Paris again

As I said in the previous blog I went to Paris again but this time it was spring and in the company of my team mates. And also as I promised you and myself I climbed the Eiffel Tower. It was a demanding task; a couple of hours queuing but in the company of Miko - a man of few words and my Croatian friend Davorka - a woman of far too many words:)). Time just flew by.

The weather was fantastic so we spent most of our time outside, exploring Paris.
The purpose of our trip was work, not holiday as you might think!
We met two volunteers in Paris who are part of the same program U-turn; we had a look at what they are doing. The other reason was to participate in a Camp for leaders. The Camp was located two hours’ drive from Paris in the forest, in the middle of nowhere, which was excellent. It is nice sometimes go away, take a break from the everyday rush.

Below you can see pics from the camp! Isn't it just beautiful?!




This whole “adventure” took nine days and for me it’s always nice to go somewhere, but after being seven months in England, I had started feeling at home there and during that time I had never been away for more than 4 days. So I was really looking forward to coming back to London. Also I realise how hard it will be for me to leave in June, even though I complain a lot! I have the feeling I might miss London more than I miss Croatia now.

The other thing that makes me sad is the state of the church in France. It is quite similar to Croatia. In both countries the Protestant church is in the minority and I felt a lack of spirituality and that people are not very open to change. Many people wear Lutheran crosses; so that everybody can see which denomination they belong to, as if that is important in the Church of Christ. Once again I felt blessed to be part of St. Stephens.
But still, it seems that things are getting better there. They have very good outreach amongst young people with the mission organisation - MIJI, through different activities that they organise, such as camps, sports events etc.


Missionary meeting

Straight after Paris we headed towards Hoddesdon were we had our MM. We stayed two nights in a conference centre there. The place is huge, really pretty, with a nice garden, so nice that it made me get up before breakfast and go jogging. I dare to say that the food was very good considering that was English! I ate too much!

We were a group of 16 missionaries/volunteers from Paris, Norway and London and three French pastors’ kids. We worshipped, prayed, shared our reports and experiences, had teaching and played a few games. They were a good couple days!

On the right is a photo of the group of us at Hoddesdon and on the left are two ladies who were our hosts in Paris.