Newsletter no. 3

Vaux-sur-Seine, September 2022, letter no. 3

Dear family and friends,

If you are receiving this third "Newsletter", it is because you are either part of our family, or one of our friends and acquaintances. This Newsletter has a complementary objective to our website, to which we will return later, to allow you to follow us better in our spiritual, professional and family journey. On the menu of this third edition: a look back at the current year to begin with, then a review of the activities and challenges for the coming months, and to finish, a more detailed presentation of our website, preceded by a list of prayer topics.

This second year at Vaux-sur-Seine was very busy but beautiful. Marc was still passionately committed to his Theology studies. It is still a huge job to combine with our family life, but he passed all his exams and handed in his assignments on time. Maggie was busy with the cleaning of the Faculty premises, 10 hours a week, but had to slow down because of some great news! We were expecting our third child, Nolan, who arrived on 24 June! But you already know that. Maggie wrote a wonderful article about him. Talitha had a great year at school, and even kept all her suns! Noëlie enjoyed her parents and the students who loved to play with her. This year was also important on the ecclesial level. Indeed, we became members of the Eglise Protestante Evangélique de Meulan, a church which is part of the Union des Eglises Evangéliques Libres de France, then Marc joined this same Union, as a student and future pastor. He also attended the national Synod during the Ascension weekend, a truly blessed time of reunion and discovery!

This coming year promises to be just as busy, if not more so! Marc is continuing his course in Theology, specialising in exegesis (Hebrew and Greek), with the aim of obtaining his licence, but also preparing his Master's thesis, which he will write over the next two years. He already has his subject in mind, but he will tell you more in a while. In addition, Marc is, this year, the president of the Students' Association and his main responsibilities will be to animate student life and to act as a link between the Faculty's administration and the students. Great challenges, interesting and formative! At the Union level, two events will mark the year, the national pastoral in October and the synod in May. As for sport, Marc is also taking up futsal once a week in a leisure club. Maggie will also have a busy schedule! She is going back to school, and this time, after a degree in languages (French, English, German), she is going to study psychology, a subject she has dreamed of being able to study in order to practice it later on. In concrete terms, she is going to do a bachelor's degree and then a master's degree (both at a distance), with a university based in England (financed by an external contribution, which can be reimbursed later on). It's quite a challenge, but one that her dear husband believes will be largely successful. Talitha entered the middle section. After a year and a half with her teacher Emilie (TPS and PS), she discovered her new class and her new teachers. But she knows her school well and everything is going well. Besides that, she has also started Judo, for an hour every Wednesday, and she likes it a lot. She has also just started piano, thirty minutes every Saturday. Noëlie is starting the long road of school in France! She started in the same school as Talitha, in the very first section. She likes it there and makes a lot of progress, but she only stays there four mornings a week. Otherwise, she is also starting music, with 45 minutes a week of music education. Nolan must be very happy to have quiet time when his two sisters are at school (and so are we!), he sleeps well, eats well and is growing well! As far as accommodation is concerned, we finally decided to stay where we are, on the Faculty Campus, despite the small size of our flat. The advantages outweighed the disadvantages.

New this year is the creation of a prayer chain on the "Praying Together" app (available on browser or iOS/android app). This is the place where we will post daily prayer topics. For those who don't know this app, this will be a very good opportunity to discover it. It is quite simple and should even be usable by non-French speakers.

The first big challenge of this year is therefore the planning and organisation to succeed without forgetting each other. As for the second major challenge, it is still multiple and complex. It is the financial aspect during this period of formation. And this aspect is linked to the theology course of study. You will remember that we had started out with a three-year degree. But as theology is really fascinating for Marc and the interest in training even more is also relevant, as well as the obligation to have a Master's degree to be a pastor in the UEEL, we have to continue for at least 2 more years! 2 at least, because Marc has to finish his Licence, then do a year of Master 1, with still a lot of courses here at the Faculty, then one or two years of Master 2. Indeed, he would like to do a Master's degree in Research in addition to a Master's degree in Applied Theology (corresponding to a year's internship in a church). In short, another 3 or 4 years of study before starting a full-time paid pastoral ministry. This brings us to the financial side. For it is thanks to you, our donors, that we can live on a daily basis and allow Marc to study. We must thank our donors in particular. There are 12 regular and monthly donors, not forgetting the 13 one-off donors. Until August 2022, we benefitted from the unemployment allowance, which represented 60% of our monthly budget. As of today (September 2022) we are starting a new cycle. UEEL's support will cover 15% of our budget, which is not enough to compensate for the loss of unemployment benefits. At least we can expect 10% thanks to our savings in the first two years. But all this means that we are short between 10 and 15% of our monthly budget so far and that we will need a little more than 20% in years 4 and 5. Two comments: (1) As we originally planned for 3 years, our regular donors have committed for 3 years, and some have already committed for the next two years, which explains the gap between years 3 and 4&5 in particular. (2) We are not yet taking into account year 6, as things are not yet fixed and we still have time to look into it. Of course, you can find all this information on our "Support us" page on our website. In any case, we need your help, be it financial or spiritual support!

In short, here are some prayer topics, in no particular order:

• The academic year in theology, which for Marc already began on Monday 19 September! May this training be experienced as well as possible so that it is effective for Marc's ministry in the Church.

• The academic year in psychology starting for Maggie on 01 November! A new challenge!

• Talitha's learning at school, but also her sporting and musical activities.

• For Noëlie's start at school, and her progress towards potty training.

• That Nolan can continue to grow up well and have everything he needs.

• Financial support for the next 3 years (3rd year of the Bachelor and the 2 years of the Master)

• We lost a box of screws and instructions for several pieces of furniture that we had not been able to assemble in our current flat, and this is really problematic.
  

Many people already regularly consult our website to follow our adventures, but others also "discover" from time to time what we have experienced when they could have read it! So don't hesitate! On the homepage, you will find the latest articles of the Blog. Then on the menu, at the top, you will first have a presentation of our little family, then a page about our project and how to support us; then comes the blog, and finally, a contact page. Two pages will be added in the near future: one containing various documents that I have written as part of my theology studies and the other containing links to interesting sites. Concerning the page "Our project / Support us", you will find all the information about this study project, but also graphs showing you if our monthly (or rather annual) needs are met or not. You will also find all our bank information (RIB and Paypal) as well as a form you can fill in if you want to support us.

Thank you for your careful reading. But above all, thank you for your support, be it spiritual, material or financial; it is so precious to know that we are carried in this way!

"Grace and peace be yours in abundance." (The Bible, 1 Peter 1.2)