Language school....done!

....and now for the next phase.

I've just finished my last classes at language school.  Tomorrow we have an hour with our teacher where we're told what level we've reached and then the whole school is having brunch all together (the French word is 'brunch', brilliant!) before we have a goodbye service.

To be honest, I have no clue where my time here has gone.  It only feels like yesterday that I arrived in the height of the French summer and now I'm finished.  Overall it's been great, studying and living with like-minded people.  The sense of community is fantastic and something that I will miss immensely.  However it's also been a LOT of hard work!  My brain has been given a thorough workout and I've learned more grammatical terms than I ever knew existed in English, let alone French.  I feel much more coherent when I speak French and it does come more easily to me now, I have to think about it a lot less.  So I'm confident that I will notice a difference in my communication abilities when I return to Chad.

Talking of Chad, I fly there on Thursday 7th January.  Yep, three weeks today!  I leave France on Saturday 19th December and will spend just under three weeks in the UK seeing family and close friends before I go to Chad.  Somewhere in the midst of that will be Christmas and the New Year!  It's all a bit mind-boggling to be honest, so I'm taking one day at a time.

This is likely to be my last blog before I go to Chad.  I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you a very happy Christmas and a blessed new year.  

I'll end with these words, from the popular Christmas carol 'O come, O come Emmanuel' that we sing in the UK.  I think the French translation of the chorus is 'prettier' (for want of a better word!) than the English version we sing:

Joyeux, levez les yeux au ciel
Voici venir Emmanuel!

Literal version of French words:                                Words sung in English version:
Joyfully lift your eyes to heaven                                Rejoice!  Rejoice!
Here comes Emmanuel!                                           Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel

Joyeux Noël!

Questions of (my) life

I thought asking my supporters to send me questions that I could make into a Q&A blog entry would be an interesting thing to do, and it has been.  Although I suddenly realised it would be a wise idea to put in a disclaimer when I sent out the plea for questions:  ‘I can’t promise to answer every question’.  I was concerned about what may possibly be asked!! 

Here are the answers to the vast majority of questions I’ve been asked.  Thanks to those who sent them!

What things do you miss the most when you’re not in the UK? 

Apart from the obvious answer of missing my family and friends, I miss cheddar cheese and Cadbury’s chocolate!  When I’m in Chad I also miss the different seasons.  Chad just has two seasons, the longest one is hot, dry and dusty and the other is wet, humid and a little bit cooler.

Are you enjoying learning French?

Yes, I am really enjoying learning French.  I love language-learning and I’ve always wanted to become more proficient in another language.  It’s therefore been an absolute pleasure and privilege to be here at language school in Paris, with six months dedicated to full-time language learning.  However it’s not been easy and my head has been spinning for most of the last six months with everything I’m trying to learn and remember!  It can also be frustrating when you can’t completely express what you want to say, however I’ve definitely improved in my abilities to read, write, listen to and speak French and this will be of great use once I get to Chad.

Do you get much free time whilst at language school?

We have about 20 hours of taught French lessons a week, plus homework every night and on the weekend.  When not doing formal school work, I guess that would be called free time, but we’re encouraged to meet with a language partner outside of school to chat in French, so that’s another hour a week, and we’re also encouraged to listen to French radio, watch French TV, read French newspapers and so on.  All of that is not actually that relaxing, as it’s not in your mother-tongue and takes a lot of concentration!  If you’re out and about in Paris everything is in French and if you’re in the communal kitchen cooking a meal we’re supposed to speak in French too.  So despite only having 20 hours a week of formal teaching, most of daily life is like a classroom too!  But yes, we do get free time and sometimes we speak in English for a break - shhh….don’t tell anyone ;)

What’s the weather like in Paris?

A lot drier than the UK which I’m grateful for!  Slightly warmer than the UK by a few degrees, although it doesn’t feel like it today!

What will you miss most about Paris?

The boulangeries and patisseries (bakeries and cake shops)!!  It is such a treat having these on nearly every street corner.  I’ll also miss just being able to pop into the city and take a look around and soak up the atmosphere.

