Annecy Awake!

Speeding through the landscape on Europe’s fastest train, the industrial estates of Northern France give way to lush farmland and forest until the steel track begins to cut through the increasingly undulating terrain. The TGV rounds a wide bend and finally, after 11 hours of travelling, the crystal clear waters sweep into view. Stretching into the distance, reflecting the mountains still capped in snow that surround its shores, Lake Annecy presents a stunning welcome.

There are worse places God could send you. Ali Wilson and I travelled to Annecy this April to meet some members of the church community in the town and take part in a week of mission activities. Much to the despair of the language police, the French continue their passion for using English words in their promotions and everyday language. These few days of inter-church outreach activities were no different being engagingly entitled ‘Annecy Awake!’ (exclamation mark obligatory).

The metropolitan area of Annecy includes 13 municipalities with a total population of around 53,000; slightly smaller than Loughborough. The town is squeezed between Chambéry and Geneva but despite its relatively small size, history suggests it has been quite influential. As Calvinism advanced in 1535, Annecy became a centre for the Counter-Reformation and the bishop's ‘see’ of Geneva was transferred to the town. It became the capital of the new Département of Haute-Savoie in 1860 and also gives its name to the lake which it sits beside, the second largest in France, which is also meant to be Europe’s cleanest. The town hosts an annual international animated film festival and is in the running to host the 2018 Winter Olympics. Annecy also saw some kind of spiritual revival in the 1980s.

We arrived at the train station in the ‘Centre-Ville’ to meet Jerome, an Elder in one of the churches in the town, our friend and ‘fixer’ for the trip. After a morning of travelling and with our Anglo-heads still screwed on we were ready to tackle the first item on the agenda. Despite this, Jerome clearly wanted to initiate us into the French way of life as soon as possible. “Souhaitez-vous prendre un café?” he suggested, or something along those lines. Before we knew it, Ali, Jerome and I were seated comfortably outside the train station’s café, sipping espresso and chatting about the week ahead.

Annecy Awake(!) took the form of four days of activities, from Wednesday to Friday, organised by local churches in the town along with Youth For Christ (YFC) France. The routine was similar each day, a morning ‘formation’ based around a mission focussed Bible study, prayer time, lunch, an afternoon of ‘evangelisation sur la route’ (literally translated as “evangelising in the road” but better interpreted as first contact street evangelism) and an evening event in the meeting room where many ‘churches together’ type corporate gatherings were held. The four days were to conclude with a ‘Café Concert’: a café style evening of entertainment and music. Between sips of strong black coffee and Gallic shrugs, Jerome shared an insight: the fact that the evening would feature Rap music and that this was featured in the publicity, had caused problems for some members of the church in the town who felt that Rap had no place in Christian life. However many churches had agreed to set aside a number of their disagreements, ranging from musical preferences to the issue of women in leadership, to make ‘Annecy Awake!’ happen.

Espresso sipped away, the three of us made our way to the meeting room for the second evening event: a lecture on ‘Martan Looter Keeeng’ (Martin Luther King) and a call to Christians to engage in issues of social justice. We had a pretty good idea about what was said but after an hour and a half of passionate monologue from the speaker we were beginning to get tired. After almost two hours, the lecture reached its conclusion. I looked around expecting the spattering of students and 18-30s present to make a quick exit, thinking I could probably disappear along with them. To my surprise, they were the first to take up the offer to pose questions about the talk. So began a further forty-five minutes of debate. It may have got slightly dull as our cross-cultural concentration span neared its limit, but the evening demonstrated an important point that continued to be played out during the week. It seems that students and young people in France are maybe keener to explore and discuss ideas on an intellectual level and through cerebral debate than their British peers. This also seems to have an effect on how they approach sharing their faith. Clearly, intellectualism is a significant and important facet of French culture.

I travelled to France with a number of questions in mind. I think that we’re called to people, rather than geographic places, and my first question was a request that during this trip, God would help me connect with a sense of calling to the people of France and specifically Annecy. In the time we spent in the town, we were blown away by the hospitality and generosity of the community we found there. Despite having no plans in terms of where we would stay, we were always offered somewhere to sleep and (maybe unsurprisingly in France) great food to eat. I was also challenged by the fact that there is a much higher cost associated with being a Protestant Christian in France. Anything other than Catholicism seems to be viewed with scepticism and even fear by many French people and the state. To be part of an evangelical community, that is to say a group of believers who are active in sharing their faith, is to run the risk of being labelled a cult. Any public display of faith is frowned on in France, hence the recent bid to ban the wearing of Burkas in public. A private and limited form of Catholicism seems to be the politically and socially acceptable face of faith in France.

The French have a saying for when something isn’t quite right or normal. “Pas très catholique” or “not very Catholic” is a common response used to describe anything questionable or doubtful, from an intermittent fault on a car to a strange new facet of youth culture. We spent most of the time in Annecy staying with Yannick, a member of Jerome’s church who lives in the town but who also is a student at the nearby Chambéry University. We spoke at length about the increasing secularisation in French culture, the escalating right wing influence in politics and also of their experiences of being young followers of Jesus in France. If you say “I’m a Christian” it seems that people have even less of an idea about what that really means than they do in the UK. Yet, the students we met carry a burning passion to share Jesus with their friends and the people around them. They’re arranging house parties, chatting with members of the homeless community in the streets, organising music events, hiring camper vans and travelling round the festivals. They want to share the gospel with everyone, talk about Jesus with the ‘marginals’; the punks, the ‘emos’ and those at the edge of society, even if they’re actions are perceived as strange, even worrying or ‘pas très catholique’.

