So I asked God to send me to the dirt roads and malaria infected villages of the wilds of Africa, then He twirled around and pointed his finger to Nantes, France. So here I be.
I spent the weekend at a conference center set on the grounds of a castle-it was beautiful! I swear you're not allowed to become a township here in France unless you have at least one "chatau" (castle) and drop dead-gorgeous church that is echoingly empty.
Anywhos, the retreat I was on went amazing for me not speaking a word of French! (That's a lie, I'll get more specific later). It was a youth retreat for the teens of the churches in Nantes with a group called Linkup. I got to know a ton of French teens and it was wonderful to meet them! Most of them spoke more English than I do French (they're required to learn the language and I feel like they've spent more time studying english then I spent on all my subjects combined in my homeschool career:). Usually it was a mess between French, Spanish and English!
I met a girl named Esther from Martinique (a French isle don't feel bad if you don't know where it is--I had no clue!!). She was very friendly and spoke more spanish than english, so we would talk and our sentences would be a whirlwind of spanish pronouns and fillers, French verbs and English "yeahs". Puedes put la sabana en ma liu? (Messy, I know, but it worked! And we spent most of the time laughing over the jumble of words and hand motions we would use to fill in the gaps!)
These teens are beautiful. The majority of them seemed to be more intent on the good lookin' fella or lady on the other side of the room than anything else. Yet there were several of them that it was beautiful to see their intense hunger and longning for God shining through them.
Please pray that God penetrates their heart to the deepest part and they're filled with a hunger for God like never before!
Love you guys:)
Oh, and you should check out my pictures on facebook!