Across the World

Hey everyone!  I'm over here in France right now enjoying a piece of carrot cake that I got from this super neat café in downtown Strasbourg, called Oh My Goodness, where I am working for the next 3.5 weeks.  The café is owned by a local Christian pastor who is in the process of planting an Evangelical church.  I'm here serving the locals coffee and am going to be helping with worship at their church service the next two Sundays.

It's crazy thinking about how a little over a week ago I was in Washington, D.C. on our yearly mission trip there.  That was a neat experience as I was able to meet some neat Christian people from around the world!  I think of a pastor I met from South Korea, and a sweet lady from South Carolina who was excited to soon go on her first mission trip.  On the trip, tight friendships were formed and I'm thankful for that.  In total, our team of 32 gave out over 5,200 cds with Bible stories on them, in 119 different languages!  Thank you for all the prayers and support!  This lady we took a picture with didn't speak any English, but she loved our shirts and wanted a photo with us! (Our shirts say, "God speaks your language" in a few different languages...I had been on security duty at this moment).  On Sunday, we got to visit a neat Baptist Church in the area and sang beautiful hymns along with fellow believers.

Back to what I'm doing here in France, in the past few days I have made new friends everyday!  I've gotten to work with so many interesting and fun people in the café: three of those being, a Christian girl from Texas, a French hipster dude with a man bun, and a Muslim guy from Algeria.  It has been neat getting to share with them my reason for spending the summer here in France to serve in the café, and to hear their stories and backgrounds.  I'm looking forward to continuing these friendships and getting to talk to them more about their beliefs.  My lack of French speaking has been rough, but fun as I have been challenged to learn new phrases and use them!  Thank you for all the prayers and support! I'm missing California already, but not ready for my time here to be over.