Wednesday, July 6

SixTen,

Please be in prayer for us as we continue to develop relationships and pray with those we come into contact.  Also, pray for our bodies as playing this much soccer is hard on our bodies. Thank you for your prayers so far, we can feel them and see them being answered everyday.

This morning was a bit of a later start. It was nice to get a bit more sleep.  We did this because of the longer day the night before we didn’t wake up until around 8:30 am.  We got up and had a very light breakfast (some baguettes and cereal).  Around 9:00 Geoffrey, Kenan, Caleb and Clement showed up and had some cereal with us.  They walked with us from the apartment to the church (10:00 am) where we met Pastor P, Carey and Francois.  We spent some time in Acts Chapter 4 and discussed Acts 4:31 specifically, “And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.” We prayed that we would have boldness in sharing Christ with the people of Roubaix. Finally we prayed as a group and finished up around 11:30 am.

We spent the next bit of time hanging out with the kids as Francois prepared a light lunch before we headed to one of the church member’s house for a prayer session and another light meal. The light lunch consisted of a “French-dipped” sandwich (filled with some type of meat, onions and au jus).  After lunch had been served Francois served us crème brulee. This was absolutely fabulous.  Francois and his cooking have blessed us beyond all understanding.  It has been such a blessing to have such good food throughout the week. We stayed at the church for a bit longer today (until about 3:00 pm) and then left for Jean-Marie’s (member of the church) house where we were going to pray and have a light dinner.

Because of the number of people we had going over to Jean-Marie’s house we needed to take two cars.  All together we took the six of us and five of the youth from the church. When we arrived at Jean-Marie’s house we had been told that it was in a very bad section of Roubaix.  Jean-Marie’s house was very nice and you can just tell he loves Jesus because what He has done in his life. Jean-Marie offered us some small appetizers (peanuts, pistachios, potato chips, Coca-Cola, Fanta) and we sat around as a group and talked for a bit.

Our Group at Jean-Marie's

Around this time some of Jean-Marie’s family started showing up.  Short aside: All together he has six children from two different marriages.  In short he fell away from following Jesus and has had two failed marriages. Also his children also did had not talked to him for 20+ years.  It has only been in the last two years since he has rededicated his life to Christ that his children have now started to talk with him (they are not Christians and there was a time where Francois shared his testimony and we prayed with one of his daughters). His family members said they would like to play a game with us.  At this point I was thinking we would play rummy or some cheesy board game.  Instead they started setting up boundaries and had Pastor A explain the rules to us.  After listening to the rules for all of about a minute we figured out what the game really was, yes folks that’s right, it was French Dodgeball.  While I expected to play soccer on another continent I definitely did not figure on playing Dodgeball (I am sure that Kim will be happy to hear this).   The children and the other French pastors wanted to play a game of French vs. Americans. The rules were slightly different but we (our SixTen team) made the decision that we would not throw hard until they threw hard.  Needless to say that lasted all of about 5 seconds.  To say we dominated the Frenchies is an understatement.  They actually asked if we were tired after we decimated them the second game.  The “playing area” was actually 12 yards by 10 yards and was littered with glass, screws, a large tree in the middle of the field, clothesline including pole and large divots in the ground.  The center dividing line was three large boxes across the middle of the “playing area”.

The "Playing Area"

After the second game they (the French team) thought that it was wise to mix up the teams. These games were at least a bit more even as the Americans got split up.  Yes, those of you that are keeping track of our Americans vs. French record, we are still undefeated (5-0, 3 soccer games and 2 dodgeball games).

After WWIII (France vs. America) we had drinks to cool off and then had an opportunity to walk and pray throughout the housing complex that we were in.  When we were walking and praying we were able to use conversational prayer.  Conversational prayer is where you simply talk normally as if you were in a conversation and pray.  In our case we were walking so that it looked like we were just “foreigners” who were having a conversation around this complex. When we had walked around the entire complex and prayed we returned back to Jean-Marie’s house and had a feast that he and his daughters had prepared.  The food was delicious but the fellowship

Group after dinner at Jean-Marie's

Jean-Marie with our group

was even better. Jean-Marie opened his house to us and seemed to spare no expense in providing for us.  It was a good reminder of how we should love our brother’s and sister’s in Christ. We finished the night as stated above hearing Francois’ testimony, we also got to hear Jean-Marie’s testimony.  It was so great to meet somebody who is so passionate about Jesus and to be able to fellowship with them even though we don’t speak the same language.  He asked all about Harrisburg/Mechanicsburg and even invited us back for his wedding in September.  He said in closing that he no longer does things in his own strength, but that it is all done in the strength of God.  So this marriage and his life from here on out will all be for the glory of God. We got back home at approximately 11:00 pm, got showered and ready for bed, of course Kenan, Caleb and Clement all wanted to spend some time with us as we got ready for bed so they hung out with us as well before we headed off to bed.