My second question concerned communication. Why would God send me to France, where my language skills are ropey at best? How could I point people towards Jesus when it took sweat inducing concentration to interpret directions to the train station? On the Friday evening, after the third event of Annecy Awake!, Ali and I were invited to a party. Students in France talk a lot; they like to chat, debate, get into deep conversations. We spent most of the evening, into the early morning, sitting around the kitchen table listening to the exchanges and making ourselves understood with the aid of expansive hand gestures. Part way through the gathering, I was chatting with one of Yannick’s friends. Suddenly, he posed a question that started another interesting conversation.

Friend: “So James”

Me: “Yep.”

Friend: “You’re a Christian right?”

Me: “Yep.”

Friend: “Tell me this then. Why Jesus? Why not Allah, why not Buddha, why not any of the rest?”

It was the same question that has been asked so many times, but this time, it was asked in French and the guy who posed it spoke little English. Somehow, with God’s help, more hand gestures, some creative use of French vocabulary and a little bit of Google translator, I managed to suggest that where Allah, Buddha and all the rest said that I had to do a lot of stuff to even get a chance of getting to God (and even then it wasn’t guaranteed), Jesus was the only one who came to get me. We spent a long time chatting about faith, life and revelation and I even had the opportunity to pray with him. I felt deeply challenged. God wasn’t looking for someone with great communication skills, a theology degree or decades of experience in cross cultural mission. He was just looking for availability and somehow, he used me.

My third and final question was simply “God, what contribution do we have to make here?” Annecy Awake! gave us the privilege of working alongside a number of churches who meet in the town. We were welcomed into their homes and saw first-hand their passion for Jesus, for sharing their faith but also the challenges they face. Relative to the 53,000 who live in Annecy, the number of people who follow Jesus is very small. There are still many who have not heard his transformational message, haven’t had the opportunity to see it in action, to experience Jesus love or find out what it could mean to be a disciple in Annecy in the 21^st Century.

Ali and I spent the last full day of our trip staying with David and Marie, a couple based in the tiny village of Le Grand-Bornand, about 45 minutes outside of Annecy. I woke up on Tuesday morning, our last day in France, and looked over on the piste in front of the apartment. Instructors in red jackets and trousers were already making their way down the slope as skimobiles dragged trailers of supplies to the cafés and restaurants that dot the mountainside. We enjoyed a morning meeting a few characters in the village before spending lunch with David and his family. His wife Marie is a fantastic cook, maybe too good. After leisurely eating the delicious bolognaise (with second serving), enjoying a glass of red wine and warm chocolate brownie we loaded our bags into David’s car for the descent into Annecy to catch our train back to London. He assured us we’d have ample time to get there but his ‘adventurous’ driving on the twisting Alpine roads suggested ‘ample’ in fact meant ‘just enough’. I began to check my watch at ever decreasing intervals. Approaching the town centre it felt like every light was on red. It was touch and go whether we’d make it. The TGV is notoriously punctual. Ali and I planned the route through the station in our head. Just a couple of minutes from the station we were stopped by the longest and slowest moving line of senior citizens you could imagine. Could a Saga daytrip really be the difference between us catching our train or getting stranded in France? We jumped out of the car at the traffic lights, grabbed the bags, shouted a hasty ‘à bientôt’ and sprinted through the station to the platform, arriving just in time to watch our train pull away. ‘Merde.’ (Don’t type that into Google translator.)

Our missed train set off a mounting cascade of events which meant we ended up spending a night sleeping on a train parked in Paris Gare du Nord station and arriving back in Loughborough a day after we planned. The extended journey provided plenty of time to think. What could our contribution be? Why did God want us to move to Annecy. It’s a beautiful place, certainly an attractive place to live, but what could we do to build God’s Kingdom there? I can’t say exactly, the culture is different, but there are also many similarities. Maybe we can demonstrate and point people towards an integrated way of life, where being a follower of Jesus means just as much in the bar as it does in the Bible study. Maybe we can share some insights into discipleship issues which seem to create similar challenges and opportunities for the 18-30’s in France as they do in the UK. Maybe we’re just going to live in the culture, get a job, ‘do life’ with the average citizens of Annecy and point them towards Jesus, to a life following him and help build communities that will usher in his Kingdom wherever they go. We’ll be praying for more insight and clarity but the sense of calling is only increasing, the need for more of God’s Kingdom, for Jesus to be revealed in Annecy, is clear.  There are still many who don’t know him, there’s lots to do and we need more followers of Jesus there to do it. Until we go, let’s keep praying, planning, enjoying the journey, the chocolate brownie it offers along the way and try to get to train stations in ample time.

Posted by: James Hewitt on Tuesday Jul 6th, 2010

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