1. The journey isn’t about the place, it’s the people you meet along the way.
2. Men who will walk into a refugee camp with nothing but the clothes on their back might still have a cell phone in their pocket.
3. France requires all tour guides to have official credentials. On an off-day visit to the Louvre, museum security may have approached me asking to see my “guide pass” without realizing I knew the group of people (my teammates) patiently entertaining my enthusiasm… I maintain my innocence.
4. The tobacco industry is thriving in Paris (if casual observation can be considered evidence).
5. When sixteen people share one small house, toilet paper is almost always in short supply.
6. “Salam Alaykoum” is an Arabic greeting. Language is important. Learn it. Treat it as a matter of respect. Meet people halfway. It makes a difference.
7. It’s entirely possible to eat on €3 a day in Paris if you’re willing to make some concessions towards the amount of baguette a reasonable human should expect to consume.
8. Paris has its share of mosquitoes.
9. The story doesn’t end here. I had the opportunity to meet a couple Afghani men who’d arrived at Porte de la Chapelle in October 2016 to the same discouraging situation we found at the beginning of this month. Both just received their papers to be legally resettling in France and are taking language classes through a local church. They want to learn, and they want to work. Broken tents and dirty blankets piled beneath a blocked-off underpass is a chapter, not an ending.
10. What’s broken can be fixed. If the zipper on your jeans breaks right before you leave the county for eleven months, super glue it shut and go about your business.
11. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love (1 John 4:8).
I’m still around $3,000 short of being fully funded for the next 11 months. If you like to support me, please follow the “Donate Here!” link on the left hand side of your screen. Thank you!