What has been your biggest thrill over the last year? 

A lot has happened in 2015 so I’m going to say two things!  One was my commissioning service at my home Church in Torquay.  Being surrounded by so many people who love and support me and my work overseas was amazing and humbling.  The other is living in Paris.  I never tire of exploring this great city.

What has been the biggest challenge over the last year? 

The many goodbyes.  Packing up and saying goodbye to friends that I trained with at BMS’s International Mission Centre (IMC) in Birmingham, who are now spread around the globe.  Saying goodbye to friends and family in the UK. Saying goodbyes to friends at the language school in France.

How do you think your preparation and study will equip you for your return to Chad?

As I’ve already said, I’m definitely going back with a greater ability in French which will help immensely.  Hopefully I’ll be able to communicate with people in Chad more freely and be able to express myself at a slightly deeper level.  I’ve often said that not being able to do that last time I was there was a source of frustration and so hopefully that frustration will be less this time.  My time at IMC has definitely given me a wider perception of the needs of people the world over and how integral mission plays its part in that.  It’s also equipped me with a wider perception of how the work of the hospital in Chad fits into the bigger picture of world mission and also that longevity of mission projects, such as the hospital, is key.  Nothing happens overnight and so I need to be prepared to be in it for the long haul, however long that may end up being.

How will your return to Chad be different from your first experiences?

Following on from the question above, this time I’m going with a wider and longer-term mind-set.  Last time I was there for a relatively short, fixed period of time and with a couple of fairly-quickly-achievable goals. 

How ready do you feel for your return to Chad?

With 18 months of training under my belt, I feel as prepared as I can be, although I can never be 100% ready I don’t think.  There are always things to learn and be aware of.  I feel ready to return though (my flight is booked for 7 January 2016).

What are you looking forward to about living in Chad again?

Seeing friends that I made there last time.  The almost perpetual blue sky.  Eating copious amounts of mangoes between March and September (mango season!).

What are you dreading about living in Chad?

The heat.  Especially April, the month I missed last time I was there and which is the hottest month of the year.  Temperatures are regularly around 45C (113F) and don’t drop much below 40C (104F) at night.  There’s no air-con to cool yourself down.  You just have to live with being a sweaty mess all the time (yuk).

Where you will live in Chad?   Will you be sharing with anyone or have somewhere to yourself?

I will be living in a single-storey house on the hospital compound that I will probably have to myself.

What do you like doing in your spare time in Chad?  

I watch lots of DVDs, mainly box sets of TV series, but also films.  I also do a lot of reading.  I also like visiting friends and hanging out with them. 

How much spare time a week do you have?

That will depend on my work schedule which I don’t know yet, but I should typically work around 35 hours a week and have the rest of the time off, just like in the UK.

Is there a local church you will be able to attend?

Yes, there are a lot of churches in N’Djamena.  Some have their services in French, some in Chadian Arabic and some in one of the local village languages.  I’ll go to one that has the service in French so I’ve at least some chance of understanding what’s being said!

Do the prayers of your church partners help you and encourage your faith?

Most definitely.  If it wasn’t for people in the UK and beyond supporting me in various ways, this journey and my work would be much more difficult.  I really appreciate you all.

What's in a word?

Language learning is an interesting experience.  Having the language ability of a three-year-old is very humbling!  You have to be at ease with laughing at yourself, asking the teacher crazy questions (multiple times) and accepting the fact that you’ll make mistakes.  You just hope that they’re going to be amusing ones and that you don’t unintentionally offend someone.

I’ve made many language faux-pas in the four months I’ve been here in France.  Generally they tend to be that I’ve chosen the wrong ending to a verb, got the word order in a sentence wrong, or thought that a masculine word was feminine or vice-versa (why do certain languages need their nouns to be masculine or feminine?!  It just adds another layer of complexity to learning them!).

