Marseille

Saturday, left Lyon for Marseille. Nearly missed the train (they changed the gate after I had already gotten to the original gate). One of the teens from the Lyon church and I went together. Good trip.

I'm staying in a skyrise in northern (?) Marseille, near the church, with 5 other guys, two of whom are interns, the others just here for the CEM week like me. All are college-aged, most know English, and some are from C/C colleges, so we have friends and places/groups in common. So, we've basically all become fast friends. One of the guys knows as much French as I do, so we've been getting through the language barrier together.

This week is bascially a mission-focused week for training and applying young Christians... so teens and college students. We have lessons with the missionaries, lots of meals together and fellowship/relationship time, and some excellent applied mission work projects. This morning, my group went and fed some homeless people in downtown Marseille.

It's a mix of guys and girls, and a mix of nationalities... some locals, some from USA, some from other francophone countries.

Tonight a few of us had a French dinner (implies several courses) with the Youngs, missionaries from Penn/New Jersey area, Katie and Craig. They had us go around and tell our "life story" (french meals are long enough for this.) When it came their turn, Katie told a powerful story of how they had been called to the mission field after taking a world tour with Stanley Shipp. She talked about how in Calcutta they were blown away by the American materialism, but that it wasn't until they got to France that they saw such consummate spiritual absence.

The rest of the week is likely to be quite full. Camp at the end of next week.