You're doing what?? For how long?!

Mid-January 2016
"How would you feel about going to France for a year to apprentice with The Ark?"
"Uhh, I just had a baby a couple days ago and I can't think about anything else.  Ask me in a month."

30 days, 2 hours, 4 minutes later
"Hey so... how would you feel about going to France for a year to apprentice with The Ark?"

And so began the biggest Melas Blanton family adventure to date.

Lanza del Vasto
Image found in
online search.

Why France?

In the Fall of 2015 we traveled across the earth to visit Nico's grandmother in Greece and since we were over there, why not go to northwestern France, right?  We wanted to connect with The Community of the Ark or Communauté de l'Arche de Lanza del Vasto. The Community of the Ark is a major inspiration for the Missouri-based Possibility Alliance, a petrol/electric-free experiment in restorative community living, from whom we ourselves have drawn much inspiration.

We arrived in Quimper, the last train stop on the line, late one Tuesday night in November 2015 and looked out the train station windows to see the empty streets of the small city.  Soon enough, headlights turned into the parking lot and Robert (pronounced Ro-bear), one of the founders of l'Arche in Guenvez, arrived to pick us up.  We met for the first time in person, loaded our giant packs in the tiny trunk, and off we went.  After pulling out of the parking lot and winding down the first several streets, Robert remarked in his thick French Canadian accent, "Wow it is very dark... oh!"  He chuckled and flicked on the headlights.  "I don't drive much."  More chuckling.

Our family joins a communal lunch
at L'Arche in November of 2015.

For the next four days we stayed in the middle apartment of a former chicken grow-out house, converted into three beautiful yet simple living spaces.  We had a foretaste of a future we didn't yet anticipate as Nico worked in the market garden and joined Robert for each step of his entire 24-hour bread baking routine and I plugged in with the community meal preparation and explored the farm with Moisés.  We moved with the daily prayer and communal meal rhythms and aided in the seasonal task of squishing bushels of apples into fresh apple juice using a gigantic, all-30-bushels-at-once cider press that had come with the farm.

We were invited to share two dinners with Robert, his wife Christiane, and their two teenage children Toby and Carmel.  During those dinners we were able to talk openly with the family about community life and we felt welcomed into a peaceful, down-to-earth lifestyle Robert and Christiane had practiced for the better part of their adult lives.  We helped clear up a friendly father-son debate on the pronunciation of "guacamole" and Toby played some popular music and shared some dance moves with Moisés, who sponged up the attention from a teenager.  Nico asked Robert if the l'Arche community would be willing to take in someone from our budding New Monastic community for a year-long bread baking apprenticeship.  "Yeah, well, maybe you could learn that in one year," he responded willingly.

I'm fairly certain we weren't the ones Nico was thinking of, in fact he tried to get the other, more qualified couples excited about the opportunity, but it wasn't meant to be.  So, surprise!  Off we go: researching visas and European health care, quitting old jobs and gaining new jobs to save money, "regretfully declining" about six weddings, making trips to the Greek and French embassies, packing up our house, holding a pancake fundraiser, learning French, and starting a blog.  One of the obvious ways I am reminded of God's presence and plan is when I have to humble myself and let go of my (sometimes desperate) need for security and patiently wait to see what will happen.  What experiences will I be given now?

One experience is feeling deeply supported by a lot of people.  I have felt encouraged beyond words by New Community Project/Vine & Fig standing by our side, likening our time away to a "sabbatical year".  I have found this perspective very touching and see it as a helpful framework for our time away.  Early Church has surrounded us with prayer and encouragement, and allowed us to feed them (and quite a few others!) delicious pancakes to help raise an impressive sum of money for the trip.  Many folks have given us the invaluable gift of childcare so we can pack and plan.  Our families are so steadfast in their love for us and they bend over backwards to help us in any way regardless of how weird we are or what ideas we come up with next!  Knowing that "thank you" is not enough, we still want to extend our deepest gratitude to all of you, and you know who you are!

Fresh loaves that Nico watched Robert make
in November 2015.

And finally, I want to share the fun about the word "companion", as used in the title of this blog.  With Latin roots com "together with" and panis "bread", the Old French word compaignon literally means "one who breaks bread with another".  In the original L'Arche communities, this was the word chosen to describe their committed members.  And so we find ourselves uprooting for a temporary transplant across the ocean to steep in a community where the culture of baking and breaking bread runs deep!