So far, to my knowledge, I’ve not made any major gaffs when speaking French.  I’ve made a couple of bloopers though:

When at a patisserie, I wanted to order a pain aux raisins.  We’d recently been practising our phonetics in class, and how you have to link some words into others if one ends with a consonant and the next starts with a vowel.  So I did my best linking between the words ‘pain’ and ‘aux’.  ‘Panna cota?’ the lady behind the counter said.  I was very confused, so was she.  After a bit of pointing and me re-saying ‘pain aux raisins’ a few more times in slightly different ways, she eventually understood me and I bought the delicious treat! 

Another time I mixed up two French verbs which are fairly similar in their spelling, but have different meanings.  I was ordering a takeaway coffee in Paris and the conversation went as follows:

Me: 'Un café au lait, s’il vous plaît'

Man behind the counter: ‘sur place?’ (to drink in?)

Me: ‘Non merci, pour emprunter’

I’d said ‘no thank you, to borrow’, instead of ‘non merci, à emporter’ which is ‘no thank you, to take away’.  He didn’t even flinch bless him!  I only realised my mistake about ten minutes later as I was sipping the aforementioned coffee!

No explanation of this photo needed!

La Seine in Autumn

It’s not only with French where word-confusion reigns.  I didn’t think that I would also sometimes have trouble understanding my mother-tongue here!  There are a few fellow-Brits here at the school but we are far outnumbered by the combined force of the Australians and Americans!  This has made for some interesting exchanges (on the rare occasions that we speak English of course…..ahem…..)

A conversation in August:

Australian friend: ‘Please can you see if there’s any pumpkin at the market when you go?’

Me (thinking ‘this girl is nuts, we’ll never get pumpkin in August’): ‘Ok, sure’

Me (after returning from market): ‘Nope, no pumpkin I’m afraid’

Australian friend (a week later, having visited the market): ‘there was pumpkin there today, look!’

……Turns out that Aussie’s use the word pumpkin for what we Brits call butternut squash and it was at the market all along!

There are many words in English that have completely different meanings in Australia and/or America than in the UK.  They cause a fair bit of hilarity, even when one party knows that there’s a different meaning.  Here are some we’ve come across so far.  Some are new to me, as in the example above, others not so new, but are included for a fuller round-up!

Australian and/or American word	British equivalent word
Zucchini	Courgette
Eggplant	Aubergine
Capsicum	Pepper
Thongs	Flip-flops
Pants	Trousers
Fanny pack	Bum bag
Purse	Handbag

There are more, but they’re not all springing to mind at the moment!

There are of course words that we Brits use that are as equally bizarre to Americans and/or Aussies.

At school I have to remember, in the company of Americans, to make sure I say ‘please can I borrow your eraser’.......

Parisian food

Someone from my home church suggested I do a blog on the food here in France (thanks for the idea Tania!).  So coming up is a photo blog which shows some of the interesting foods I’ve tried so far…..plus an extra picture at the end!

Now we all need to eat and when you’re in France, there is no shortage of interesting things to try.  At my organisation’s training centre (IMC), which I’ve mentioned numerous times before on this blog, we were taught many things by the wonderful mission trainers (big-up to Mark, Claire, Phil, Arthur and Nicky!).  One of the main things that we were reminded of was the importance of embracing the new cultures that we would find ourselves in and that we should try new things, including the food.  Food is an important aspect of daily life in all cultures.  Not just for sustenance of life but also for engaging in hospitality and the local community and building friendships.  However, the foods in other countries are sometimes not what we would naturally choose to eat.  It’s important that we do all we can to honour our new communities and taste and eat local food.  It is not great, from both a hospitality angle and from a learning-about-new-cultures angle, to be like the somewhat-hapless traveller Karl Pilkington, who states the following in discussion with Michael Palin:

‘…you can still travel and pick up quite a lot and see the world, without eating their food’

I agree with Michael Palin’s response to him:

‘I don’t see how you can do that.  I think food is so important to get to know, to get the feel, of how people live’

(quotes are taken from this YouTube clip.  If you click on the link, please be aware that it contains some words that some people may find offensive).

