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The last few days have been exciting and wonderful. Tuesday after lunch, the team headed back to work. We ended up getting so much done! What was once a row of cabins is quickly becoming nothing at all. We worked really well yesterday and everyone found jobs they enjoyed. It is so encouraging to see how excited the students are for this project. They took us into our classroom to pray for us in French that morning and they’re always smiling and trying to talk to us when they’re outside. We really enjoy the kids and are so blessed to be serving them.
After working, we were served pizza for dinner. It was similar to our own pizza except one of them was topped with calamari and mussels. It’s entertaining to see the different types of food even though most things are pretty similar. I think all of us are now fans of Nutella. Afterwards we went back to our host families for evenings with them. Michelle and I were taken to church. It was about 15 miles away from Soultz, but it was very large. The congregation has about 2,000 members! That’s incredible for an evangelical church. I’ve learned a lot more from the people of France about how few Christians there really are. Most French people believe that Evangelicals are a sect that worships fish because of the typical Christian symbol. They’re highly suspicious of evangelicals so to have that many meet together is a real blessing on them all. Our hosts were gracious enough to translate the message for us so we heard a nice sermon about the power of God.
Wednesday we began work again. We were told that we were actually ahead of schedule and that we had exceeded the expectations of everyone. That was cool to hear but I think we may have let it get to our heads a little. After lunch the girls were a little sillier and less work was completed. Part of that was that we were stuck and uncovered a hive of bees, got sawdust in someone’s eye and weren’t able to get the materials in time to move forward on the project. With work and work ethic running low, we ended early and walked through Guebwiller. The village is incredible. Everything has so much history. It’s been traded back and forth between Germany and France so many times that the whole Alsace region is its own little entity. There is a strong mix of German and French heritage. We saw two incredible churches. The first was the most beautiful building I’ve ever seen in person. It was built in the high middle ages. The structure was designed to give people that could not read the Bible a sense of God and it does that. You cannot help but feel relevant while staring up at the gargantuan ceiling and supports and laying eyes on the magnificent organ or glorious altar in the front. It’s a beautiful thing but a shame that the people of this town have such a great reminder of the history of the worship of God but no knowledge of God himself. The second was much later and has been rebuilt twice. The first structure was built in the 8th century and the final one was sometime in the low middle ages (12th century I think). It’s less glorious than the first but still an awesome reminder of church history.
Tomorrow (Thursday) we have the day off. We are going to Lucerne, Switzerland to do some touristy things and then do some street evangelism. Please pray for that!
Also, I’m not able to update this every day but I’ll do it as much as I can and hopefully will have new pictures each time. Thanks for praying and sending. We look forward to sharing more. God bless!