Bonjour,

We want to begin this post with an encouraging invitation: take a moment to step back and reflect on your life. Is there a desire within you to help with something? It could be a new feeling or an echo from the past. If you’re unsure, reach out to someone you trust. Is that feeling, telling you that there are needs outside your current life you would like to help with? (the Mission field, volunteering locally, or being more useful.)

We plan to leave in early fall, and we hope someone can keep the small outreach alive in France. It has been a blessing for us! Many obstructions were in the way, yet God has made a path through it all. If you feel like giving some time to a location outside your local area, and the obstacles seem too big, take little steps. Try the door; God will open it if it’s meant to be.

We will open with our travels to the Bretagne Region. This region is on the northwestern side of France, sticking into the Atlantic Ocean. It is recognized worldwide for its two renowned tourist attractions, St. Malo and Mont Saint-Michel. However, in France, it is also recognized for three other prized commonalities: Butter, Crêpes, and salt. That’s right—butter, crepes, and salt.

Bretagne is well known for their butter—Look here to see more—

French butter is mostly from the Bretagne region and is typically held to a higher standard of butter fat, resulting in a creamier flavor profile. We were quite astonished when we stepped into a fromagerie in Rennes and asked if they had any local cheeses, and they only carried 1 type! You must understand that the countryside is covered with dairies. The storekeeper told us that almost all the milk in the region was used for butter. That’s a LOT of butter!

Remember, French people eat about twice as much butter as the rest of the world...

Next up is the Crepes.. One of our favorite meals in France! We were not prepared for the many different ways to eat a crepe. As one local told me, “You can have crepes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!” I asked about dessert... “Oh, of course, for dessert also!” They have both a salty crêpe (or galette) and a sweet crêpe here in France. As far as I can tell, the salty crepe is used the most in the Bretagne Region. It is a dark brown color and made with buckwheat flour. They are very good with fresh ham, melted cheese, and a runny egg in the middle!

La crêpe connaisseur? Click HERE to see more Bretagne Crepes..

Now for the important part..Why were we in the Bretagne Region? For Butter and Crepes? No, we had needed to follow up with some contacts in that region for a while, and it hadn’t worked out.

Our first contact was an older lady living with her daughter near Mt. St. Michel. We had been unable to get in touch with her, so we decided to drop in uninvited. She didn’t open the door, so we left some tracts a little note and an SS book that she had previously ordered and moved along.

Our next contact was in the village of Baguer-Morvan. This contact was originally from Belgium and had relocated to France to establish a church. He arrived around 2019, and then Covid hit, and it never really took off. We contacted him, but he said his wife was sick and we couldn’t meet up after all. We left him with some encouragement and literature. He told us his efforts had not taken off. It seemed he was a little discouraged with how life had unfolded for him so far. We hope a new path can be opened for him to find the people of God. Many people are seeking a group of like-minded believers with whom they can worship and fellowship. They feel like it’s just about futile to think a church could blossom because of the many years of the decline of religion in Europe.

In the end, we made our way to the village of Brest! It is the closest we will be to North America and still be in France, as this area sticks way out into the Atlantic Ocean. There is a lively fishing port and a submarine naval base. We didn’t see much evidence of the submarine base (but we figured that’s the way it’s supposed to be ;)).

We have an Angolan contact there who is passionate about spreading the Gospel. He is not without hope and feels like France can be re-evangelized. In his words..¨It is sometimes best to see a thing through with the eyes of an outsider.¨ Sometimes I get a feeling from the native French people that very few people will ever find the gospel. Then, if I meet someone like this, I get a completely different sense of the future. « Hope springs eternal in the ignorant? ». But, without hope, what makes a person continue? That is the choice we face at home and abroad.

In Rennes, we stopped at the local outdoor market and were introduced to more of the principal foods of Bretagne. We went for the butter (instead of the crepes) this time at the local market. We bought Madagascar Vanilla, Original, Garlic, and Wild Onion Butter, along with fresh baguette, some strawberries, and espresso. It made for a nice late lunch…We sat outside the market, spread out a little picnic, and ate while watching all the people go by.

