Our first visitor!

Yanni saw Kishiah reading and climbed up next to him to
read his own book.  Yanni loved having a visitor stay with us.

We were delighted to host our first visitor last week: Kishiah of the Brothers & Sisters, as we've come to call them.  This is the same band of Christians I mentioned earlier in this blog, when Yehuda helped us safely traverse NYC on the busy subway with our seven bags and two children.  This particular group of faithful Christ-followers began in the 1970s and has been US-based until recently.  In the last few years, they've begun exploring missions opportunities overseas.  Kishiah was the first of the Brothers & Sisters that we met, nearly eight years ago in Charlottesville at Random Row Books (RIP community-building bookstore!) on our second annual Petrol-Free bicycle tour (RIP community-building bike ride!).  In light of his group's international growth, Kishiah had just received his first-ever passport in the mail when he heard that we'd actually pulled it off: we were in France.  On the phone, Nico heartily invited him to visit us and without hesitation, he said, "Yep. Yeah. I'm gonna do that."

Nico found him at the Quimper train station on Sunday afternoon, February 25th, and he stayed with us until Monday, March 5th.  He joined the community's weekday rhythms as much as he could while recovering from jetlag.  On Saturday and Sunday, we borrowed a car to tour the surrounding area... going a few places our family hadn't been able to see ourselves!

First driving experience in France!
The rules are different and the roads aren't labled.

First we made our way to the medieval section of Quimper to look for the beautiful cathedral we'd heard about.  We found it right away... or so we thought.  As you can see below, it was just a simple "church".  I've been learning a lot about Catholicism while here in France and I have been surprised that the cavernous, ornate buildings we've been to are mostly not referred to as "cathedrals", this word is reserved for the gigantically cavernous, intricately ornate structures.

Eglise Saint Mathieu, built in 1896
to replace a church from the 16th century. 

Winding our way through a well-preserved part of town (note the structures
on the left, possibly restored from centuries past), we found the cathedral!

The construction of the Cathedrale Saint-Corentin
began in 1424 and it's been added to ever since.

On Nico's shoulders, Moisés approaches the elaborate entrance.

The enormous, echoing, interior cavern of Cathedrale Saint-Corentin.

One of many thoughtful, detailed stained-glass
windows: the passion story, left to right, bottom to top.

Saint Francis.  His book reads: Quittez tout. Vous
trouverez tout.  (Leave everything. You will
find everything.)

Family photo on the Steir River in Quimper.

On the way home, we stopped in Locronan, a small town still intact from the middle ages.  Buildings have dates from the past several centuries etched into their corner stones, and many are certainly older still.  From wikipedia:

The village's name means the "hermitage of Ronan", from the Breton lok which means hermitage, and after the eponymous founder Saint Ronan. It has previously been known as Saint-René-du-Bois. 

Saint Ronan is greatly venerated in Brittany. He was an Irish Christian missionary of the 6th century who came to the region to teach the people. As his association with Locronan is close, some of his relics are kept in the parish church.  

Since the 15th century, hemp has naturally grown in the area. It was cultivated and processed in a hemp industry in the town at the time, and it was widely used. The town was quite prosperous. Its hemp was exported internationally, as it was used for rigging the ships, both commercial and military, that operated from Brittany's many ports.

Walking into Locronan.  The closer you walk to the impressive
church building in the center, the older the buildings date.

Eglise de Saint Ronan, built between 1430 and 1480.

The door is modern, but the lintel is not.  The words
are probably Breton, certainly not French,
suggesting that the establishment was open and
running in the 18th century or earlier.

This appears to previously have been something else...

Note the thick vine that crawls across the building and around the corner!