Monsieur DeWorm

As a twenty-seven-year-old, Monsieur DeWorm seemed ancient to me. I do not know how old he was at that time, but I estimated him to be in his eighties. His garden showed the results of intensive labor, and his small quaint house was immaculate. It may have been an economic decision to walk everywhere, as he was living on a small pension.

Monsieur DeWorm was a retired pastor and widower. He lived alone in a three-room rock masonry house with a tile roof and concrete floors in Tours, France. Two panels of antique wavy glass opened into the house, and the wooden shutters opened to the outside.

Monsieur DeWorm preferred being called “Monsieur” rather than “Pastor” as he said that he was a “Monsieur” before he was a “Pastor.” This gentle old man with white hair and a neatly trimmed white mustache and goatee was my French language tutor.

Cheryl and I lived in Tours, France for a year to learn to speak French before going to serve in West Africa. We were enrolled in a branch of the Universite’ d’Orleans, and we attended class each morning Monday through Friday. We were required to work with a personal tutor for two hours three afternoons a week, and we were expected to practice speaking French for the rest of the afternoon time.

Jason was enrolled in “Ecole Maternelle” which was a preschool where only French was spoken. He learned French more rapidly than we did. Jeremy was not old enough for public preschool, so Margaret, a young lady who was an unregistered immigrant was his babysitter all day. He did not learn French while we lived in France, but he taught Margaret some English and she taught him some Polish, so they communicated in a mixture of English and Polish!

During the first two months of working with Monsieur DeWorm, I was not excited about our sessions. He had me reading out of the French Bible. Or, I should say, I attempted to read the French Bible. This was during the early days of learning French and my skills were not even close to reading the formal language of the Bible. I struggled during each lesson, but Monsieur DeWorm was persistent. He pushed me to struggle through word by word and would not let me move on until he was satisfied that I had made  my best effort at reading the difficult passage of scripture.

Occasionally, he broke the stiff atmosphere of the tutor keeping the student’s nose to the grindstone. With the window and shutters open and only a thin piece of cloth covering the window, our sessions were invaded by pesky flies. As I slowly read, he would be following the fly buzzing around the small wooden table with an oilcloth covering. And, then, all of a sudden he would swat at the fly with his hand and capture the fly in his hand. I never saw him miss a fly. Then he would work the fly inside the palm of his hand to where he trapped the fly between his thumb and index finger. Slowly he would work the fly and trap it between his thumbnail and forefinger nail, and he would separate the head of the fly from its body and toss it on the floor. I enjoyed every moment of watching him catch a fly and killing it as it was a relief from the drudgery of the reading session.

Frequently I asked about reading something else like the newspaper or maybe a comic book—that was more my speed! Finally, after a month of struggling through these afternoons, I was ready to change tutors. I loved Monsieur DeWorm, but I needed someone different who would let me read other material.

My language supervisor did not allow me to change tutors. He told me that Monsieur DeWorm had been his tutor. I was much more favorably impressed with my tutor because my language supervisor, who was also a missionary, had excellent French language skills. My colleague went on to say that those difficult lessons of reading from the Bible had broadened his vocabulary, helped him read French literature, and were invaluable in learning how to tell stories in French.

After six more months of watching flies die, I left Tours with confidence in my language skills and ready to go to work in Cote d’Ivoire. I did not opt for the French literature study in Tours because I was going to be working with villagers who did not even speak French, but their own native language, and I did not think they would be interested in Albert Camus or Victor Hugo.

Over the years I have tried to mimic Monsieur DeWorm not only with my French skills, but I am also guilty of trying occasionally to catch a fly in my hand. Haven’t tried that feat with chopsticks!

“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” Romans 5:3-4 (NIV).