Crêpe nights: Why?

Last night we had our 4th crêpe night in a couple of months. Our guests were a Swiss intern at our church and 9 American university students in France for 2 months this summer to learn French.

As I was whipping up the batter, my wife raised the question "Why are we doing this?" A very good question. At that point in the day, she was tired from a short night of sleep (due to our kids not having slept well), as well as from having hosted a women's small group that morning in our living room. She had already spent herself for others during the first half of the day. The thought of living-room full of people that evening appeared daunting to her.

I bought my (now "our") first crêpe machine in 1994. As a bachelor with limited cooking skills, I needed some simple meals to have for inviting people over. The crêpe party machine provided one of the solutions. The machine has six places for small crêpes that everyone makes for themselves. I just need to whip up crêpe batter and prepare ahead of time what we will put on the crêpes. Crêpe batter is thinner than pancake batter. For dinner crêpes, I prepare bowls of grated cheese and fry up some ham bits and onions. For dessert crêpes, I get chocolate spread, several types of jelly, vanilla ice cream, and whipped cream. Occasionally, we offer mushrooms, lemon curd, coconut, and peanut butter to the condiment possibilities.

In the course of making crêpes with new and old friends from near and far, we have bonded over this culinary experience. I've observed different people's personalities come out as they make their crêpes. The engineers make the most perfectly round ones. The innovators find new ways of doing them, like putting ham and cheese on the grill before pouring the batter. Even years later, I can still remember how certain people made their crêpes.

Last night's group, all female except for myself and our Swiss intern, paced themselves with the dinner crêpes in order to have lots of room for dessert ones. These women have definitely discovered the joys of chocolate spread.

In 2001, we added a 2nd crêpe machine in light of regular groups of students that we were getting. Our living room has been jammed with as many as 18 crêpe hungry people gathered around the 2 machines.

We've had crêpe batter and chocolate spread spilled onto our table cloth (impossible to stop) and even on the carpet from time to time in the midst of the crêpe feeding frenzy.

But getting back to my wife's question, it's interesting how, even after nearly 8 years of marriage, there are still things that we are discovering about each other. It's easy to continue with traditions without ever explaining the reasons behind them. Sometimes we don't even think about them too deeply ourselves, until someone asks us.

One reason for the crêpe nights is that it has allowed us to offer hospitality to 100+ people over the last few years. Having both lived in foreign countries as single people, we have felt how good it was to be invited into a family's home and be provided warm conversation and a copious meal. Crêpe batter (flour, milk, eggs, salt, and oil) is inexpensive to much less expensive to make than the ingredients for other meals, so we can host larger groups on a limited budget. Most of our guests chip in for the cost, which also helps.

The crêpe nights also provide the chance to share life and each other's stories. We learn about what circumstances brought people to Paris and get to tell our story. As a "frustrated college professor," I get to teach and explain about ministry in Paris in a more normative setting than in a sterile classroom.

Our lives are blessed by the chance to get to know our guests in this multisensory context. There always is lots of laughter as well.

As for why I wanted this particular university group, it's because they are students are Wheaton College, where my wife and I have both done graduate degrees. We are grateful to Wheaton for what we learned there, as well as for all the financial aid that it offered us both. Unlike some of our classmates there, we're not in a position to write a 4 figured check to its alumni association for the latest project. However, one thing that we can offer is warm hospitality to its former and present students.

A final motivation is the potential of recruiting future workers, prayer partners, and investors for the harvest in Paris, in France, and around the world. This happens more regularly in the course of a personal interaction, rather than in a mass meeting.

Our crêpe nights are very post-modern. There isn't a one flavor crêpe for everyone. Rather, everyone custom designs their own crêpe. For me, there is no "wrong way" to make a crêpe, as long as the person making it can eat it.

In the end, it was another enjoyable evening where I got to know, at least a little bit better, Christian, Keiko, Amy, Sarah, Jade, Katie, Jacqueline, Bonnie, Charity, and Allison. I look forward to the other half of the group next Thursday. All the students will be at the July 5-9 Mission Radicale conference, so we'll see lots of them there.

With some of our work teams, we have a reward crêpe party on the last night of their visit, to celebrate all that they have accomplished. It's part of the tradition. We won't have this chance with this group, so it's good to have them over on the front end of the trip.