It's always cold everywhere. The churches aren't heated, the house has funny heater things attatched to the walls in most rooms, but they don't blow the heat, so rooms are cold, everywhere there are stone or tile floors that are like ice and I don't know if I'll ever get warm until spring.

Skipping ahead

So I just got to France on Friday, the flights were mostly uneventful, although Heathrow was stressful and traumatizing.

Things I've found a little odd so far:
The light switches are backward- down is on and up is off.
The toilet is in another room than the shower, sink, and tub which is nice, except when you've used the toilet and then have to go into another room to wash your hands.
The toilet paper is white with pink flowers.
The traffic is terrifying.
I don't know if I'll ever be able to park in the tiny tiny parking spaces.
The cheek kissing is a little awkward to me. It's strange to put you cheek to theirs and make a kissing noise basically in their ear.
Wine is everywhere, literally everywhere.
The kitchen is tiny but the rest of the rooms are rather large.

In no time at all

I found Mission Nannys, and was very interested. It seemed to be right up my alley. Serve the Lord through serving others. Just looking it over though, I wasn't sure if they'd take me as it's targeted towards women who have retired. I also paused over the application fee. More money that I didn't have.

I went ahead and applied anyway, and was so excited to hear on Dec 31 that I had been accepted. I then had to pick my top 3 families. 

As I was looking through the opportunities listed I was so drawn to a family in France. The kids were younger, I wouldn't have to do any homeschooling, it just seemed right. The only thing I really didn't like was that they were in France. The whole time I was dreaming of Africa or India, you know, one of the "traditional" mission fields. I was afraid that if I went to France everyone would think I was going because it's France, not because God called me, but because I wanted to go on vacation or somesuch.

I really wanted God to tell me to go there, I wanted to hear him say "Go to France!" like I heard him tell me to get my passport. I never heard that though, I had this feeling, but I wanted more. I dragged out the whole thing, praying to God, asking him "Why won't you just give me an answer? Tell me where to go." Finally my mom just reminded me "don't lay out the fleece." I realized that I did know. So on Jan 7 (my birthday) I emailed Betty and gave her my top 3 choices, France being 1st pick, and that I would prefer to stay wherever I go for 6months to a year.

Amazingly she emailed back straight away and told me that the France family would need someone for that time period. She got in contact with them and we set up an interview for that Monday.

How this all started...

Short version of the back story- I'd wanted to be a nanny since I was 13. I loved working with kids, and I thought being a nanny would be an amazing way to do that. I went to school, got certified, got my "dream job" which turned out to be a nightmare, quit that, and moved back in with my mom feeling defeated. 

I spent a year working at whatever I could find, babysitting and temp work mostly. Depressed, not doing what I felt like I was meant to do.

One Saturday night in the middle of November I was praying, begging God for guidance, what did he want me to do? I didn't want to be where I was, I wanted to serve him, to follow his path. As I was praying, crying, pleading I heard "Get your passport." I got out my prayer journal and wrote "I will get my passport on Monday" and went to sleep.

Of course, I hadn't had a ton of work, the little boy I had been caring for had just started daycare and so I wasn't needed as much anymore and I had an insurance payment coming up. There was no way I could afford a passport. It would be irresponsible to get it when I had other bills. So by the time the Post Office opened on Monday I had completely talked myself out of it.

A week went by, I'd pretty much written it off. Sunday I went to church, and surprise surprise, we had a guest missionary speaker, his message was on listening to the call. I felt like God was smacking me upside the head. When I spoke with the missionary after the service, he gave me his card and the phone number of the Mission Board and told me "you don't believe in the Great Commission if you don't have your passport."

On Monday I applied for my passport and called the mission board. I was pretty discouraged by what I was told, missionaries have to have been to college, or marry someone who went to college. I've never felt like college was for me and there's no way I'm marrying anyone based on their education. So however I was to use my passport, it wasn't as a missionary, or at least not through the mission board.

Wednesday I went in to see if I could speak with my pastor. He wasn't in the office, but his wife was, so I asked if I could speak with her instead. I told her about how I'd been told to get my passport, how I'd spoken to the mission board, and so on. She told me about one of her daughters friends who was serving in Africa as a nanny for a missionary couple. As it happens the friend was coming back the next week, and maybe the family would need another nanny to replace her.

I was so excited, it seemed so perfect. They got the families email address to me, I sent them an email, and never heard back. Checked that I had the right email address, checked that they knew I was going to be in contact, sent another email, and... nothing.

So I went online, googled "missionary nannies" and found Mission Nannys.