How many posts of mine have started with a similar tone? Well, here is another. Every year goes by so quick. But, praise God, we somehow keep up. The picture above was taken over the Christmas holidays, so you might think it is the most recent pic of the Cookes. In fact, I’ve since shaved my beard (Christmas is over, so the Santa-look is no longer needed), and Michelle had her hair cut (looking young and vibrant as ever). Both Liberty and Van are still growing; it’s a regular occurrence for them to suddenly be standing beside me—do they want advice! A hug! Just to be near their father! No (but yes), it is simply to gauge our respective heights and see if they are finally taller than dad. I have withstood their height attempts thus far, but 2024 might be the year I lose the crown.
Thank you all for praying for us. Our ministry and service touches many lives. In Michelle’s case, the results are often very evident — the students love her and coming to class! I also enjoy seeing the students I teach move on from our one-on-one classes, taking with them the skills, experience, and confidence which they’ve built up over this past semester. Both of us get opportunities too to talk about God and how he moves in our lives.
I might be coming back to Canada in the early Spring! Our support level has remained low. This hasn’t been helped by the fact that we’ve been away for so long, with our only recent visit being last summer, and short at that. We believe if God wants us here longer, he will move people to contribute. This is the WEC mindset in action—enough people know about us, have heard about us, support us already, that out of all those people surely God can move some to contribute financially and partner with us in this specific time and ministry. “WEC doesn’t make appeals for funds”, but we do share the burden and the ministry God has given us. So, I might see you in a few months!
Spring, 2022. Can we say, “we made it”? All around people breath sighs of relief that the pandemic is weakening. Confinement measures are loosening. Where we are, masks are mostly not mandatory. You can now bisou your family, friends, neighbours. It’s been two years. A little more.
2 years ago in a local supermarket
The picture above shows the shelves of a local supermarket at the start of the pandemic. People were scared. They bought out the store, preparing for the worst. Like literally, people felt that the end-of-days was upon us, that roving bands of bandits would soon run amok, law and authority would disintegrate. They were hunkering down in part of because of this fear, but also because the government was soon to ban any unnecessary movement in public. Do you remember those days? We went weeks not being able to leave our home! Only one person per household was allowed to leave the home, and then for only one hour, and then only for a trip with a purpose considered essential. That was usually me — I would get to the supermarket, and scan the shelves for whatever was left and edible.
It was an eerie trip to make. It often reminded me of the time back in Urumqi during the riots in 2009. People were scared. They barricaded themselves in their xiaoqu’s, arming themselves with poles, sticks, axes, long knives, pulverizing hammers… Whenever I had to go out, I had to be incredibly careful because I could be mistaken as a potential threat (because I was not Chinese). Fortunately, we had lived there long enough that, as I approached a milling crowd full of nervous armed people eyeing me, someone could shout out, “He’s ok, he’s a foreigner in our xiaoqu!” and everyone would exhale and let me pass. Who was the enemy?
The past two years the enemy has been the virus. Sometimes though we let each other become the enemy too. “Who’s infected? Who’s not being careful enough? Who’s making choices I don’t agree with?” Finally. Finally, we are past the worst, on the outside. I think many of us still need to address the worst inside of us. That’s not a bad thing. Lots of bad things happened, and it was hard, and how were we to react?
Both my parents died while I was overseas, and I could not be there with them to see them onward. They and I were ready for that possibility. For years now, when we would say bye at the airport, we would acknowledge that this might be “Good Bye”. The first time we said “Good Bye” like that was really tough — maybe it was when I left as a married man. It was tougher when we left with their grandchildren. But we would never ignore what might happen, and we would tell each other what we needed to say, just in case. So our goodbyes tended to be pretty intense. But fulfilling. So not being there when the worst did come to pass was incredibly difficult. But we had already said goodbye, too. How can I say more? My tears suffice.
OK, so the title of the post hints at something positive, and I’ve somehow wandered into moroseness! Let me share. When you agree to follow God, you really never know what might be around the corner. Our years here in France are coming to a close. We’ve all learned French (some of us better than others). We’ve helped the local church as best we can. We’ve made a positive impact on the people around us. But we have reached a turn in the road. This turn points northeast of us, to a region in southwest Germany known as the Black Forest. In the Black Forest, where there are no bears, is a small town, with a bustling school. The town is called Kandern, and the school, Black Forest Academy. Over this past year God moved us to consider enrolling our kids there; this would necessitate Michelle and I either sending the kids as boarders, or applying to serve there. So we did what of course we would do! We applied to serve!
