Thanksgiving Outreach

Man, this past Saturday was a long and full day! We hosted Thanksgiving for the international Disney interns. We had 110 people feast and celebrate this holiday of appreciation. 85 internationals were there and of them, 17 were European -- 10 FRENCH PEOPLE!!! I was honestly amazed!

In our time spent at Disney, we as the European team, have had a hard time building relationships with the interns outside of Disney. They are very friendly and happy to see us when we come to their pavilion during the week, but usually are unavailable or uninterested in hanging out apart from Disney. So, we as the European team were so excited that so many Europeans came to this event.

One of my jobs was to drive interns to and from the event. There and back, I drove a couple French interns. On the way back, our conversation led to sharing the gospel! One of the girls was asking me where I work - which lead to explaining Cru, and Campus Crusade for Christ International - which lead to telling them about Cru in France/Europe which is called Life Agape - which lead to me trying to explain the word Agape - which went into a verrrry brief lesson of the Greek word - which lead to using it in an example = the Agape (unconditional love) of God through sending His Son to pay for our sins. It was cool :)

French Friends

A few weeks ago, I missed a Disney friday due to an event at headquarters. A week or so later, I had a Disney "make-up" day on a Wednesday with a teammate, Evangeline and her daughter Annada. Usually, I never go on Wednesdays!

I ate lunch at the Paris pavilion and ended up meeting a french girl named Pauline. She studied at a university near by and came back to American for the Disney intern program. I mentioned to her I had just moved back from France and wanted to practice my french! Sort of hinting at the idea of hanging out :) I think she caught on because she said "If I wanted to hang out with French people, I would move back to France. I want to meet more Americans!"

We ended up exchanging phone numbers and I invited her to the Halloween party. Unfortunately, she was working late that night and couldn't come. A few days after the party, she texted me and invited me to hang out! I was pretty excited because this was the first intern I've met who has shown an interest in hanging out OUTSIDE of when I see them at Disney. I drove to Disney, picked her up at her apartment and we went out to a restaurant to chat about life. She is a honest person and not afraid to share her views. She speaks English really well! We talked about fun things to do in Orlando, making friends, dating - which lead to what qualities we look for in guys, and eventually the topic of marriage! She told me about her job and asked about mine. It was interesting for me to explain to her about support raising and that my job wants me to stay. On my way home, after I dropped her off at her place, Pauline sent me a text thanking me for hanging and hoping to again soon!

Pauline is also kind of an answer to prayer because when I found out I was accepted to YearOne, I prayed I would meet a French girl who would want to be my friend. I am excited to spend more time with her as the year continues.

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