Thursday, July 7

Today was a day where we didn’t do a ton but I think that God was pleased with what happened today. We started off just as we had the days before.  The boys Kenan, Caleb and Clement (these are just local boys from the church) joined us around 9:30 am.  Hun had wanted to stop down at the fast food restaurant with Wi-Fi so Kenan took him down, however much to Hun’s and all our surprise he wanted to take him on his scooter. To say that Kenan is a little wild would be putting it mildly, we have nicknamed him “Train Wreck” because he is always causing havoc. So Hun was fortunate enough to get a ride with Kenan.

Hun with Kenan (Train wreck) on his scooter

The two of them caught up to us as we were walking to the church, stopped and talked to us and then Kenan proceeded to pull out in front of an oncoming ambulance and speed down the road, train wreck.

When we got to church we had a quick cup of coffee and then proceeded to a house of two church members. The house was approximately 30 minutes away outside of Roubaix.  Michel (husband) and Annie (wife) were the owners of the home we visited.  They just moved from the south of France (near Marseille) and have begun going to church in Roubaix.  Their house was extremely nice and they had asked if we could help them move some furniture and help them unpack a bit.  In typical SixTen fashion we were able to knock out all that Annie had wanted us to move and more in just under an hour.  Michel and Annie then treated us to lunch.  The food was a dish that is from Madagascar.  The two of them have lived all over the world and have acquired quite a wide variety of recipes.  We had a great time getting to know them and will be continuing ot lift them in prayer as we return to the U.S.

After we finished at their house we drove past an old “castle”

The "Old Castle"

it was actually a place where knights could relax when going out or coming in from the field.  We got a short tour of the castle and then headed back to Roubaix.  As soon as we got back into the church we started to change and get ready to play soccer. We got up to the field and saw many of the same guys we had been playing with over the last couple of days as well as some other new faces.  Geoffrey translated for us and we got a game set-up.

The game went well (for us) and we offered to change up teams a number of times but the guys on the other team seemed somewhat stubborn.  The final score of the game ended up being 11-1. Geoffrey told us that some of the guys on the team were not to happy and that today might not be a good day to invite them back for coffee.  However, we felt pretty confident that God was prompting us to invite two guys back in particular.  Unfortunately these two guys had left early and were nowhere to be found.  It was disheartening for us so we started to pray and started to head home.  Wouldn’t you know that as we were leaving the two guys we had wanted to invite back to the church were walking out of the park as we were walking out as well.

We had some small talk with them with Geoffrey and Carey translating and then invited them back to the church. The two boys said that they would like to come back and joined us on our walk back to the church. The two boys that joined us were Billel (bee-lel) and Areski (uh-re-ski).  They walked with us back to the church and when they arrived they had no reservations about even entering the church.  Short aside: Normally Muslims would have a difficult time and would not even enter a Christian church let alone be seen near one.  Also, when they eat a meal that is made of meat it would need to be “halal”.  Halal means that the meat would need to be slaughtered in a specific way in order for a Muslim to eat.  This would include things like the animal facing Mecca as it is killed, having it’s throat slit and then allowing all of the blood to drain out.  There are other steps, but these are the most important. Billel and Areski both hung out with us and the other youth in the church for a while before we were served dinner.  Both of them asked if the meat was halal and Francois explained that they were in a Christian church and that they should not expect to eat meat that was halal. Both of them decided to eat the meal anyways.  After dinner they hung out with us for the next couple of hours. When it was time to leave they did not give the typical response of “we will see you tomorrow, it is Allah’s will” and instead said “we will see you tomorrow”.  This was such an answer to prayer and we are excited to see them tomorrow (Friday).

One other exciting thing happened while we were at the church, Fred who is from Seattle, Washington joined us.  He is a friend of Pastor A’s and visits frequently to Roubaix and this year has an opportunity to enter Algeria on a special visa.  This is a huge deal and if we could all be praying for Fred as he goes into Algeria to meet with individuals.

Please continue to pray for divine appointments, God’s favor to rest on us as we talk with these individuals, Geoffrey and other youth of the church as they will be the ones who will continue the relationships with these boys, the two boys and that they would see a difference in us and be interested in why.  The boys commented that they had a wonderful time and really enjoyed being around us and the other youth. We are prayerful that we will continue to make inroads.