It's about time to send some news from the Perriard family !

 

As you all know, elders have been appointed and the church in Voronezh is growing. That basically means that the goal of our mission has been accomplished, and we have to make plans in the direction of our long term goals. Our vision is to come back one day to France with a team made mostly of French natives and start a church. 

 

In order to have such a team we will need to stay for some time in the US . We will need to get to know churches and individuals who will want to be involved in this great and difficult adventure. We will have to select the appropriate team members and churches that have the money and the faith to share our vision. This difficult task is fully possible, but it requires much time and preparation. That is why we want to start as soon as possible.

 

This is the intentions and overall mood we had until just recently. After 6 years in Russia, we were ready to move out this summer. But God had another plan for us: As we talked with Rebecca Brinley, the wife of Tim, the missionary in Moscow, we became even more convinced of what we already felt could be a potential problem. Rebecca is a speech pathologist specialized in problems of bilingualism and she is very much experienced in this field since herself and all her children are bilingual. She told us that since our first son Yann is still not comfortable in Russian, it would be better to help him reach the point where he can freely express himself  in his language. She said that children have the amazing ability to learn any new language, but they first must master one language that is theirs. Children who have difficulties in their own language and at the same time have to learn another one end up having two languages which they speak badly . So if  Yann's Russian is normal enough that he can freely express himself like a 5 year old boy, he will easily learn English in the States and French later. ( I can see some of you saying: " Mama mia ! I already have a hard time with one language, and you will stuff three languages in his head ! )  

The possible reasons why Yann has been slower in his language development is because I speak French with him (her Mom speaks Russian with him) and because he started going to the Russian Kindergarten only one year ago. His French is still passive.

 

So, after much prayers we decided to have God's wisdom and our love for our children overrule our initial plans. We will stay in Russia another year until spring of next year. The more we think about it, the more we are convinced that God may have some mysterious plans that will completely overthrow all our little plans. He is good at doing this... and we love it because His wisdom is much better than ours !

 

What will I, Yves, do during that time ?

First, I will quietly finish my BA of Russian literature from the Voronezh State University. My plan was to finish it this summer, but I will spread it out thin over the next few months in order to take it easy. One cannot ever learn too much Russian. It is such a rich and difficult language.

Secondly, I intend to take more time for my relationship with God and the study of His word. I have been giving myself a lot for the past 4 years and I need more time for myself. I have many questions in all sorts of spiritual areas and I am eager to read more. I wish the same for my wife as well and plan to do more with her in this direction. More seminars, more contacts, more reading and praying together.

Finally, I will make myself available to the leadership here so as to allow them to make more trips visiting other churches.

 

We are sorry for those of you who were waiting on our imminent arrival and happy for those of you who did not want to see us leaving. We feel very good about our decision and are confident that He leads us in the best direction.

 

May the Lord bless you as families and may He give you the desires of your heart !

 

Yves, Anna,

Yann & Joel Perriard
Ul. Kardashova 1/23
394000 Voronezh
tel.:  7 ( Russia ) - 0732 ( Voronezh ) - 55 77 33 ( add  8 hours to US eastern time in case you call )