Day 12 – June 1st – Sunday

Left for church around 8ish. Today four or five of the local churches met together in the town hall, and we performed a small set in the middle of it. Afterwards we stayed for the church potluck… which lasted for four hours, haha! In America we eat to get full, then move on with our day. In other countries, eating is socialization time. Here in France, kids even come home from school for lunch all the way through high school! How awesome is that? Anyway, after the potluck, we went to Lille and stopped by a building owned by FEU, a ministry that reaches out to local college students and encourages those who believe in their faith, teaching them more about God (find out more at http://lille.lefeu.org/). We spoke to the guy who runs this branch (and also happens to be Andre’s son), then left FEU and went to the local square’s market for a bit. After some wandering and shopping, we set up our system in an open corner about a block from the main plaza, where there were two intersecting pedestrian streets giving us a steady flow of passers-by. We performed one set a few times over, totaling about an hour of ministry. Several people stopped to watch, some staying through a whole set – some even more than that! Meanwhile, gospel booklets were being passed out in the crowd by our host missionaries. We had an awesome God moment (aside from those happening in the hearts of our audiences); the police drove by in the middle of one of our songs. We had no permit for this city, and we had a full sound system set up, complete with microphones and everything. We were in the middle of singing (in French) one of our most outright invitational gospel message songs, and our student leader even made eye contact with one of the policemen as the van drove by, but they did just that – drove by. They didn’t stop to reprimand us or ask us to leave. That, according to our hosts, was a MAJOR thing. God is definitely at work here.

After our street set, we went back to FEU, where dozens of kids our age soon began to show up. We played Foosball with them, hung out for a while, then sat down at scattered tables for dinner. We were all supposed to split up so the students could practice their English on us, haha! Danny and I ended up at a table with two girls who spoke very little English and two guys who were pretty okay at it – Sarah, Pauline, Matias, and Fabien. We spent two or three hours eating, talking, and laughing with them. It was so cool being able to interact with people our age who are on the same path in a different country! Usually we only get to interact with seasoned missionaries, not our peers. What a privilege! We left around 11:00 and went to bed as soon as we got home. Tomorrow is a mystery!