us is God and, therefore, the only true path to joy is seeking our Creator, rather than created things. I suspect I will be having many conversations like this over the coming months as well as over the coming years. It’s a truth I regularly need to be reminded of myself. Thankfully we serve an incredibly patient and gracious God.

– Adam

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Our Personal God

I have a mentor who was sharing with me about how she will often ask God to minister to her heart and He always responds in amazing ways. This was a new, but interesting idea to me. To minister is “to attend to the needs of [someone]”. God meets all of our needs so it seems to me a fitting thing to pray to Him. So, lately, I have been trying to more intentionally bring my sorrows, concerns and longings to Him, asking Him to minister to my heart.

One of the biggest things I have been learning through this is that He is such a personal God. He is a loving Father who hears my prayers and wraps me in an embrace. He is a tender Savior who lavishes me with love, though I am so quick to doubt and fear and worry. He knows each of His children better than we even know ourselves and supplies exactly what we need, when we need it.

On our recent trip to Kansas City for our Avant Go training I felt Him ministering to my heart in two very special and tangible ways.

First, it had recently dawned on me that when we go to France for language school we will be in classes four days a week and therefore our kids will be in daycare four days a week, for the first time ever. My desire has always been to stay home with our kids and the last three years of doing so have been such a gift. When I realized the reality of full time language school I was disappointed. I feel confident in our calling to go overseas and excited about learning French next year, but I couldn’t help feeling sad that I would not be with our kids in the stay-at-home capacity I have loved. So, in time, I brought it to the Lord, asking Him to minister to my heart. While at Avant we had classes all day so our kids went into a childcare setting during that time. Despite this being the longest the kids have been apart from us, especially with non-family members, they did great! Mia in particular thrived in the classroom. She adored her teachers, loved her classmates and eagerly anticipated each new day. One morning she woke up, came over and hugged me and then the first thing she said was, “Can I go to my classroom now?!”. I am so thankful for this experience and the glimpse it gave me into the experiences Mia will get to have during our time in France. It felt like a literal pat on the back from God as He assured me that He will care for our children whether they are home with me or not.

Second, our class for Avant Go was made up of people we had met last July at Avant Start as well as some people we were meeting for the first time. During the day our classes were filled with studying Scripture together, learning about what it looks like to move and work overseas and growing in appreciation for how God has uniquely created each of us. Each evening many of us gathered to play games together and share food and laughter. By the end of our week and a half of training it was hard to say goodbye to these dear friends. What stood out about this to me is that God knew who was going to come to this training. He knew each of our personalities, strengths and weaknesses. He provided fellowship and community and so much relational joy. And all of that in a mere week and a half. One of the biggest sorrows for me with our upcoming move overseas is leaving our community here in Midland. Almost all of our family lives near us, we have an amazing church family and tight knit friend group. As we drew close to people we had just met at Avant Go I felt God comforting me that He is the one who provides for us and that includes our relationships. Again, it was a gentle embrace from my Father who knows my desire for community and chose to show me so clearly that He is able to provide it, wherever we are.

I am so thankful for our personal God and the assurance that He hears our prayers and responds. I pray you know Him personally as well and get to experience the wonders of His love!

-Selina

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He is Worthy

Today is July 9th. As things stand we will leave for France in less than 6 months. This has been such an interesting year of emotions. Sheer excitement that our hopes and plans for overseas work is becoming reality, deep sorrow over the short time left living in a town we love close to family and friends we cherish, uncertainty over all of the details involved with moving our family to another continent (and then doing it all again a year later), eagerness to use our remaining time in the States well – for His glory and for the eternal good of those we are in contact with here. Ultimately though I think we have experienced a peace beyond explanation amidst all those emotions as well as an ever-growing closeness to the Lord as we learn more and more what it means to surrender all to Him and trust His leading.

In particular I feel He has been giving me such encouragement through my quiet times with Him in His Word, reminding me of how infinitely good He is and how incredibly worthy He is of anything I would perceive as sacrifice in pursuit of His call on my life. May you be encouraged today to press hard after Him – He is worth everything!

Matthew 6:19-21 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Philippians 3:7-14 “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of His resurrection and participation in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

-Selina

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Welcome to our Website!

Hello! We are so excited to be launching our new website. Here are some of the reasons we decided to create a website in the first place:

  1. It allows all of our content to be in one location for easier access
  2. We currently send out a monthly newsletter, but also wanted a place to share shorter and less formal information through blog posts
  3. We want to be able to give you a glimpse into life overseas and are excited to be able to do that more easily through video posts which you will be able to find here

We are so very thankful for everyone who has supported us in this journey – from our family and friends to everyone partnering with us and all of you jumping on here to check out our story and website. Thank you!

Love, The Matzke Family