English Summer Services
The summer tourist season is now all but finished,
and the season of English language services held at
Houlgate Evangelical Church is also about to come to an end. The first service was held on
Sunday, July 10th at 9 a.m. and the last one will be held on Sunday, September 3rd.
Numbers attending have typically been in the 10 to 20 range, with a high percentage
being Dutch during July and at the beginning of August.
At one of the services in July we were joined by a Dutch couple, Geert and Martien van der Veen, who work with a Christian organisation that gives Bibles to Jewish people. The Old Testament is in both Hebrew and the local language - French in this case, and is in a separate volume to the New Testament, which is just in the local language. They spoke at the service about their work, and the openness of many Jewish people to receive their gift of a Bible and to listen to their testimony. The openness with which they are received is partly due to a family connection of Martien. It was her grandfather who built the actual "Hiding Place" in the house of the ten Boom family in Holland. Their bravery in hiding large numbers of Jewish people in Holland during the Second World War, and their eventual arrest and incarceration in the Nazi Concentration Camps, have been made famous through the books and speaking tours of Corrie ten Boom, and by the film "The Hiding Place".
For most of the services, Philip Loose led the service, usually from the keyboard, and also preached the sermon. For several of the services we benefited from the musical talents of Mary Fohner, the wife of the Pastor of Houlgate Evangelical Church, playing the clarinet, and of Stephen McIlwaine, an Englishman living in Houlgate, playing the guitar. On Sunday, August 20th, Pastor Peter Michell, from Iden Green Congregational Church in Kent, was the guest preacher.
The 9 o'clock start probably put several people off! But with the French service starting at 10.30 a.m., there appeared to be little option other than the early start. Never knowing who, if any, and of what nationality, were going to turn up on a Sunday morning made choosing the songs a little challenging! But the addition of clarinet and guitar to the musical accompaniment meant that we were able to attempt many modern songs as well as traditional hymns. We did receive encouraging feedback from several of the people who came to worship with us, which indicated that they were pleased to be able to find a worship service on holiday in a language that they could understand.
As we didn't get a permanent place to live in Normandy until the beginning of June, and so didn't know until then if we were going to be about during the summer months, publicity for the services probably didn't reach as wide an audience as we would have liked. However for next year we should be able to get announcements in all the right places during the winter and spring of 2007, so that tourists will know about the services in advance of coming to Normandy for their holidays.
If
you plan to come to Normandy next summer for your holidays, or know anyone else who will be,
keep an eye out for information about next summer's services on our web site,
in the Christian media.
News posted August 30th, 2006