Recently, we finished the application process for all four of us, and received word back that we had all been accepted! We hadn’t shared much during this process as we wanted to be sure what their response would be before telling everyone. Well, what does this mean? It means that we will be moving to Kandern, Germany, later this summer to begin a new chapter of our overseas life at BFA. Michelle will be teaching elementary. I will be teaching slightly older grades with ELL as a focus. Liberty and Van will have a new English-speaking environment to thrive in, filled with children who, like themselves, have already lived in various and diverse places and situations. And staffed by teachers who care for the well-being of the students.
So. Something new on the horizon. Looking back, that horizon is rather bleak and grey. Looking ahead, the horizon looks colourful and promising. Thank you for your continued prayers, support, friendship, emails, letters, pics! Every contact with you is a blessing.
This summer, our family went on a long-awaited camping trip. After being confined in-place for almost 2 years, it was good to be out and driving around. Mind you, we do live in a beautiful place which made most of the confinement bearable, but as a family, we were happy to be in the road again. Prices for hotels were going to be quite high, so we decided to camp. Fortunately, we found a cool tent for 4 people on sale at InterSport! We bought a few more items, and then we were off.
Now, you should understand that because this is Europe, “camping” is not quite the same as what we are used to in Canada, and even the USA. We pitched in between big RVs and trailers wherever we went. But, despite the non-wild feeling of the places, it was good to be sleeping under the sky, with fresh air, and the same midnight stumble to the central bathroom for a bathroom stop. We all had a great time, and didn’t even have any family fights setting up the tent, and taking it down. THAT was actually a lot of work, thus we have no pictures of it because by the time it was up, or down, we were ready to get in it, or ready to leave.
We camped a bit on our way to the yearly WEC conference, and for this I am grateful. I heard the news my mother’s health was poor, and that she might pass into God’s presence soon. We tried to see if the kids and I could get back in time, but it was impossible. So, Aug 11 my mother did die, and went to be with Jesus, and reunited with her hubby. It was a heavy blow. All of us were stunned. We had postponed a video chat just a week earlier, thinking we would chat after the conference. Well, here it is 2 weeks or so later, and we are home, but the shock is still there. Please pray for my family, and for those of my brother and sister, as we all press on in a world without our parents.
Cookes Overseas, this time in Paris.
We visited Paris after the conference with a goal to visit Uighur restaurants. We were aching for some good spicy food. We found three, and ate at each, one per night. Oh! You can check out my IG account to see the restaurant fronts if you want. When we were first considering coming to France, we of course had put Paris on our list of potential places to live. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an option, partly because of how international the city is. But we are always impressed by (ready for something that sounds silly) how many French people are there! We rarely talked with anyone but French people, so it was a relief, in a way, to rediscover that the French capital is still very French and not only or primarily international.
Liberty still has an interest in graffiti.
We like eating at Thai places, especially those named after the city of Van’s birth. This is actually in Toulouse.
It was good to get home eventually. The kids discovered that they are not as small and compact as the last time we went on a long car trip! So, if God wills, we will be looking into buying a larger vehicle (we don’t have a car, and in fact we’ve never had a vehicle when we’ve been overseas!). We had to go retrieve our two guinea pigs, Sunddee and Fizzgigg, from a kind lady who watched them for us. The giggly pigs were happy to see us! And, we were back into a routine, of sorts. Cleaning, sorting, and also getting ready for school.
So, I will end this post with a small request, one which applies to many of you too. Please pray as Liberty and Van re-enter school. Liberty is starting an important year in the French school system, the last year of her academic division – college. Van is in fact starting his first year of the same division, college. So, there will be new and bigger stresses for each. Due to laïcité there is very little content about God, which also means that the students, their home lives, and the entire atmosphere, is very godless. There is lots of immorality. They also deal with a surprising amount of anti-foreigner sentiments. Yes, its true! Despite how “western” and advanced and open France is, there is a constant stream of anti-foreigner feelings, including a particular anti-Americanism. It is pretty tough at times for our kids. But I am proud of them. Even though at times it seems it would be easier if they weren’t Christian, they both do their best to stand against sexual immorality, cheating, bullying, and even despair (suicide is not uncommon amongst the student body). And this is even a Catholic school, where you would think there would be a little more awareness and seeking of God, if not spirituality. But when the teachers are cruel, mock students, and care little for spiritual things, and the kids come from a home-life which also doesn’t include God, what can you expect. Pray for them!! And for the students and teachers.