To be honest, 'eating their food' is not too arduous a task here in France!  There was one dish I tried, that I had to ‘because I am in France’, that I’m not sure I’d rush to eat again…..I’ll leave you to decide which one that was!

So, here are some pictures of some of the foods I’ve eaten during my first seven weeks in France….enjoy!

Fantastic bread

More fantastic bread!

Croissants for breakfast

Mmmm mmmm

Got to support local business right?!

Mmmm mmmm (and no I didn't eat them all myself!)

A third of the cheese aisle at the local hypermarket!

Oooh what is this implement for?!  See next picture!

Yes, I ate a snail....it was ok....ish!

Tartine

Crêpe with sugar

Crêpe with chocolate and chantilly cream

Crême brulée

and here's the final picture.  I saw this advert in the local hypermarket.  Not something you'd see for sale at a supermarket in the UK that's for sure!  For those who are wondering, no I didn't buy one.  But I'd eat it if it was served up for me!

Struggling with more goodbyes

I’m writing this post in the wake of yet more goodbyes.  The summer session of language school ended on Friday and a lot of people are leaving, having completed 3, 6 or 12 months of French learning.  I’ve only been here in France for 4 weeks but the goodbyes to people I’ve met here have been harder than I thought they’d be.  Everyone is here for a similar reason, to learn French in order to go and share our faith, in various ways, with people in French-speaking countries.  That reason unites us, along with the fact that none of us are in our home countries.  We have shared hopes for the future and similar current struggles with adapting, temporarily, to a new culture and new people.  It’s similar in a way to when I first went to IMC in Birmingham last September, although different in that we’ve all moved countries.  I think that fact makes us bond more quickly, as we’re a bit further out of our comfort zone.

I wonder too whether these goodbyes, coming so quickly after my arrival here, have brought back memories of all my previous goodbyes.  Goodbyes at IMC were only 6-8 weeks ago.  Goodbyes in Torquay have been fairy frequent, as I’ve been back a few times in the past year or so, but the main goodbye to my life and friends in Torquay was over two years ago now.  I thought I’d worked through it, but have I.....?

There’s a hard balance to strike here, between processing all the change that’s happening but not dwelling on it for too long.  I’d be grateful for prayers as I work through all of this, which is probably one of the hardest parts of being a mission worker.

A friend from Torquay gave me a CD before I went to Chad last time and it’s got a track on it which I listened to, and clung to the words of, a lot when I was there.  I’ve been listening to the song again over the past couple of days:

Defender of this heart

You loved me from the start, You never change

Through the highs and lows

As seasons come and go, You never fail

Day after day, Your love will remain

Faithful and true, You are good

You are God with us, You're victorious

You are strong and mighty to save

For Your word stands true, there is none like You

And when all else fades, You remain

 - Lyrics from the song ‘Remain’ by Starfield

Whilst people come and go, God remains with me all the time and for that I am forever grateful.

Language learning, speed dating style!

That title caught your eye didn’t it?!  All will be revealed within this blog, so keep reading for an explanation!

Welcome to my first blog from France.  I have now been at Les Cѐdres language school for three weeks but it feels much longer to be honest.  I guess that’s because a) everyone is so welcoming and friendly that I feel very much part of the school already and b) we’ve covered A LOT in class during these last three weeks. 

As most of you will be aware, I am here until December for French language study before I head off to Chad.  I am really enjoying having the time set aside to put to learning and improving my spoken and written French, as well as practising reading the language and hearing it spoken.  We have classes from 8.35am – 3.45pm every weekday apart from Wednesday.  However given that I am living in France and the language we communicate in around the school is French, every day is a learning day, even if it’s not formal learning in the classroom.  This has meant that I’ve felt really tired for most of the last three weeks!  The combination of moving to a new area, meeting new (but fabulous) people and also conversing 80% of the time in French takes a lot of energy.  However it will be worth it as I already feel more confident in speaking French and am learning lots of technical stuff in class.  The main thing that spurs me on is the memory of when I was last in Chad and the frustration I often felt at not being able to express myself well (if at all, sometimes).  Hopefully that will happen less the next time around.

