My Life as a Rockstar. Or, Yet another reason I really love my job.

I never thought I’d say this, but I’m kind of a rockstar. The absurdity of it still makes me giggle. But it’s true. One of my roles at [iccp] is, along with Adam and Tasha, to start a high school ministry from scratch. One way I decided to go about this was to start a band. Actually, this band is the realization of a dream that began years ago after observing that, 1. music is a powerful avenue for outreach because it speaks to so many people, and 2. we have some incredibly talented high school musicians in our community who were longing for an outlet for their musical gifts and for a place to be connected to something meaningful. A few years (and a bit of blood, sweat, and tears) later, a band was born.

Last weekend was our public debut, and we debuted in a big way. On Saturday night we played for a event that was organized for youth in the greater Provence area. Our (still nameless) band has been rehearsing for months and months, and I was so pleased with how well we clicked as a group for this first gig. We also had the opportunity to play on the Cours Mirabeau, the main downtown street in Aix. A large stage is set up at the top of the Cours as a part of the Christmas market, and our band was invited to play 2 sets on this stage on Friday night, and 3 sets during the day on Sunday. We drew a huge crowd both days and got really great feedback. I’m still not sure how to handle the attention (I don’t think I’m a rockstar by nature), but I am excited about the fact that through this we’re connecting with a lot of people and [iccp] is becoming better known in the community.

So we’ll see where this goes. Yesterday I got a connection to potentially play at IPN, a nightclub in town popular with exchange students that has started doing live music once a week. My job is so awesome.

It feels good to be legal. Or, a French bureaucracy Christmas miracle!

I am a legal resident of France!!! And it’s slightly unexpected. The process to get a residency card in France is anything but easy- it usually takes a year before you have the card in your hand, and requires loads of paperwork, a doctor’s visit, hunting down a place to pay the required taxes, and multiple visits to the sous-prefecture office. I had to make one such visit the other day...

My récipissée (the temporary piece of paper saying that my residency card is in process, and allowing me to travel in the meantime) had expired, and I had to get it renewed so that I could travel to the States for Christmas. The average non-French resident has their récipissée expire and get renewed several times before their actual residency card is ready. Well, when the girl behind the window looked me up in the computer, she says, to my utter shock, “we should have your residency card here.” Somehow, (and it must have been either a complete and utter fluke or an act of God’s grace), my residency card was ready in an abnormally timely fashion, before I ever had my medical visit or paid the necessary tax. And normally the sous-prefecture would have held on to my card until those things were taken care of (which would probably require many more months of hassle), but when I explained I was traveling in a few weeks, he said, “ok, I’ll give you the card now, the rest will get worked out later.”

Extraordinary efficiency in French bureaucracy and a friendly, helpful government worker! Sometimes France really can surprise you...

So This is Christmas. Or, The carol service is over, I can have my brain back.

Last weekend [iccp] hosted our annual Christmas Carol service in the big cathedral in Aix. It was especially significant for me this year as I devoted several months of my life to the planning of the event as one of the coordinators (along with the lovely Lindsey Pettyjohn). I must say that, despite my slightly elevated stress levels leading up to the event trying to keep track of more details than my brain could contain (I didn’t even realize how much it consumed all my brain space until it was over and I was suddenly able to think about other things), the event went smashingly well. The place was packed- around 1200 people were able to hear the story of Jesus’ birth in both French and English. It’s very cool that we have such a good relationship with the Catholic Church that they give us free reign of the Cathedral each year. Go to this link to check out a 360˚ panoramic view of the service. Hold down your mouse button and scroll around to have a look around the cathedral.