We are all in the boat! Over the years we’ve sent you email updates because our life takes place in such a different context that it was helpful to share about it. But now, in this Age of Pandemic, most likely our lives look very much the same. Travel is restricted. Only one household member per day is allowed to go out and then only for one hour and only if the purpose is listed as Essential; groceries, medicinal, to help an incapacitated family member, unavoidable civic business (law, court, fines, renewals, etc.) If the one family member who does go out does so for exercise, they must remain within 1 km (less than a mile) of their residence. And each time that household member does go out, even for exercise, they must have on them a self-signed declaration form with the current date, address, purpose of outing, and the hour they left (to make sure you stay within the 1 hour limit) or they face a fine if caught by roaming police. Wow. Welcome to our world.
So with these restrictions, what would happen about church? Of course it is essential… just not essential for broader public safety I guess. Very quickly people were jumping aboard the virtual church train!! And most often that happens with zoom. Even our church here in France started going digital.
Virtual church
Going digital has been a blessing, but also some care must be taken. Zoom for example has already been in trouble before for being underhanded in what they install, and most recently were caught sending info to Facebook, even if you don’t have facebook. Yikes! Because it seems to work the best, it is also being used the most. I prefer to avoid it when I can because of it’s track record. There are other options, some open source, such as Jitsi Meet and Kopano, and even Riot/Matrix I think has a video option. But how many of us are conversant enough to whip up our own server and install these free apps, and have it run well enough to manage 10, 30 or 400 participants!? Well, do what you can, and try to use other options. I think using zoom is going to leave many with regrets eventually.
Speaking of being online, one of the ways I’ve been helping others overseas is by setting up and managing websites and emails. If you find this is something you’d like to have, or indeed have to have with the Stay-at-home protocols, write me an email. I am sure I can help you out.
In the meantime, there is lots to do in the analog world! Like sitting outside and trying to burn out a stump!
Even though Liberty and Van’s schools are within walking distance, Michelle and I like to walk with them to school. I guess we are being a little cautious. Van doesn’t mind, and we often have some really good times walking in the mornings, talking about all kinds of topics. Van and Liberty have to go to school at different times, so one week I will walk with Liberty, who goes 40 minutes earlier, and then the other week I will walk with Van. Most mornings Michelle is up early anyway, but we still alternate.
The other morning after I walked with Liberty, I turned to head home. It was a warmer-than-usual morning, and it wasn’t raining (for once). All in all, it was the perfect morning to go have a coffee somewhere. Right beside the route we take to and from school is a Burger King! Why not have a coffee there!? Well, there is one problem. Generally, places like this open only for lunch. Can you imagine? No egg mcMuffin! No King Breakfast! They just don’t do that here (in the biggest cities, yes, but not here). There ARE smaller local bakeries and Tabacs where you can grab a coffee, but we don’t live near one. Oh well. This is just one small difference in life we have.
Sundays are even worse! Or better, depending on your perspective. I feel like I’m back in Manitoba in the 70s… nothing is open on a Sunday! There is the odd small market that will be open from 9 am to noon, but that is it. So is it a day of rest? Not really, for Sunday is the day all the Associations do their thing! Cyclists cycle, river canoeists paddle, photo groups go snapping, painters paint, and so on. For us, Sunday mornings we head to church!
Saturday is the day we do chores. We load up my trusty bike with the laundry, or with gardening tools borrowed from a church member. Liberty and Van like to enhance the lives of their chickens by building things for them (Popcorn and Charlie). We also like to get out and around Bayonne.
Laundry run on the bikeExtendable trimmer, chainsaw, hedge cutters, and assorted toolsOld stump converted into Chicken ResortMost every city in France will have a Winter Ferris Wheel!
Hi! Summer went by quickly, didn’t it? Here we are in September already. Hard to believe. Liberty and Van have begun their respective school years. This time they are different schools. We were all a little apprehensive about this sort of change, but there was no room for Van at the school where Liberty is attending; we had looked forward to them going to the same school. Fortunately, just across the street, was another school which had room for Van (in fact, students who get waitlisted for the school Liberty is at often attend this neighbouring school until the following year and they are assured a spot then). So, it is fine, we can walk with them both to their schools since they are close together.