We get a fair bit of homework too!

There are a lot of these signs around.....
we do stick to it (most of the time!)

I am in a class with 15 other students from around the world – the UK, USA, Australia, South Africa and Romania are all represented in the class.  All of my class are learning French in order to do similar work as me in various French-speaking countries around the world.  So we’re all here for similar reasons and can therefore support each other during our time here.

The language school is in Massy, a suburb of Paris to the South of the centre.  The town is on the main train line into Paris and it takes a total of around 45 minutes to travel into the centre of Paris from Les Cѐdres.  I’ve been in a few times and done some of the touristy things which has been fun.  Visiting patisseries and the tourist sights gives good opportunity for language practise – I have to make the most of every opportunity to practise!!

Yum :)

Sacre Coeur

Speaking of practising my spoken French, that’s where the ‘speed dating style’ comes in.  Someone I’ve met here at the language school has introduced a couple of us to ‘Language Exchange’.  The objective of these events is for (in our case) native English and French speakers to chat with each other in an informal environment.  You’re paired up with a person who speaks the other language and then you speak for 7 minutes in one language and then swap languages and speak for 7 minutes in that one.  Then you move tables and meet someone new to chat to for the next quarter of an hour!  It’s a really effective way of practising your spoken French with nationals who speak at normal speed and with their normal accents.  We went to our first event last Monday and had a great time chatting to people for two hours.  I didn’t have much voice left afterwards though, as it was a small room and with 30 or so people chatting away, it was quite noisy and you had to shout!  So there we go, a novel way of practising my French!

Hopefully this has given you a bit of an insight into my new life here in Massy, France!

Until next time

Far flung friends

Seemingly perpetual goodbyes.  That’s the season of life I find myself in at the moment in this journey to overseas mission work.  Saying goodbye is never easy and I’ve had to say a fair few over the last few years.  Goodbyes to close friends in Torquay, goodbyes to work colleagues in Torbay and goodbyes to family members.

I said a fair few hellos back in September when I started training as a long term mission worker at BMS’ International Mission Centre (IMC) in Birmingham.  We’ve lived and studied together for ten months.  We’ve shared life together in a way that only living in community can afford you.  We’ve only known each other ten months, but it feels much longer given that we’ve shared our IMC home for a while now.

And so the goodbyes have begun.  To be fair, they began back in January when some of our fellow trainees left for their overseas assignments, and they have continued fairly regularly since.

The big batch of goodbyes is about to happen in the next few weeks as I and my friends leave the comfortable ‘nest’ of IMC and fly, literally, across the world.

I already have friends in Nepal, East Asia and Guinea, and of course in Chad.  Soon I’ll have more friends in Nepal, as well as in Bangladesh and India too.  It’s exciting to see how we’ll all adapt and develop our work as the months roll on.  Thanks to the joys of (sometimes very slow) internet, we can keep in touch, but it’s not the same.  Not the same as all being in the same building in Selly Oak.  However this fairly transient life is the one we’ve felt ‘called’ to live and embrace, and so embrace it I will.

Learning to say goodbye ‘well’ is a skill I am continually honing.  How do I do it so it doesn’t feel so ‘final’ but means that I am acknowledging what’s happening?  I guess I’ll soon develop my way of ‘doing’ goodbyes. 

End of the beginning

This line from a song by my Dad’s favourite band (find out which here) aptly sums up ‘where I am at’ at the moment.  Nine months of training at BMS’s International Mission Centre (IMC) are completed and I’ve got the certificate to prove it!  I’ve looked at more theology and cross-cultural issues than I’ve ever done in my life.  I’ve learnt lots, questioned lots, broadened my horizons and made good friends.  I’ve learnt what it’s like to live in community (see last blog entry post) and it’s been great.

Looking studious in class at IMC!

There’s nothing like life and study at IMC to prepare you for long term mission work.  You get the time and space to study new concepts, work through theories and generally get a broader view of mission.  Integral mission at that.

