Chapter 3: Wandering through France

Was there ever a day when you woke up and you didn’t know where your bed would be the next night?

Our journey abroad started with our three day honeymoon in the Ardennen, southern part of Belgium. We stayed in a cozy little B&B called L’Ardoise, where we were welcomed by Mieke and Paul. It was a relaxing time of enjoying good meals, long walks in the beautiful forests and small medieval villages, and the kindness of our wonderful hosts. One day we went to Durbuy, 'the smallest city of  the world'. After visiting this town we returned to the car and saw a red van with a sticker saying #Europeisourbackyard. ‘Oh, it looks like it is from other travelers, what would it be great to meet them. Let’s walk around the city one more time to see if we can encounter them.’ And after a round through the city, there they were at the parking lot. It turned out that they were a Dutch couple that also started some weeks ago and it was really nice to speak to each other. When we said that we were planning to meet and help missionaries, they told us about two other Dutch couples that they were following, who name themselves travel many roads. At the moment these two couples are back in the Netherlands and organize a theater production they made about their journey - Songbirds of passage -

The other day, when we were discussing what to visit next, our host, Mieke, came to as and asked: ‘If I may, you look like people that would be very interested in visiting the Hare Krishna community in Radhadesh.’ They are a Hindu community that bought and renovated one of the castles in Belgium, and are now one of the biggest Hindu centers in the western part of Europe. We had a tour around the castle and were amazed by the totally different culture they live in.

Then our stay in L’Ardoise ended, and we said goodbye to Paul and Mieke. Before we left Mieke asked if we could use some clothes, she wanted to give them to us, otherwise she would throw them away. We don’t need them ourselves, but accepted to give them to people who could use them. Despite some of our efforts, we hadn’t found a place to go yet. So where shall we go next? Irma just discovered that towns that are highly interesting to visit are marked on the map. When we were about to leave we looked on the map which city in southern direction seemed interesting, which was Reims. ‘Funny, last night I already thought about Reims’ Gideon said. Reims is known for its large cathedral, which we off course visited. In the afternoon we hoped to find some voluntary work at the salvation army. They were very friendly people that listened with patience while we tried to explain in French what we wanted to do.  Unfortunately they had no work for us, but they accepted the clothes we got from Mieke.

The afternoon passed and the night came. We tried to find a place to sleep in one of the small village around Reims, but without success. Thus we went to the forest, where we searched a place to set up camp. It was already dark when we cooked our simple meal and got ready to sleep under the night sky. The next morning we went further south to the city of Vézelay. Mieke advised us to check out some pilgrim hostels if we wanted a cheap stay and when we checked for cities on the pilgrim routes, we saw the name of Vézelay, which is a starting point of the pilgrimage to both Santiago de Compostella and Assisi. While Irma was driving on through the French fields, Gideon saw an interesting abbey on the map where we wanted to stop, the abbey of Pontigny. It was a large and beautiful abbey and it looked like there was a living christian community. We saw a poster of ‘Mission de France’, an organisation that tries to revive the enthusiasm for living out the Gospel within the Catholic church; which is also active in Pontigny. When we went there we were welcomed to drink some coffee with the people there, and they told us more about their work. They could not help us with voluntary work or a place to sleep, but said to us that if we went to Vézelay, they could give us the contact of the brothers and sisters of Jerusalem, a congregation that is active in Vézelay. And so we followed the breadcrumbs to Vézelay.

At some point the gloomy, rainy day without feeling really useful got the best of us. But that moment we stopped the car to switch drivers, the orange of the setting sun was shining toward us and we saw three rainbows. It was a wonderful moment that really encouraged us. It was already late when we got to Vézelay and we couldn’t find a cheap place to stay. Since we didn’t want to spend too much money already and didn’t feel like setting up a tent again after a rainy day. So we decided to sleep in the car. Not comfortable, but easy and the night sky with sight of the Vézelay abbey was beautiful; we even saw the milky way.

The next day was Sunday and it was time to go to church in the large basilica of Vézelay. After the Eucharist we met with two Dutch-speaking sisters, one from Belgium and one from the Netherlands, and they told us about the Monastic of Jerusalem. ‘Are you pilgrims?’ the sisters asked? ‘Well, kind off. We don’t walk to a certain place, but we are on pilgrimage through Europe’. We could stay in the pilgrim hostel of the sisters and when we asked if it was possible to help them with anything, we could help them with cleaning the glass windows of the chapel. The last day, we prayed a final time with the brothers and sisters. After that we said goodbye to them. Sister Ruth told us the story of how God called her to become a sister, we prayed together in the crypt of Saint Marie-Madelaine and she also showed us the garden behind the abbey. It was a very special moment and made our stay in Vézelay even more fulfilling.

Our next plan was to go to an ecovillage. Since we are both interested in growing our own food, and waste reduction, Gideon came with the idea to look if there were any ecovillages on our way. We found the community AVEC (Aventure Village Eco Construction) and tried to call to ask if it was okay to visit and if we could help in some way, but we couldn’t reach them. We decided to go anyway, but when we were in the village, we couldn’t find it. After asking around, and not getting any direction, we called one last time and luckily this time a woman answered. We were welcomed by Ange and she showed us around their large land with which they have big dreams. We hope they will be able to accomplish them. For the next days we were welcomed in their family, worked a bit in the garden, played with their cute daughter Eglantine, and enjoyed delicious meals with fresh vegetables from the garden and even edible wild mushrooms. They also had a lot of musical instruments and Gideon enjoyed playing piano again. One afternoon we also visited another ecovillage together, called Eotopia, where we had a tour, played music and had diner together. It was nice and inspiring to be with people that dare to start and live out great ideals for a better world and for community life. It also triggered us again to think about our dreams of a community life (and Irma’s dream for a garden).

After this week of wandering around, we came home in Taize. More about that next time.