Below is a map of our region. There are a few names for this place, and we aren’t sure why. Colloquially it is called BAB – Biarritz, Anglet, Bayonne. I think we shared that we’d be moving to Biarritz/Bayonne when we were first looking into the area. We have since discovered that Biarritz is a much ritzier and expensive town compared to Bayonne. Anglet is in the middle. Not specifically for this reason, but we have moved to Bayonne. This is mostly because it is the most central of the towns in the area. Before we truly knew too, the school that caught our eye online for Liberty and Van ended up being here, so it has all worked out.
However, the place that God opened up for us is only available until next April. We are going to have to move again. But this is an important question! The region shown on the map above is not too large, but it is the area for which we feel burdened. Since we don’t have a vehicle we will need to find a place that lets us get around by bus or bike. See the map below?
The neighbourhoods we are considering are Arènes, Saint-Léon, Marracq, and Petit Bayonne. If we have to we could consider some of the areas outside the ones I just wrote about. If we were to live further abroad than these areas then Liberty and Van would probably have to change schools, and honestly, we are hoping to avoid that.
So, even though we just moved, we are already keeping an eye out for the next place. Typically places are rented out for 3 years at a time, so we anticipate the next place becoming more homey than the current one.
But! The one we are in now has a wonderful advantage – a ready-to-use chicken coop! 2 weeks after we moved in, we cleaned up the coop and decided to buy two chickens! The red one is called Popcorn, as chosen by Liberty, and the black one is named Charlie, by Van. They’ve begun laying eggs too!
So please pray with us already, giving thanks to God to where he has led us, as well as about where to move to next. Thanks! Merci!
It’s been a long time since we lived somewhere new. Well, that isn’t true. We’ve lived in several ‘new’ places in just the last year. But living in a place for a little while vs living in a place with a long-term commitment… it is different.
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We are so busy with language learning in the form of classes at the university that it has been a challenge to get a rhythm.
Sunset
Language Study – Meeting People
Liberty and Van are doing well in their schooling. Actually, we think they are pretty amazing considering that they entered the school not knowing French! Fortunately they have made several friends, and even a few who speak just enough English to help them with school assignments and telling them what’s happening in class. Both Liberty and Van tell us that often they are working away, and they sort of hear the teacher saying something, and suddenly everyone is getting up and leaving… and Liberty nor Van know what is happening! But praise God, they have done well, academically and socially. Liberty has been getting involved in sports. Van has had to deal with a bully, and managed to do so in such as way that he and the bully are now friends, high-fiving each other when they see each other.
Each day for lunch at school they have a 4 course lunch, which they thoroughly enjoy. As well, there have been many opportunities to play and do sports. In the first month they have gone on a 2 night bicycling camping trip, archery, fencing, another bike ride to the seaside, various trips to galleries and natural museums, handball tournaments, a soccer tournament, and this week they are starting volleyball. Wow.
Bike Riding
One activity we thought we’d be doing a lot of in France was bike riding. We had thought everyone would be riding bikes here and there. Well, it isn’t as widespread as we thought, but we still wanted to do this. So this week we finally bought a bike for Michelle. Now, she and Liberty and Van all have bikes. What about me? Well, I signed up for Velolib! So I can use a bike for a small fee/per use for the year.
Well, here we are. We are back! It is always a strange process, coming back. When you’ve spent 2 or more years of your lives in other countries, dealing with the idiosyncrasies of life there, and made a life complete with habits and patterns and rhythms, and then leave it all: It is always an adjustment.
Fishing in Texas
For one thing, you return to a place wherein you already had a life and it is easy to get back into the rhythm of that past life. But many aspects of that life have changed. The stores have closed or changed. There are new traffic laws. The prices seem higher than you remember. And the lives of the people you know have changed too. You can’t ask the same questions as 2 years ago, but you aren’t sure yet about what the new questions ought to be.
And when you are the kid, the process is even stranger! You have memories, but nothing clear, so this return home is sort of the start of a new journey, but not really. Your parents have their memories that include you, but you don’t have them. You want to go to this or that place but since your parents have done it already maybe you won’t be able to do it. You miss the snacks you used to buy at the local shop that you could walk to, just you and your brother. But you can’t do that here since you have to drive to the corner store, and once there you need to be careful because a couple of street people are having an emotional breakdown or fight over stolen drug paraphenalia!
