Outreach Update

The morning went so smoothly - thank you for your prayers!

Falling asleep last night was a little difficult with jet leg (6 hours ahead). The timing of the super early outreach didn't really help me get over jet leg (up at 4:30am =10:30 pm). But it was so worth it!

We all arrived to the French town hall (called a prefecture) at 5 am. There was about 20 people already waiting in line. One woman I spoke with (praise God some of my French returned!) said she had been waiting in line since 10 pm the night before!

As we set up the table with hot chocolate (in French: chocolat chaud), people started to approach us to see why we were there. It was kind of encouraging and helped start conversations with others. Then, the police arrived. DUN Dun dunnnnn... (If there is one thing I learned in France last year, really nothing can be done too easily.) However, while confused at our kindness, and triple checking we were NOT selling anything nor with an association, they allowed us to stay till 6:30. They feared for us that as the morning went on, it would get more rowdy and we might not be safe.

As we handed people hot chocolate, we also handed them the goodie bag with treats and a calendar with French and Arabic Bible verses. Out of the 50 bags we handed out, we only saw 1 in the trash!

Many of the STINTers had great conversations. My old roommate Chelsea and her teammate Kelsey, talked to this middle eastern woman who indicated an interest in spiritual things. One of the guys on the STINT team talked to an Algerian man and French man almost the whole time. The French man thought the calendar was Muslim because some of it was in Arabic. Jeremy suggest the Algerian translate the Arabic to French for the French man. He watch the North African share a Bible verse with a European!

When 6:30 came around, we knew we needed to honor the police men's request and head home. As we left, we sort of announced "Be encouraged! You can do it!" It was also apparent there seemed to be some uniting or bonding amongst people in the groups as they realize they are sort of in it together.

As we debrief this morning, the team felt accomplished and shared how they saw God honored their planning. I saw and heard the encouragement this outreach gave them and I was excited to be apart of this event with them.

Bonjour Paris!

I realize the blessings and opportunities I get to experience while interning with Cru. As most of you know, I will be working a conference in Spain next week for all the interns working internationally (STINTers). It will be fun to be back at this conference as a conference team member, as opposed to last year when I attended as a STINTer.

Since I had planned on being on "that side of the pond" months ago, I decided to take a detour before the conference and visit my team from last year as well as their new members. It has been great to reconnect with my old teammates as well as French friends I wasn't sure I would see again! Tonight, we had dinner with Charlene and Kevin. (I met Charlene at the grocery story early last year. It was so great to see her!)

So earlyyyyy tomorrow morning (4:50 am France = 10:50pm Florida) I will be joining the Paris Operations STINT team for an outreach at the French town hall. This is the place immigrants (mainly North Africans) line up for visas and other official government papers as early at 2 am! We will be going to give them hot chocolate and gift bags of goodies and calendars with Bible verses in French and Arabic. Hopefully, we will be engaging in some spiritual conversations too. I'm not quite sure how I will be able to communicate since my French not only limited but rusty - but I am excited to be there to help this team reach North Africans!

I will be posting more, maybe tomorrow, on how it went :) Thanks in advance for your prayers!