France is My Home
France is My Home
Hello, my name is Kylie Phillips. My family and I are missionaries to France. We live in the city of Carcassonne which is situated 2 hours north of Spain and 1 hour west of the Mediterranean Sea. As I’m writing this, I can see the Pyrenees Mountains from my bedroom window.
Before moving to France, we lived in Orlando, FL where my dad pastored Calvary MBC for nearly 8 years. We moved to Orlando when I was 6 years old. It was home. I loved Florida. I loved Orlando. I loved our church. I loved our life.
Then, my whole life got shaken up. Dad called us all together for a family meeting and told us that God had called him to go to France as a missionary. He, of course, was insistent that we move with him. I was 14. I didn’t want to move to France. I didn’t want to move anywhere! All of my friends were in Orlando. It took a couple of weeks to even adjust to this idea, but, eventually, God helped me to accept that this was something He was calling our family to do.
Just seventeen months after dad’s family announcement, we landed in France. At this point, I had never even visited France. I had only seen the countless photos my dad took during the survey trip and listened to my dad recount hundreds of mind-numbing facts about the country, the language, the culture, the food, and the people.
If I were to give my honest first impression of France, it would be that I wasn’t all that impressed. In fact, I was angry. I was angry that we had to move. I was angry that I couldn’t communicate. I was angry that in two short months I would be tossed into the French school system without the ability to either understand or speak much more than “Bonjour.” I struggled with this anger for quite some time.
Then, after several months of living in France, feeling helpless, angry, lonely, and afraid something changed. I realized that I could not do this without God. I started getting serious about my devotional times. I learned to depend on God in ways I had never done before.
As my relationship with God grew, my attitude changed. I began to learn the language. God blessed me with a friend. Suddenly, I stopped looking at France through the lenses of my own fear and frustration, and I began looking at France through the lens of God’s Kingdom. I began to love France. In fact, my plan at this point is to finish university here and then stay and work in France as an English teacher.
France is my home.
Although we have had many awesome experiences on our mission field here, I think my favorite memory so far was the teen Bible study that we did in our home during our first year in France while my parents were in language school. Each week, we had other teens from America, France, Indonesia, and New Zealand coming together and talking about God’s Word. Some were believers and some weren’t. To me, it was a perfect picture of exactly what we’re here to do, lead people of all nations to the worship of our glorious Creator.
Kylie Phillips
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