At the same time, it is so wonderfully blessed to be back in the land of the free (that is both Canada and the USA). You don’t have to wonder if you are being followed. There are no listening devices in your home. Cops won’t stop you on the street every 400 meters/yards demanding to see your smartphone. The food you buy is (generally) safe. The people are… friendly! They don’t stare at you! They say hello! You don’t need to go to a central police station and register your arrival! Wow!
There are churches! With crosses! You can pray in public! You can sing a praise song out loud. You can read a bible… anywhere! We are so thankful for all the good here in North America.
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Family in Canada
We got back to Ontario in February, and stayed for one month. We are now in Texas visiting Michelle’s family for one month. In April we will return to Ontario for 2.5 months of visitation and prepping for the next move. Do you remember, or know, what that next move is?
France
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One thing I regret about my early days here in Xinjiang was that I did not bring a camera. One reason for this is that I sold it to buy the one-way plane ticket! But another reason was that a foreigner walking around taking pictures would draw unwanted attention.
Well, that attention concern has never abated. But at least cell phones have cameras – so everyone is taking pictures! It is funny sometimes how people go about it here towards us. On one hand you have the bold impersonal approach – the person walks right up to us, sticks their phone in our faces and snaps a shot, then walks away. No greetings, no thank you’s. Another approach is the shy but stealthy approach – the person comes to us from the side, walking sideways, and with their phone tucked in their arm they sneak a picture. Then there are the friendly types who actually smile, say Ni Hao or hello, or здравствуйте, and make small talk, AND THEN ask for a picture. To those we most often acquiesce.
But what do we use to back up all our photos and videos? Let me share a number of free and paid-for services.
We use Flickr, and so use the Flickr app to backup photos, when on wifi, to our account. For this we paid for the Pro account which gets us 1TB. We also use Amazon Prime and their associated Unlimited Prime Photos backup. Then, just to be sure, we use Shoebox which has a nice feature of showing us weekly what we were doing 1, 2, 5, and 10+ years ago. Its a nice way to go down memory lane. Since I have a Google Nexus phone my pics also are automatically backed up to Google Photos too, once again only on wifi and when the VPNs are on. So that is at least FOUR methods on the cellphones alone. We also move the photos to our computers and external hard drives, which in turn get backed up online! We don’t want to take any chance.
When we want to print them out from here we so far have used Mixbook the most often, although some of the other services look like they have good deals from time to time.
(There is nothing special about this video! I was look for something that conveyed busyness!)
Summer has finished. September has begun. And that means homeschooling is in full swing. Michelle has worked hard prepping for the 2016-2017 school year, using a mix of Canadian and American curriculum. She is teaching Liberty, who is in Grade 4, and Van, who is in Grade 2. She is grateful for the amount of digital resources; but at the same time books are needed. It is challenging to conduct classes in Liberty’s bedroom, but there is room for two desks, leaving just enough space left for Liberty to have a play area.
This is one element of overseas life which is often overlooked but one which requires just as much prayer as the other aspects of our life and work here. Please pray!
The kids are doing well. I think the day we started home-school they were a little shocked! What? school? I have to go to bed early? I can’t play all morning? But after a week they were into the swing of things.
The students I have this year are the same as the ones I taught last year. I admit that I was sort of hoping to be assigned to the First Year students. One honest reason is that I could use a bulk of my lesson plans from the previous year with them and not have to come up with new stuff! But, I am glad now that I have the same set of four classes. They were glad too. You can’t beat a better start to your year than having an entire class stand up and cheer when you walk into the room!
The various literature projects are still on-going. There’s been a resurgence of sorts from others in sending feedback, whether it be spelling or grammar errors, or formatting, etc. For this I am really glad. I am still praying that a team of sorts can form to help with the last big push of combining
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into one published volume.
It is already cool here, weather-wise. We enjoyed the summer, and the heat, but not the mosquitos. We will be pulling out the suitcase with the Autumn and Winter clothes soon. I am looking forward to this winter actually. Since the kids are older we will be able to have more building adventures.
Liberty and Van recently became owners of their own individual guinea pig. The cage we have for them is too small, but we aren’t sure what to do about anything bigger. We don’t have room! One sad bit is that the first guinea pig of LIberty’s died. We don’t know how, or why, but after 5 days it went downhill quickly. Liberty found it in the morning, thought it was sleeping. And started crying when she realized the poor thing had died.
