"So, wait, what do you do?"

I find that my job perplexes people.

I'm not super surprised by that, really...since I work from home, there's rarely anyone around who actually witnesses my work, and it's not the sort of thing that you just happen across.  One of my best friends works for JCPenny...that's much more self-explanatory and familiar to the general public than the organization I work for which, besides having a lengthy name, has a repetitive acronym that people generally don't even remember either.  No, people really have no idea what I do.  One person I talked to lately thought I sold insurance, and when I mentioned my job to another friend he just said confusedly, "Uh, wait, you just mean seminary?"

So, I thought that I'd take the time to explain this mystery job, so that maybe people will know what I'm talking about when I say that I'm "working."

The organization that I work for is called The Christian Community Foundation of France, commonly known as the CCFOF.  Long name right?  It's not so complicated; community foundations are, to quote Wikipedia, "instruments of civil society designed to pool donations into a coordinated investment and grant making facility dedicated primarily to the social improvement of a given place."  So, essentially, we are a non-profit Christian organization that acts as a mediator for financial donations to ministries located in France, as well as providing resources to pray for said ministries.

Besides redistributing financial donations to French ministries (fun fact: 98.5% of all financial gifts goes directly to aid French ministries; the rest is retained for administrative necessities), we do several other things.  Most notable among these is the annual Pray for France movement, a worldwide prayer movement for France that takes place during the three weeks before Easter (aka, starting tomorrow) in which we partner with a French ministry group (Objectif France) by translating their 21-day devotional prayer guide to English and making it available to the English-speaking community.  We also support various missionaries to France, and are in the process of developing an online resource for Christian students studying abroad in France to help them connect with a church in their area and meet French Christians.

So, why bother praying for France, you ask?  Good question.  On the whole, Europe is a widely forgotten mission field for the Christian church, because the Christian tradition is so steeped in its history (gotta love those French gothic cathedrals, right?).  But, Christianity in France has been on the decline; things like the Crusades and rigid church/state connections are so deeply embedded in French history that the French people, like much of Europe, have a very negative opinion of the Christian tradition.  Furthermore, since the concept of Christianity as a personal relationship with God is often lacking in French Christianity, they see faith as entirely irrelevant and archaic.  Basically, the people who go to church are old people and the infant grandchildren they bring along, and most of those people don't go to church regularly anyway.  In addition to this, French society promotes the value of laicite, loosely translated as "secularity," which essentially bans religious expression from the public sphere, making freedom of religion the freedom of a PRIVATE religion.  This is causing all sorts of problems with the influx of Islam that has been happening over the past couple of decades, as religious distrust and political complications fuel racism against Muslim people in France; a situation that is being revealed by the political tendencies displayed by early polls for France's upcoming elections, in which Marine Le Pen, the daughter of the leader of the bigoted Front National group of the 1980s, is carrying majority numbers in the race for the French presidency.  People in France were horrified when the Front National got a significant amount of votes in the 80s...apparently, that horror is wearing off, or the memory of the racist atrocities committed by the Front National is becoming a distant memory.

SO, to sum things up, praying for France is worthwhile.

Now, where do I come into all this?

My job position at the CCFOF is the Executive Assistant, meaning that I provide information management support to the president of the organization, represent the president to others when needed (primarily through email communications), and manage special projects (aka, the Pray for France campaign, and the student website development I mentioned earlier).  I also have an honorary title of "Pray for France" coordinator that pops up at this time of year - as such I translate portions of the prayer guide I mentioned, email people to coordinate prayer groups and generate interest, provide encouragement and support to prayer group leaders, and oversaw development/maintenance of the Pray for France website (which can be seen here).  Other common tasks include the paraphrased translation of weekly French prayer newsletters to English, assembly of monthly prayer letters, updating the prayer calendar, current event research, media research, and managing social networking resources.  I'm also hoping to get the ball rolling on Students for France (that student website) following the busy-ness that is Pray for France.  Also, hopefully I'll get to travel to Paris in the fall for a ministry conference, provided that I can raise the necessary financial support.

Because of the wonders of technology, our entire organization is run online; the president to which I am the assistant lives in Atlanta, yet I'm able to successfully do my job from Texas, Missouri, or wherever I happen to be.  The important sounding word that my college career center came up with is that I "telecommute."  This tends to sound very important and impressive on resumes even though it's just a fancy way of saying that I work online, from home.  So I may work from my couch, but I do a whole lot of stuff from it.  It's really cool, too, because I get to keep my French active and regularly communicate with people from all over the world - example, Pray for France currently has groups in the USA, France, Australia, Benin, Canada, Peru, South Africa, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.  It's a sweet gig, and I feel really blessed to have been able to work with the CCFOF for the past year and a half.  It's an organization with a lot of potential, and I'm excited to watch it grow and grow with it!

I hope that clarifies some things...at the very least, it shows that I don't sell insurance, and that even though I wear pajama pants to work, I have a real job :)

PS, if you want, you can check the website, yo!