Bienvenue a Paris

Welcome to Paris!

After many many hours spent daydreaming of what being in Paris would be like, I'm finally here!!!

This place is unreal. Walking down the picturesque streets, I have to remind myself that this is real! This is my home for the next year. That realization fills me with anxiety and fear of the unknown, but also an excitement and curiosity of the unknown.

It's been 3 weeks of adjusting to this new life, and I'm trying to figure out how to convey everything I've experienced. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, so instead of rambling on forever, here is my picture book version of the past 3 weeks...

August 25th 2010, we're off to Paris!

7 people...29 bags of luggage!

After a few hectic days of settling in, we celebrated finally being in Paris together as a team with a fun picnic on the Champs de Mars with this as our magnificent view!
(Photo by Clark Hardaway)

The Agape France team 2010-2011!!
These are some of the people that I will be learning from and working alongside for the next year. It's a pretty diverse team from: United States, United Kingdom, Taiwan, Cambodia, and France.

Taking in a view of the amazing city that God has called us to serve!
(Me, LC, Jen, and Lauren)
These girls will be my teammates, roommates, sisters, and best friends this year. I'm so excited to experience life together and grow in some amazing ways.
(Photo by Clark Hardaway)

Shakespeare and Company

très mignon! (very cute!)

Major traffic jam around the Arc de Triomphe

Beautiful antique furniture I found at a random flea market

Love these old books...wish I could have a wall full of them!

Diderot
This is the Campus that Clark, LC, John, and I work at.
It's a newer campus in a very modern part of the city. There are lots of biology, computer engineering, architecture, and economics majors. The students here are very studious...when we ask them what they do on their free time, almost everyone responds: "go to the library". However, despite the reported lack of "campus life", there has been great community on campus and we've had some GREAT conversations.
One thing all of my conversations seem to have had in common is that student's here just flat out don't care about religion. They don't talk about it, they don't think about it, their friends aren't religious, their families aren't religious...they don't see their need for God.
This was humbling because so often, I don't see my need for a savior. I am easily satisfied with the things of this world...especially in a city like Paris where there are 1,000 distractions per minute.
So, my prayer for the students I've met (and for myself as well) is that the things of this world would fail me and that I would be left with a desperate need for Jesus.

More to come!