A chateau in the prosperous Loire Valley…

On the way home, we took the route home along the Loire Valley. This is the “Route of the Kings”, as so many castles were built in the region. We got to tour our first Chateau in France. The Chateau Chenonceau. It is truly amazing to witness the design that went into building something like this.

It is built right over the top of the river, allowing residents to live on both land and water. What struck us was the self-sustainability of this immense place. It even had its own Apothecary! This was a very striking room with hundreds of natural remedies in jars. There was an expert (I don’t think they called them doctors) who could mix up pleasant but sometimes very disturbing remedies. The one remedy for the “lack of future Heirs to the throne” consisted of “stinging nettles” and “animal urine”. Many other recipes consisted of lavender and sage grown on site.. We would have loved to see them preparing these remedies with their big stone pounding boards and other ancient devices. However, the smell of some of those remedies must have been something to experience! We think it was probably for GOOD reason that the French were well known for buying Perfumes and Colognes by the liter!!

There were many beautiful tapestries throughout the castle…

On the walls in many rooms are what they call Flemish Tapestries. These resemble huge rugs, but on the wall. Some of them depicted gruesome war scenes, it would be quite the thing to look at first thing in the morning, or worse yet, to go to bed at night with the last image in your mind of someone beheading another person, it is the stuff of nightmares! It’s intriguing to think that those tapestries came from our home region in Flanders, right during the period when a lot of Mennonites were still in the middle of the textile trade. Did some of our ancestors contribute to the creation of these beautiful art pieces?

“One part” of the vast kitchen area in the chateau….(HELLO COPPER POTS!!!)

In every room of the Chateau, there were ELABORATE..(just gorgeous)…bouquets put together in the Chateau’s very own floral workshop…the flowers are all grown in the Chateau gardens..

The Chateau de Chenonceau was revamped many different times by different Queens. It seemed like their husbands were always off trying to plunder another area to get more money… for what? Maybe more renovations?

One of the Queens who made her home in this castle was none other than the famous Catherine de Médicis. I won’t bore you with details, but she was Italian and came from a very famous family that played a significant role in shaping Florence into the cradle of the Renaissance through their influence and close ties with the artists of the time. Oddly enough, the King had more than one lady he was seeing; they all seemed to live together and make things work. (( IF ONLY THE WALLS COULD TALK!))

They also built a fantastic chapel on the side of the castle. There is an interesting carving in the stone wall in English, which dates back hundreds of years. It says, ”Man’s anger does not accomplish God’s justice.” I wonder what that person was thinking? Did he carve it in the English language so the people couldn’t understand it? I don’t know, but the saying is a testament to the lasting power of the Word of God.

During the French Revolution, when many castles were looted and ransacked, the queen at the time, Madame Dupin, saved the chateau through practical measures. She said the chapel was the place where they “stored firewood”. She also said the Chateau was the only bridge over the river for miles. Then she brought out a “good bunch” of family paintings that the revolutionaries could burn to quench their thirst for vengeance. In the end, she donated some money to local physicians and educators, and the angry mob was hushed. It seems that seeing images of royalty go up in flames was as fulfilling to the revolutionaries as executing them at the guillotine! If only more could have chosen that way. The number of royalty and religious figures in France that were sent to the guillotine is shocking! If you are surprised that they targeted religious figures, it may not be like you think. It wasn’t because of religion they were targeted, but because the heavy tax they placed on the average person to pay for all of the majestic Cathedrals spread throughout the valley. Yikes! Maybe too much history... (We do love history!:))

Want to see more Castles in the Loire Valley? Click HERE..

All in all, we have been quite busy over the last couple of months, visiting contacts, receiving company, doing tract work, and, of course, having Sunday School and church services with Monsieur Phillipe and Aimee Vanell. We are a little delinquent in our writing because of the busyness of it all! I will tell you soon about our trip to see our friends Bart and Annet in Kortessem, as well as our trip to the South of France to the city of Perpignan and to visit Mariline. Until then, we hope you are all well and had a lovely Easter!

T & L

VINGT-CINQ- A Visit to Bretagne..

Vingt-six- (26) The South of France, Madame Mariline & a Testimony..

Vingt-quatre (24) Visitors, Galette des Rois, & Aimee..