ORLANDO!

Hi Friends!

Last Friday, I began my journey down to Campus Crusade headquarters. I got to stay with some friends along the way. Splitting up the drive made it bearable. I was excited to get down to Orlando, meet my team and start my job!

I arrived Sunday evening, meeting all of my roommates (Sara, Erin and Sharon). I unloaded, freshened up, and with my new roommates, headed to the guy interns house for our celebration dinner. It was great to meet my new team and hear a little bit about how God lead them to this unique internship.

The next morning started our 3 day retreat filled with, planning, vision casting, games and team norms. I think we gelled pretty well. During the tail end of our retreat, we met the ministry team serving at Disney (YES, there is a team of people who's focus is Disney. Think about it, over 5,000 international employee's cycling through each year? It's the nations coming to us!). They were every enthusiastic and excited for us to be joining them every Friday. I am looking forward to this too because I am hoping to meet several French girls who I can practice French with, but more importantly show them God's overwhelming love for them.

The days following the retreat have been "unpack and set up life" time. I spent some time at the local DMV yesterday getting my Florida Driver's license (defiantly not as nice looking as Michigan, but I may be biased) :) .

I am looking forward to going to church tomorrow and meeting some of the locals and getting plugged in. We'll see what this new week will bring, cause this last one was jam packed with many new experiences!

Here are a few photos:

Some of my family the morning I left.

The Cline Family - I stayed with them in Atlanta, Georgia.

FLORIDA!

My new bike which I plan on riding to work which is about half a mile away.

Ending

So STINT is officially done. We had our last night of 'debrief' today. It was a good start to processing all I have learned, experienced, and the ways I have grown. I know there is still much more to process. We ended the night by watchingI made a 45 minute slideshow of pictures, video and inside jokes. It was happy and sad. (This is a picture of my team minus Katie, with our STINT coaches, Chrissy and Mike.)

Since France is a developed country, I am not sure what "culture shocks" I will experience. Yes, they do have flushing toilets. Yes, they do take Saturday and Sunday as their weekend. Yes, they have farmer's markets. Yes, I could wear short sleeve shirts. Yes, I could buy Honey Nut Cheerios.

Time will tell... less than 8 days till I fly home! "What will you be doing?" you might ask. Lots of packing, good byes, wrap up meetings at the office with my supervisors, helping my teammates -who are returning- move into their new house, seeing the Eiffel Tower one last time...

This journey is not over! This summer, I am excited to share with everyone stories, pictures, and videos from this past year. And share a vision for where God is leading me next!

I would love your prayers for:

- Processing

- Ending well

- Safety traveling

Love,

Hannah

Some quotes from our region

STUDENT-LED

“Mohamed is a college student I had the privilege to share the Gospel with many times. After one year and a half of seeking the truth Mohamed decided to give his life to Christ.”

"This year is proving God’s grace and mercy. How unlimited are God’s blessings, that nothing of our weakness can limit the power of God as long as we trust Him.”

LEADER-LED

“Other women who have heard about what’s happening in their city have asked if they can join in.”

CHURCH-LED

“This is my first time I heard about planting churches so I pray to God to give me a vision and power to start to planting a church in my area.”

“Praises to Lord Jesus Christ! He really likes me and other people. He is my Lord and Saviour. I thank him for this.” -

VIRTUAL-LED

“Since I gave my heart to the Lord, I feel lighter – it is like I got rid of seven mountains that were weighing down my back. Before, I beat and mistreated my wife, but now I have peace and I will never go back.”

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

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!