It’s been over a week since our team has settled into our quaint little apartment in the beautiful city of Paris, France. The Lord has been doing incredible things. I would have written sooner but there are pages and pages of journal entries of all the amazing things that are happening!
To begin with, Paris is beautiful. Dainty coffee shops decorate every cobble-stoned street corner. The city is saturated with historic monuments, time-worn architecture, and fashion galore. Not to mention, we’ve had incredibly cool weather the entire time! It’s absolutely stunning and I am in love.
Our team has been working in an area called Port de la Chapelle. This area is a short fifteen-minute walk away from where we are currently living. There are hundreds of young refugee men, and a few women, sleeping in tents and many on the streets. It’s quite an overwhelming situation and I literally gasped aloud the first time I saw what was going on.
My first day at Port de la Chapelle started with my team leader Lila and I taking the Metro to the wrong part of the city and we found ourselves walking almost four hours to get to our ministry site for the day. It was a bit discouraging because I thought for sure I wouldn’t be able to get there in time. Well, God knows what he’s doing. Upon entering the refugee area, I met a man named Osmand. I sat down next to him and asked him about his day. Our conversation grew deeper and deeper and eventually I asked him if he wanted to be adopted into Gods family and be his son and follow Jesus. He said yes! I led him in a prayer and he was so happy! Osmand was a Muslim and his primary language is Arabic. After we prayed I asked him if there’s anything else he wants to tell Jesus that he can pray and talk to God. He prayed aloud in Arabic. I asked him what he prayed for and he said shelter and he thanked Jesus for sending me and Lila to him that day.
After Osmand accepted Christ, a few days passed before we were able to sit and talk together again. I looked for him every day and earnestly prayed that his desire for Jesus would only continue to grow. We were finally able to agree on a time to meet up. He really is a hard man to get in contact with but my heart would not let me forget about him. We met together for bible study on Romans 8 and he was so hungry to study and know more about Jesus. He asked so many questions and even said he wants to start going to a church. I have never experienced such hunger before in my whole life!
God has also been moving in signs and wonders all around me. Last week, I met a man named Abdoul. His smile was pearly white and vibrant and his personality was hilarious. He stood behind a serving table assisting to pass out coffee to other refugees like himself. His vibrancy was instantly contagious and I found myself falling into a deep conversation with him. He told me about how hard it was to flee Darfur, Sudan, how he almost died in Libya, and how his brother committed suicide. “I am not good. I am very sad.”, he openly vocalized to me. I told him I love to listen and I told him about God’s love and how amazingly in love Jesus is with him and how happy I was to meet him! He started giving me so many hugs because of how loved he felt.
Right before we left, I noticed he was holding his arm against his side. I asked him what happened. He said he needs to go to the pharmacy to buy a wrap for his arm because he hurt it when he got into a fight with another refugee in the camp. I asked him to show me how far he could move it. He could barely lift it and winced when he tried. I asked him if I could please pray for him. He said okay. I asked Connie to please join me. We laid hands on his arm. We prayed over him. When it was over, I asked him to move his arm and tell me how he feels. He moved his arm and no pain! He was so amazed! I was so amazed! I told him that it was Jesus who healed him. He lifted up his hands in the air and shouted, “Praise Jesus!”. He then said he was going to go dancing! It was so incredible and amazing. He was so happy that he said he wanted to sleep on the street that night just so he could see us the next day. He wanted to follow us everywhere we went because he just wanted to be with us. He even wants to come to church with us! Never has the bible been so real. Crowds followed Jesus everywhere he went.
Our first Sunday in Paris, we attended the church service of one of our ministry contacts. I shared my testimony of how Jesus healed that man earlier in the day with the congregation. After the service, a woman approached me and asked me if I could please pray for her lower back because she has two herniated discs. Connie, Andrew, and I laid hands on her and she felt heat moving up her legs as we prayed.
Four days later, while assisting to gather some of our refugee friends for a performance being held by YWAM, a Pakistani man whom I had seen before came up to me and shook my hand and was so excited to see me. I asked him how he is doing and he proceeded to say, “Not good”, because he injured his left knee and it hurts when he walks. I asked him if I could pray for him and he obliged. I put my hands on his knee and prayed for his knee to be healed in Jesus’ name. After I finished praying he said he felt heat on his knees and proceeded to move it around. Then he started jumping on it and he had no pain! He was laughing and I was laughing and I told him that Jesus healed him and he loves him so much! We started walking to the show again and he started to tell me about his lower back pain and shoulder pain he struggles with. At this point Connie and Hakeem were next to us. So I began to pray again for his back and Connie and Hakeem also laid hands on him and prayed and his back was no longer in pain. Jesus healed him! I started laughing and he was so joyful. I said, “Praise Jesus!” and he shouted and lifted his hands in the air, “Praise Jesus!”. I told him that Jesus loves him so much and it is Jesus who does the good work. He was so happy! We then walked to the YWAM performance and he stayed for most of it.
After the YWAM performance, I ran into a man named Solomon. Days before, I sat by my teammate Andrew as he led a small bible study with some of the men outside of the camp. Next to me were some of the refugees. I began speaking with them and talking about Jesus with them. Because the men mostly spoke Arabic, Solomon said he would translate. He felt very uncomfortable and I noticed he wasn’t translating in the way that I wanted him to. Anyway, now fast forward to a few days later after the YWAM show and here I am with Solomon. I asked him if he understood what the performance was about and he said that he only understood a little bit because he came late. I told him I know the story very well and I can tell him about it. He said yes. So, I shared with him the story of the Prodigal Son. After I shared with him the whole story, he was so excited. “Where can I get the book? What book is the story in?” he asked. I told him that the story is actually in a book. It’s in the bible! He was so shocked and I proved it to him by reading it to him from Luke 15:11-32. He was a Muslim man hesitant to translate for us when we talked about Jesus and now Jesus has grabbed his attention through his word. It’s amazing. He wanted to know much more and gave us his messenger address so we could meet again and keep talking about Jesus.
Today, as a team, we dove a bit deeper into our personality types as a squad and it turns out my personality type, INFP, is a healer. I am falling more and more in love with Jesus every day. He is revealing pieces of himself to me in ways I could have never imagined. Please continue to pray for our team as we will still be heading out to our area of ministry “Port de la Chapelle” to hang out with refugees who congregate there to meet with one another. The refugees who were sleeping on the street at this location were moved to refugee camps a few days ago but many are still arriving every day. A lot of those people who were relocated still come to Port de la Chapelle in order to talk to one another in community. Every time I go there I get to share Jesus so much. They are hungry and we are willing to tell these unreached people that Jesus has a purpose for their life and how much he loves them.
Please pray for us today as our team was invited to dance with Roma gypsies who need to know Jesus and also as we head to Port de la Chapelle afterword to play soccer and talk to people about Jesus. Pray for people to continue to see miracles and signs and wonders and that we can declare the gospel boldly at all times! It’s really amazing and I am so thankful to be in Paris. Thank you so much to those of you who have invested financially and prayerfully into this. God is doing wonderfully amazing things.
Here I am God. Use me.
