Chapter 5: Work in progress

At first, thanks for all the responses you sent on our question last post of how to react on homeless people and how to help them. It is very interesting and inspiring to read about your experiences .

For two weeks we stayed with a couple, Jean and Anthony in La Vesse, which is a tiny village in Les Callanques, west of Marseille. Our hosts were globetrotters pur sang, their whole house was decorated with all kind of souvenirs from all over the world. So they were very welcoming to two travelers like ourselves. Via workaway.com we arranged that we could stay in their house and that we could help with their project in the garden.

The entire house was home-made, with the help of some friends and fellow work-awayers, and the final project was to make a four tiered terrace at the back of the house. But in order to make the garden ready for the wooden terrace, it had to be made completely weed and shrub free. This was a good opportunity for us to come in touch with the spirituality of gardening – discussing the Bible while pulling out vines. While working in their garden we also dreamed a bit about how this garden could be, and what our future garden, house and life would look like. In the end Irma made a nice drawing to show our ideas.

Irma quickly grew in favour with our hosts after cooking a delicious diner and baking bread from our witte broodsweken flour, to celebrate the first six weeks of our marriage. Normally Sabine la Voisine takes care of the diner of the two hard working men, but now there was another woman in the house to make the food.

We also went to the big city of Marseille several times. Continuing our growing habit of visiting beautiful catholic churches and walking through the beautiful nature, we went to the cathedral of Major and the cliffs of Sujiton.
The two Wednesday evenings we were in Marseille, we dedicated to meeting the local IFES community – GBU Marseille (GBU = Groupe Biblique Universitaire). The first evening we were introduced to the very French tradition of Raclette, which is basically eating potatoes with melted cheese and fried bacon. One of the students there was a Dutch guy, who studied in Gent, and is now in Marseille for his internship. He was very glad to meet two other Dutch people for the first time in the months that he stayed in France.
Our second evening was a Bible discussion about Galatians 3:23 – 4:11. The subject of Christian identity is fascinating as it is, but trying to convey your ideas about the Bible in French is a whole new experience.
It was absolutely amazing to meet these Christian students during our journey, and we hope to meet some of them again during the IFES Europe conference – Revive! at the end of 2019.

Back in La Vesse it was time to say good-bye to our hosts, Sabine and all the other friends we met during our stay. So we threw a small good-bye party.
And then our journey led us into new and uncharted waters across the border into Spain.

Our journey into Spain did not go unnoticed for some Gilets Jaunes (French protest group, demanding lower fuel taxes). We were stuck in a traffic jam before a blockade for several hours, several times. Which gave us plenty of time to pray, read the Bible and play some guitar in the middle of the road. One guy was filming us while we were singing dutch worship songs, and right after the song another guy came and showed us a shortcut, away from the blockade.
When we finally crossed the border it was already late at night and we were too tired to continue to Barcelona, as was our initial plan, but we stopped at the first parking, and set up our tent next to the highway, under the Spanish sky.

The next day we enjoyed the big city of Barcelona and the sun made it feel like spring again. We were completely overwhelmed by Gaudí’s Sagrada Famillia; we have seen several Catholic churches on our trip, but this is something completely different. It shows us how to use all of your dedication, creativity and inspiration to worship God, be it through architecture, drawing or music.
Barcelona was also a great place to practice what we had learned in Lyon and Avignon, for there were several beggars and people who asked for our help. Irma immediately took the opportunity to pray for them, but Gideon was a bit more holding back. Finally, when we were eating paella at a restaurant, there was another guy who asked for some money and who was limping a bit. Gideon kept trying to ignore him, but God was very clear: 'Go after him.' So when we finished our meal, we went to look for the man. We found him, asked him about his leg, and he told his story. Gideon than could pray for him, and we gave him some change. We don’t know if it made a difference for him, but it surely did for us.

Our next stop would be another work away host from Lleida, Josep Maria. A few weeks earlier, we got his invitation via work away, because he saw that we were going to visit Spain. So we gladly accepted this. For the first time on our trip someone asked us to come to him instead of the other way around.

He welcomed us in a cosy caravan next to his big country side house, which is still under construction. Josep is a very inspirational man, who does a lot for the local community. . E.g. With the construction of this house he asked help of people that were unemployed, as a way to help them back into society and make it easier in the future to find work. He asked us to help with some small chores around the new house, like cleaning and collecting almonds from the trees. The big task he gave us was to design the surrounding area of the house, which, very conveniently, is a skill we just had been learning in Marseille. So at the end of the week we came up with a nice design, and some beautiful drawings Irma made.

On the last day Josep asked us to come with him to another house he build in the country side, to help him prune the olive trees. His father had bought an old abandoned olive garden, and he wanted to turn it into a beautiful forest with olive trees. There we met with a friend of Josep, Elodie, and her dog, Lua, who lived in Lleida as well.
Josep asked us to leave one day earlier than we planned, for he went to spend the weekend with his family. And when we told Elodie that we would probably be camping in the wild again, she gladly invited us to her home in the city of Lleida, for the night. That evening she gave us a tour through Lleida and we had a good time together, sharing stories of travelling, playing a game and enjoying her hospitality.

In these weeks we did a lot of practical work, and we also met a lot of new people, and enjoyed the beautiful nature. People inspired us, and we dreamed about how we are living and how we want to live.