This morning Uncle R and I sadly waved goodbye to our French friends, the La Famille H, but will be looking forward to seeing them at the end of August when they will swing back through Nashville on their return to France. It is always too short a time with my friend, French Sis, and too few chances to sit and chat over a cup of coffee while they are with us - but I am always thankful for whatever time is given to me to enjoy fellowship with this sweet friend.
“French Sis”… I don’t remember when we started signing our notes to each other this way – whether it was during the “write a letter and wait for its two-week trip from one continent to the next” or whether it was when we acquired e-mail that could reach the other at the blink of an eye – but somewhere along the way we started signing our notes “love from your American Sis” or “love from your French Sister”.
I met French Sis when my friend, Kt, and I traveled through Paris back in 1987. Through the missionary organization that she had been working with that summer, Kt set up places for us to stay first in Amsterdam, then in Paris, the city of Lausanne in Switzerland and finally in a white schloss tucked away in the small German town of Hurlach in Bavaria. Our first night in Paris we stayed with French Sis. She was apartment sitting for some fellow missionaries and we were offered a place to stay for a night. We didn’t have too much time to talk that first night, but began writing back and forth across the Atlantic and were even able to spend some time face to face again when French sis came for a week’s visit the Autumn before Uncle R and I were married.
There followed other visits after French Sis married a fellow missionary who happened to be from Kentucky. He has been so kind to always make a way for French Sis and me to see each other when they are in the States visiting family and I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting the three sweet La Famille H daughters as they came along.
I had quite a shock this trip. When Uncle R and I picked up French Sis and her two oldest daughters, I gasped to see that they had grown into young ladies now and very lovely young ladies at that. The cute little girls that had curled up in my lap a couple of visits ago were now towering over their petite mother!
This visit we knew that it was important to allow time with other people that might like to see the La Famille H. For one, my friend, Carmencita, who passed through their Provençal town and stayed with La Famille H for a few days back in 2008. She quickly became attached to Les Belles Filles H and loved the beautiful Southern France region where they live. As soon as Les Filles H got settled at our house the evening that they arrived this trip, they asked about Carmencita and when we might be able to see her.
Also, through making arrangements for the daughter of a colleague to come to Nashville on an exchange program this Fall, French Sis enjoyed a long distance meeting with a mother in my church and we really wanted to make a way for them to meet in person. That in addition to the desire to spend time with Carmencita, led us to plan a Thursday afternoon Tearoom lunch. Even Uncle R jumped in on it!
We ate wonderful Tearoom food, drank sweet, fragrant teas, watched the girls model some hats for Carmencita’s talented camera lens and shared in some great fellowship.
The Lord shows us such kindness in the people that He brings into our lives. Our paths somehow cross those of people who become important in our lives and we look back at the unlikely possibility of meeting that person randomly on our own and smile to think that His loving hand brought us together to enjoy fellowship in Him. That is the way I see my now twenty-three year friendship with ma sœur française and I am thankful for the many good things He gives.
(French Sis is on the right in the bottom photo)
With love to the Pamela's Girls,
Auntie J
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