I think getting my head around integral mission as a concept is the biggest thing I’ve taken on board since being here.  Healthcare work – to use my own field as an example, there are many others – is mission work in and of itself and in its own right.  Realising this has been liberating.  I am looking forward to getting to Guinebor II Hospital in Chad and helping to provide that healthcare service.

As the title of this blog says, finishing IMC is just the end of the beginning of my overseas life.  It feels like there are a lot of steps, and rightly so, until I eventually get to Chad in January 2016. 

My next step is to go to language school in France in an attempt to improve my French.  I’ve been having lessons since January to help keep me ticking over with mon français. Forming friendships with colleagues and neighbours in Chad is something that I’ve realised time and time again whilst at IMC is integral to integral mission work.  And I can’t do that without a good grasp of French (to start with, there are many other languages I can learn that are widely used in Chad!).  One thing I remember distinctly from when I was in Chad last time was the frustration at not being able to express myself verbally because I only had a basic knowledge of French.  Going to Les Cèdres in Massy near Paris will hopefully move my level of French up a notch.  That’s the idea anyway!  I will be at Les Cèdres until just before Christmas.

Thanks for reading my blog, keep following for more updates!

You don’t have to be crazy to live here but it helps: Ten insights into living and studying at IMC

Coming to live and study at IMC is certainly an interesting experience.  I don’t think you can ever be fully prepared for it!  Overall it is a fantastic place to be, however it does come with its challenges.  Read on for some insights from a few of the current mission trainees and staff who live, or have recently lived, at IMC.

1.    Downsizing your living space – IMC is a huge building, so this may seem an odd statement.  However it was my biggest challenge when I first arrived.  Despite knowing that I was going to have one ensuite single study-room to myself before I pulled into the IMC car park last September, I hadn't really expected to find it so difficult.  I really felt like I’d regressed 15 years and was back at university.  I pined for my seemingly palatial and spacious 2-bed flat that I’d left in Torquay.   Most people coming to live and study at IMC are likely to have downsized their living space to some degree and it takes some getting used to.

2.   Home vs. conference centre – for all of us mission trainees and some of the staff, IMC is home.  We live and study/work here.  However, IMC is not only our home and study/work place, it is also used as a conference centre for groups to hire out rooms for single or multiple day events.  This is a great use of IMC, as it’s a huge building and just having a few of us in it would be a waste of this fantastic resource.  However it is sometimes weird having external groups in, as well as living in community with fellow trainees and staff.  Below are some examples of how this can affect everyday life:

• People looking through the windows of your home as they use the communal garden
• Having to upgrade your nightwear from tatty to suave, in case of middle-of-the-night fire alarms or when you’ve gotten ready for bed and then remember you’re on the security rota (more on that later)
• People putting their feet on tables or walls 
• People leaving socks in reception
• Forever opening doors for people as they pass through corridors
• People turning on lights that you’ve purposely turned off and vice versa

3.   Communal laundry – we all do our laundry in one of two laundry areas within IMC, in the fabulous, stuff-it-all-in industrial-sized coin-operated washing machines.  There are numerous washing lines in order for us to dry our clothes.  This inevitably leads to us airing our clean laundry for all to see.  Communal living at its most rudimental!  This has led to one reported conversation, started in the laundry room, being temporarily halted due to one of the participants being flanked either side by a pair of Y fronts and the other not being able to engage seriously!!

4.  Meals – Kat, Linda, Jo, Sue, Jess and Christina do a wonderful job at preparing vast quantities of food (amongst their other duties) for the masses within IMC.  I have to admit I love having someone else to think up meal ideas; it’s really not my forte!  The food is a.maz.ing.  However if you’re not careful, this can have a negative effect on your waistline!  Food is generally eaten in the communal dining room.  Again this can be weird – who else regularly eats their dinner with between 10 and 50 other people?!  Those of us who are resident at IMC do have the option of eating in our flats or separate dining area which sometimes we do.  No disrespect to anyone else but sometimes you just need a bit of peace and quiet to eat your dinner. 

