Happy Reformation Day!

As there are some who believe that Halloween is very bad for Christians to celebrate, for me it is not even an issue, because the glory of candy and kids dressing up in scary costumes pales in comparison to the happiness of celebrating Reformation Day.

This day... 492 years ago, Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis on the door of Wittenburg castle. These 95 thesis were points of the debate that Luther had with the then church establishment that he wanted to discuss. Because of this, Luther (although not his intention then) started the popular reformation.

Here is one of the great results of the reformation: The Bible is not under the authority of the church, the church is under the authority of the Bible.

As the picture from Luther's time above shows all the symbols of the church are put on one end of a scale and the Bible is on the other...the Bible proves to be victor.

So tonight, don't feel like you have to dress up and gorge yourself with with nouget-filled sweetness...rather sit down by the fire with your sweetheart with two warm mugs of tea and a copy of Luther's The Bondage of the Will (or even better your Bible) and relesh together what is left of the day.

A Inside Joke For The McCrary Side...

French: à ta place
Literal English translation: in your place

Pragmatic English translation: "What you need to do is..."

French Church Song

Little is known in the US about Bible-oriented churches in France (mainly because there are not many here.) One thing that they do have is a lot of genuine French songs. We've found that we like the truly French praise songs over against the ones translated from English. Here is one that we sing from time to time in church that Ruth and I love to sing to the Lord. Of course it is better to sing together with other people who love the Lord. Feel free to sing along to the video above.

Here are the lyrics with translation below:

Nous t'adorons, Ô père, dans ton temple
Nous t'adorons, en Esprit et en Vérité
Tu habites nos louanges
Nous t'adorons en Esprit et en Vérité

Car un jour, près de toi, vaut mieux que mille ailleurs
Je désire habiter dans ton temple
Car un jour près de toi, vaut mieux que mille ailleurs
Je désire habiter dans ta maison Seigneur"

We worship you, O Father, in your temple
We worship you, in Spirit and in Truth
You enhabit our praises
We worship you in Spirit and in Truth

Because one day, near you, is worth more than a thousand elsewhere
I desire to live in your temple
Because one day, near you, is worth more than a thousand elsewhere
I desire to live in your house, O Lord.

Lowly man's only hope...

For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly, but the proud he knows from afar.
-Psalm 138:6

An after-dinner "Da!"

A little after-dinner conversation with our son John. As Thoreau said, "That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest." Not exactly true for the Christian as Christ (who is of infinite value) is to be our chief pleasure....but you catch the general truth....we felt quite "rich" this evening.

Buddies, Birthdays, and Blistering Cold...

Today, it was the birthday of one of our favorite French teachers...Pascaline. Ruth made a prune cake (Maw and Paw Huntley's recipe) with a tea candle on top. This is Pascaline's surprised face as she saw Ruth rounding the corner with her birthday cake as the class joined in on a hearty rendering of Joyeux Anniversaire. She was surprised that her students knew her birthday and enjoyed the cake saying (in French of course)... "This is better than the type of prune cake that we make here in France." Go Southern Cuisine!

Well...the cold is not blistering but we are bundling up more especially since we walk or ride our bikes everywhere. Here John is with his papa looking like a little blue tick about to pop.

Here is John and Louisa...they're buddies. Louisa is the little daughter of Neil and Esther who are a wonderful couple who are fellow students and will work in the same country as we (Lord willing) will. We are getting together on Mondays to get to know each other better as we will more than likely be working with each other for the coming years. We are thankful for time to get to know these guys and the babies are getting used to each other too.

I post it because its true...

One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessnes was not from lack of time.

-John Piper

Beholding Christ as Antidote to Worldliness

John Owen on seeing Christ's glory:

It is by beholding the glory of Christ by faith that we are edified and built up in this world, for as we behold his glory, the life and power of faith grow stronger and stronger. It is by faith that we grow to love Christ. So if we desire strong faith and powerful love, which give us rest peace and satisfaction, we must seek them diligently beholding the glory of Christ by faith. In this duty I desire to live and to die. On Christ's glory I would fix all my thoughts and desires, and the more I see of the glory of Christ, the more the painted beauties of this world will wither in my eyes and I will be more and more crucified to this world. It will become to me like something dead and putrid, impossible for me to enjoy.

-The Glory of Christ (1684)

Rain, Paris, Carte de Séjour, and "Dai Dai"

As the title would suggest we had a busy day. We woke up to a cold rainy sky and finally got to wear our rain ponchos (thanks maw and paw!).

After school we went to the préfecture (basically the place were you get any type of official government documents, and France is a socialist government so yes...it is a busy place) because we received a letter saying that our carte de séjour (kind of like a green card) have arrived! Only 3 months in process...after all the word bureaucracy comes from the French! We also bought some tickets to take our first vacation as a married couple to of all places....Paris! Ahh....Paris, we are looking forward to seeing the city of lights with Rebecca and we are excited about the good deal we got on them too.

But the biggest news of the day is...."dai dai". Yep...John said his first words today!! (pronounced like....'die die') We were trying to get him say "bye bye" as he has already learned how to wave earlier this week and today he looked at our friend Anna as she was leaving....waved....and said "dai dai"! He did it several more times afterwards too. We are so happy to see him develop more and more.

Taco John

The above John is not taco John--he's just a baby John getting a kiss.

Below is the Taco John picture, so called because we are eating tacos and watching a sermon preached by John Piper. We really enjoy going to church here every Sunday, worshiping with other believers, hearing the sermon and visiting with the people at church. But we still can't understand everything that's preached in French. So on Sunday afternoons, we generally watch a sermon in English while we eat our lunch:

Fall & Family

Fall in Chambéry has been beautiful so far, and we like to get outside and enjoy it when possible, especially when we can enjoy it with family and friends, as we have been blessed to be able to do recently!

A walk in the park behind our school with John & Laura when they came for a visit:

Today, we spent some time in the park outside our apartment building...

And John discovered leaves for the first time. The yellow leaves were by far his favorite:

John spent the longest time looking at leaves and breaking them into small pieces: