"Home"

For those of you that didn’t catch on to Tim’s coded references, he recently spent a week at “home” with me in Paris. It was all very last minute and divinely ordained, I bought him a ticket at 2AM Saturday morning after a night of praying for everything to work out and no place for us to stay… He arrived Monday afternoon, and in the mean time a friend graciously lent us her tiny apartment in my favorite arrondissement (and one of the few that I’ve actually taken the time to write about…) – the 18th.

Which brings me to the fact that I have ceased to spend my weekends running around each arrondissement and documenting them for the blog. The fact is that Paris has become so much more about people than buildings, and Tim’s visit proved this. We spent our time going from house to house and café to café, so that he might meet each individual in my amazing life here, and of course, so that THEY might finally meet my famous husband, believe that he exists, and understand the other half of my identity. The poor man didn’t get to see the Eiffel tower till Friday.

My two favorite evenings were spent with friends who have become very dear to me in Paris. Thursday night my Congolese friends gathered together at the home of a dear mutual friend from Guinea and we all feasted on roasted goat (Tim’s favorite) while I used all my language skills to translate Tim’s technical explanations of his work in Antarctica and relate the baffled and amazed questions back to him. Needless to say, it was a rather difficult task, and by the end of the night I was speaking to Tim in French, John was addressing our Guinean friend in Swahili, Jazz was repeating “good morning” (apparently that’s all the English he knows), and we were all laughing hysterically.

Friday night was special; a couple from my church who have been such a huge encouragement, support and inspiration to me here had us into their home, blessed us with an amazing French meal (despite the fact that they’re Brazilian) and prayed for us, praising God for bringing us all together, from all corners of the world, thanking Him for the short week that Tim and I had together, and asking for his power, grace and love to carry us through these next four months apart.

I surprised myself by not crying when Tim left. Honestly I was so grateful for the week God gave us, and so sure that I’m supposed to be here, now, alone, even when it’s hard and doesn’t seem to make much sense. After all, I’m never truly alone….