A global fossil fuel crisis and scorching heatwaves set a poignant backdrop to my time volunteering with A Rocha France. I came to volunteer at Les Courmettes, the main centre for A Rocha France, as part of a 5-month trip studying and serving with different Christian organisations across Europe. Last year I met A Rocha France directors Jean-François and Claire Mouhout in Dunedin – their home in New Zealand for a half-year sabbatical – and we tee-d up the opportunity for me to visit for a few weeks in July. I was also keen to spend time with A Rocha to re-clarify my own convictions about creation care and Christian witness.

Les Courmettes is a 600ha nature reserve set in the mountains behind Nice on France’s south coast. It’s a remote location, with the nearest village about one hour’s walk away, but has incredible sweeping views of the Mediterranean coast. A Rocha France manages the reserve and over the summer runs a busy schedule of camps, retreats and seminars from the beautiful grand villa. Each weekend the venue is hired out for large weddings and there’s a rotating group of interns and volunteers, keeping the place abuzz with activity. Despite the busyness, Les Courmettes has a kind of monastic and contemplative atmosphere, and I was blessed by times of quiet and solitude during my stay.

My main duties were to help in the kitchen preparing meals, do housekeeping in the main villa, and chip in around the garden. The daily rhythms set a gentle pace for the day and quickly made me feel grafted into the community. We started the day with breakfast from 8am (all meals are shared together with volunteers, staff and guests). I’m still dreaming about the hot baguettes – yum! At 9am we shared morning devotions of bible reading and prayer, a beautiful experience even without understanding all the French. Then it was time for work!

Most days I helped in the kitchen preparing lunch and dinner for everyone. The kitchen team had a lot of fun together and an unexpected highlight was learning some professional vegetable-cutting techniques from the chef! The meals were packed with veggies and I really enjoyed the French style of eating bread with every meal (my apologies to gluten-intolerant readers!) Other days I geared up in a weedeater to tidy up overgrown patches in the grounds or cleaned toilets, mopped floors and made beds in the house. One of my final tasks was to categorise a few shelves of books in preparation for creating a library space in the dining hall – an interesting task for a non-French speaker when most of the books had French titles!

Dotted around the garden at Les Courmetes are wild plum trees so another ongoing job was to harvest and prepare these plums to use in desserts. A sticky job but very rewarding to enjoy this locally-sourced fruit in some tasty pies and tarts.

Although I didn’t spend much time working with the science team, it was fascinating to hear about some of their projects such as dragonfly and butterfly monitoring.

I often had free time in the afternoon during the hottest parts of the day and then we’d share dinner together at 7pm. It was the height of the Football World Cup while I was staying and a few nights we watched the high-stakes games outside using a projector and bedsheet. The atmosphere was admittedly a bit gloomy when France lost their final match!

A special, although slightly surreal experience, another evening was listening to a presentation about life in New Zealand by Jean-Francois and Claire. It made me feel proud to be a kiwi hearing about our country through fresh eyes. Another lovely evening was joining a showcase event where guests and volunteers could offer a performance or song. A few of us volunteers formed a little worship band and it was beautiful hearing the room resounding with French-language versions of ‘What a Beautiful Name’ and ‘Lord I Give You My Heart’.

The stifling hot weather was a challenge for this Dunedinite and set some of our meal-time conversations about climate change in a very immediate context. It was very sobering to consider how difficult life may become soon in parts of the world where extreme weather is becoming normal. In a strange way, this experience helped solidify my convictions that Christians have a very important perspective to contribute to global environmental catastrophes and re-inspired me to take seriously the life of simplicity and service modelled by the Lord Jesus.

Merci beaucoup for the amazing experience!