Tea with "Grandma"

Thank you everyone for praying! Tea with "Grandma" went well. She is a sweet old lady who was very happy to get together with us!

She arrived bringing a gift of a special kind of French candies-- Calissons.

To be quite, honest, I didn't really like them -- I am a choco-holic. But I was very appreciative of her gift!

Anyways, as we drank our tea, Madame Peigne also brought with her pictures of her family, a map of France and Europe and a pad of paper to "play" pictionary as needed [which is a great form of communication!]. As she told us about her family, we learned she is a great-grandma to Lucy, a cute little 1 year old. Unfortunately, both her son and daughter and grandchildren live far away in the south of France as well as in Germany. When she told us her husband passed away, it almost looked like she was going to cry. She called him "the love of her life."

Beth, Chelsea and I all want to have her over more often to show her some love. Then, she was interested to see pictures of our families, which we shared with her as well. It was great because we just happened to learn 'family' vocabulary in French class recently!

Once we had exhausted the topic of family members, I pulled out our French books and we went through some exercise together. I think she enjoyed helping us learn her native language, as she was very patient and helped us pronounce words.

Somehow, we transitioned into showing her our Knowing God Personally booklet in French. We had not be able to read through exactly what the French version says, so we asked her to read it through for us. Kinda strategic, eh? :)

As she read to us the gospel presentation, she communicated to us that she was a Christian and asked if we were too. It was really cool to meet a French-believer! Now a days, it is hard to find because the people of my generation don't have an opinion of faith, God or Christianity.

Thank you all again for praying before, during or even now, for Madame Peigne. As our French improves, it would be great to verbally encourage her in her walk with Christ!

Some prayer requests:

- Continued relationship development with Madame Peigne

- That God would use our time tonight to deepen His relationship with Madame Peigne

- For our French learning capabilities: that it would improve tremendously so we can have deeper conversations with Madame Peigne and other French people we meet

Love,

Hanah

Renata

At the office, there is a local girl who is interning for her school. Her name is Renata. She is so sweet and helpful! One day she wrote me a note [language barrier] to ask me this:

"Demain tu pourra me dire comment t'as connus Dieu?"

I wasn't sure what it meant, so I Google translated it:

"Tomorrow you can tell me how you got God known?"

Please pray for Renata, who is also a Christian, that she would continue to be bold her her faith and reach her peers!

Campus time!

My STINT team and myself went to “de-code” the local college campus a couple weeks ago. What's "de-coding" you ask? As a team, we observe the campus, students, hot spots, passing hours, fashion, and things like that to help familiarize us with the campus. At lunch, we met some students, which was a bit interesting, as most of them did not speak English! Fortunately, one of my team members, Nalani, speaks French pretty fluently and was able to be the bridge of communication. [Hopefully soon, the rest of us will have the basic conversational skills to communicate for ourselves!] One of the girls we met, Celia, wants to hang out and also practice her English!

Last week, we went into Paris to team up with the Paris Metro STINT team - they are campus staff as opposed to office staff, like me! The campus was similar to the campus we went to the week before. I was paired up with Jen, one of the team leaders of the Paris Metro team. We ventured out into the cafeteria, around lunch time to meet some students. (French colleges tend to have class 9-12, lunch from 12-2 and then class 2-6.) We ended up sitting with two different groups of girls who spoke some english. We casually started the conversation, asking what they do for fun on the weekends, what they are studying etc. As the conversation continued, we explained that we are working for a non-profit organization, asking students their point of view of spiritual topics. Sadly, neither of the girls from the first group had an opinion. As our conversation continued with them, I found it hard to take things to a deeper level.

The second group of girls sat down next to us mid-conversation with the first group. I started talking to them, asking similar questions to break the ice. I learned that each of them were Muslim and also did not really have an opinion of Jesus. They seemed to "bob and weave" the more thought-provoking questions I asked about spirituality.

Later, when I was debriefing with Jen, she explained that is the typical atmosphere on any college campus in France.

If you think about it, it make sense. Logically, if you don't grown up attending some sort of religious organization, you tend to not have a care, opinion or value about spiritual things - why? - because you don't know any better! Europe has been spiritually dead for a long time and it is evident in the responses given by college students.

Fortunately, God is faithful and Sovereign and can do anything even with the brief spiritual conversations we had with those girls.

Please pray for Europe. Yes, that's big, but God is bigger.
Please pray for the 5 girls Jen and I were able to connect with - that God can use anything for His greater good!
Please pray for encouragement, faithfulness and fruit for the Paris Metro team - this is what they face everyday. They have started an "English club" for French students to practice English - great relationship building opportunities!

Campus ministry tomorrow!

Hey Everyone!

Most of my team is headed into Paris tomorrow to work with the Paris Metro STINT team to do campus ministry! Please pray for open hearts, boldness, limited language barriers, and for us to depend on the Spirit! I'll post later this weekend how it goes!

Also, be looking for my prayer letter soon. I just finished "October 2010 Update". I apologize for my tardiness :) If you would like to be added to my email list, contact me with your information and I will make it happen!