Dinner time at IMC

One perk of being a permanent IMC resident though are the leftovers!  

As so many people are catered for, lunch and dinner times are set at the same time each day.  This is fair enough as else it would turn into an organisational nightmare.  However I personally wouldn’t choose to eat my dinner at 5.30pm, and this is one example of where the give-and-take of community living comes in and the best meal time for the children of mission trainees rightly takes precedence.  This leads me on to....

5.   Rotas – I’m sure that trying to organise us mission trainees can sometimes feel like herding cats!  This combined with the ongoing running of IMC, therefore inevitably leads to rotas.  We have a timetable for our classes, a washing up rota, a toy tidy-up rota for parents, a who’s-leading-morning-prayers rota and a security rota where all permanent residents of IMC take a turn to check the building is secure each night for a week at a time.  Rotas.  An invention to try and organise the unorganised!!

Rotas!

6.    Friends  - at IMC there is always someone else around.  If you’re an extrovert this will be music to your ears.  If, like me, you’re naturally an introvert, sometimes you need your own space.  That’s fine but just bear in mind that someone may ask you to pop to their flat or go out somewhere and you have to be ok with saying ‘thanks but no thanks’ a fair few times.  Once everyone gets to know each other this becomes easier but at first it may feel draining.  One of the best things about IMC is that you don’t have to be alone if you don’t want to be and that’s something special.  Especially when you’re around other like-minded people who are all preparing to do overseas mission work and going through all the practical and emotional responses to this as you are.  One mission trainee positively describes IMC as a having a ‘pressure cooker effect on friendships’. 

7.   Transition time – IMC is a great place for us trainees to start the transition from our previous working lives to our overseas mission work lives.  We have space and time to devote to this as well as assigned and self study.  This is a real blessing and privilege and not one that we take for granted.  It does bring up issues of being unsettled though, given that we know from the outset that we’re only at IMC for a few months.   During IMC you can either be permanently unsettled or start to feel settled with the knowledge that the unsettled feeling is soon to occur again and that goodbyes could be harder as a result.

8.   Trying out new ideas and concepts – another positive aspect of being at IMC is the opportunity to experience new expressions of faith in a ‘safe’ environment.  We have recently had the chance to learn about and practice Ignatian spirituality and Celtic spirituality, which are both ways of expressing and developing our Christian faith and communion with God using reflection and solitude.  Taking time out of busy lives and schedules and making space to communicate with God is a new discipline which I personally hope to work on and use.

9.   Bringing up children with other people watching – many of my fellow mission trainees have children.  Everyone who has children will sometimes feel they’re ‘being watched’ as they interact with their offspring in public places.  However most people can retreat to the privacy of their own home for big chunks of time should they wish.  Here at IMC, each family has their own flat, but having communal meal times and generally sharing a lot of living space such as the garden and lounge, means that there is often someone else around when a child is playing or eating nicely - and not so nicely.  My friends tell me that this can feel like they are constantly ‘on show’ as parents, with other people being able to watch, and possibly silently judge, how they are interacting with their child.  It can also lead to other adults ‘pitching in’ and trying to ‘help’ the parents to discipline or encourage their child.

On the positive side though, the children themselves love having so many friends who are more-or-less constantly available to play!

10. There’s always a reason to celebrate – being around so many people, there is often a reason to celebrate, and who doesn’t like a good party?!  Since we started in September we’ve had a baby shower, a Christmas party and numerous birthday parties.  Oh and a ‘friendly’ (not at all competitive) table-tennis tournament where all contestants won a prize.  It’s a joy to join with others to celebrate and mark special occasions in the life of our community!

Katie's birthday, February 2015

Life at IMC is never dull or boring!  It can feel a strange existence at times and also like you’re living in a bubble that’s one-step removed from what we previously knew as reality.  However being here is great training for going overseas and I know I’m going to miss it when we all leave.

With thanks to my fellow mission trainees and the staff at IMC for their contributions towards this article