31 rue Lutetia

And now, what?
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Note to future travellers planning overseas holidays:
Qantas A330 Airbuses CAN be trusted.
(Not like that Air France one last month..!)

I landed last night & was taken home by mother & step-father. Having spent 2 days around my dad - & I can say this freely here, because I've already said it TO him - I wish he'd been around for all of my growing-up. Or that I'd had someone like step-father (who has proven himself superior even in only 6 years) through all my growing-up.

I think life - AND the way I respond to it - might have been so different.

No sense sobbing into a handkerchief about the past anymore, though!

And so, to the future.. .. ..
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Where do I go from here?
I have now lived over 31 years, & feel like I'm standing under the Arc de Triomphe again.

Why?

..Well, the Arc sits at a huge roundabout, from which many roads trickle out to all parts of Paris. The issue, then, when you're done sightseeing at the Arc, is quelle rue/which road you'll choose to walk next.

Champs-Elysées
The most obvious of these roads starting from the Arc is the famous one called Champs-Elysées. A wide, flashy, fashionable route lined with tall green trees on both sides, ever twinkling in the sunlight reflecting off the masses of cars ambling up & down its lanes, ever buzzing with swarms of locusts, oops, I meant multicoloured tourists, devouring everything in sight with their cameras.

Parc Monceau
A less busy, less impressive route, give or take a few fork choices, will take you to the relative tranquility of the Parc Monceau. Like Sydney's Botanical Gardens, except that the pond waters are murkier, there are Roman-built ruins & statues scattered around it, & the grass areas are Off Limits - you are NOT supposed to sit on them (though picnicking Parisians flagrantly breached this ordinance the day I walked in the Parc).

Palais Garnier
Turning your face south-east of the Arc, you can walk until you find the opulent Palais Garnier (use a map to help). Home of the Paris Opera, & Opera Ballet. Style, substance, elegance, red-carpetedness, staffed by snooty reception & security guards whose default position is to look down their noses at you. (8 euros for the insider's tour.)

Out of these & other options - which road to take?

The Palais Garnier is like my teaching career. I began work as a paid professional classroom teacher in 2003. In some ways, teaching has been full of style & substance; plenty of snootiness, too, in that I've been knocked back on numerous occasions during times of unemployment. Will I take the 8-euro tour this time? Will I stick with a job whose prospects are, close-up, much less glamourous than most people outside of the teaching profession think? And in this time of global economic turmoil?

The Champs-Elysées seems the most obvious option - & also the most expensive. My Champs-Elysées would be further studies. As a high-school French & Music teacher (I'm only trained for up to Year 6)? As a TESOL teacher? In some completely different field? Yet further studies will expend time & money, where I can't earn much (if anything) while I'm studying full-time.

The way to the Parc Monceau - well, that's a bit like going back to Paris, to do more mission, only for much longer. Like 11 days, not eight. Or a year of it with IFES. Or maybe 3 or more years through CMS. Walking or running through this greater Parc of Paris - walking in a manner worthy of Christ, running the race marked out for me in a place with more squalor (=ponds), more oldness (=Roman ruins) & much less religious freedom (=not-on-the-grass) than in Sydney. More a mission field than a Parc.

And there are other roads I might take, too.

For now, there are people I'd like to talk to about the future (apart from God, whom I started talking to about all this as I flew home) - for example:

Alison Napier
CMS
Helen & Phillip Jensen
Leoni & Dave Painter (if the opportunity arises)
Pam Tow

Anyone who wants to give free insights on their own experiences (have withdrawn my request for advice until further notice), I'm very poor & welcome any offered freebies!!

If you are still praying, please pray for my obedience to God as I try the handles of different doors to see which ones might open - for my desire to pursue what He wants for me as I consider the roads that could be taken. Most importantly for me to keep taking time regularly just to talk to Him & to listen to His Word on my own.

La bergère petite est retournée de Lutèce.

Mais que faire maintenant?

L/T.