Sojourn 2: My Uncelebrated Long 4th of July Weekend

While most of you were occupied with red, white and blue weekend I was renewing friendships and enjoying the beautiful Alsatian country of northeast France. This region has been home to Mennonites for at least 300 years and while most of them emigrated to North America there is still a substantial population with 20 congregations in this region. I have visited Alsace many times over the past 20 years and always enjoy being here again.

My hosts this time were Jean & Rachel Peterschmitt at their home near Colmar, in the village of Muntzenheim.  Jean is a retired pilot, Rachel is a portrait painter, a volunteer care giver at a senior residence and housekeeper for the family including 3 young adult children. Both have leadership positions in their local Mennonite congregation.

I got acquainted with the family 25 years ago while Jean’s parents were still occupying the house. Since Jean & Rachel have the property they have converted what had been the stable into a guest apartment.

In much of France traditional houses are simply cement stucco au naturel; not the case in Alsace.  Here the folks outdo each other in finding bizarre colors to paint their house. I wouldn’t find it conjugal to come home to these slime green walls.

Most French towns make a serious attempt to conserve and enhance their natural surroundings. Here the Catholic church across the street from Peterschmitt’s have installed a stork nesting platform that is nearly always occupied.

One hundred fifty years ago in many Western countries infrastructure included massive development of canal transportation. Today, while this transportation network has been replaced by four-lane expressways, most European countries are preserving their canals as quiet, natural environments. This canal connected the European rivers, the Rhone and the Rhine with a branch extending past Muntzenheim and another 10 miles to Colmar.

There’s something ethereally sublime watching this huge, graceful, white bird gliding silently along the canal bank looking for his lunch.

Here a swan couple provide their young brood with lessons on how to grow big and beautiful using their long necks to probe for an underwater feast.

Only God could have created this way to color, design and grow these beautiful wildflowers along the canal bank.

While the canal is a record of God’s amazing creation and man’s ingenuity, there are also some reminders of man’s fallenness: a World War One military bunker.

The canal banks have been restored with bike/foot paths that provide community connections that are motorless, environmentally clean and socially friendly.

Now I move on east into Switzerland. My next blog will cover a 10 day stay in the Jura mountains region of Switzerland, the cradle of 16th century Swiss Anabaptism.