Is Europe ready for Thelma Griffin?

Before we talk about the title of the post, some highlights leading up to it.

After Dave and Jade left, CEM Ete started here at the church.  Around 50 people come in for a week focused on missions and gives participants a glimpse of what the Christians in Mission program is all about at the church.  Most of the visitors were from France with a few from the USA, a church from Switzerland, and a few other random euros (I just made that term up).

Gentry and I had 4 guys staying with us in our spacious apartment.  It was pretty cozy. The schedule each day  was something like this:
-Bible classes/lectureship style in the mornings
-Lunch
-Afternoon of different outreach in the community (singing at old folks home, visiting with neighbors, etc)

Gentry and I could only do a couple things here and there during the day because we had to work.
The first 3 evenings of the week had everyone split up to different peoples homes from the Marseille church for dinner. Gentry and I had 4 different people join us for dinner each night. I'm thinking the Americans that ate with us were probably a little disappointed to have come all this way just to eat at the apartment of other Americans. Gentry and I did our best to serve a french style meal. Cheese every night, wine, fruit, and obviously lots of bread.

Later in the week, the group puts on two concerts that are a mix of songs and skits.  The first was at a catholic church in the neighborhood and the other was at our church. Everyone is spreading the word as much as possible to the neighborhood to tell them to come to the shows.  Below are videos and pictures from those nights.  Any COC's from the states should recognize the song in the video.

Friday night concert at the church. Got a little toasty in there. Good turnout from the neighborhood. Hard for them to not feel the love in the room. Sounds cheesy but its true. I saw it happen. I was there. balee dat.

CEM ete was pretty awesome to be a part of. With France being a country so void of people really pressing into knowing God and letting themselves live totally for Him, its exciting to see a group of people come together for Gods mission in France and the world.  It's so different here than it is in the US, especially the bible belt.  Going to church on Sunday morning is literally the last thing the vast majority of French people would do. Because of that, asking someone to go to church with you is one of the last things you do.  Not sure if we have to be best friends first but its not something I'll throw out to anyone as a first hangout.
The upside of this difference is that one someone decides they want to pursue God and let Him work on their hearts, its not a decision taken very lightly. Often its one that goes against beliefs of family and friends. Its not that I am so naive to think this wasn't the case in a lot of the world but for some reason, I didn't think it was really like this in France.  So ya, group of 50 people getting together to see God work is a cool thing to see in France.

We helped our friend Constantine throw a surprise birthday party for his girlfriend who is one of the Americans that has been doing CEM all year. Kat.  She is not a very good actor but was nice enough to act like she was surprised.  A little.  Kind of.  Anyway, Gentry made a cake that was awesome.  Except that I saw what actually goes into making icing from scratch....I could only eat two pieces.

Gentry with Hannah and Lexi who are two students at ACU spending the summer with the church.

Surprised or not, she was happy with the night. I know I was depressed for a good week when my friends didn't have balloons and cone birthday hats waiting for my 23rd birthday.

So Thelma (Gentry's Mom) got to Marseille via train on Thursday afternoon.

The next day, we got on a train heading to Barcelona.  After being in Marseille for 6 weeks, the cleanliness of Barceolona was amazing to me. Everything was just nice and clean and inviting. We had perfect weather (sunny, high of 75).  The only bump in the trip was Gentry not feeling great the first couple days and Thelma and I having our moments of discomfort shortly after. Later in our trip we found out the drinking water in Barcelona is a little suspect. It suddenly clicked why there were huge jugs of water for sale everywhere.

We spent three nights there and saw a lot.  Here are some highlights:

This was the view from the top of the Barcelona Arena. The outside looks like a renovated coliseum but the inside ended up looking like Northpark Mall. Good view at the top though. The big castle/palace looking building in the distance is an art museum which was closed, I was so bummed (I'm still learning how to write sarcastically), and behind that is the Olympic village where the '92 olympics were held.

That angled column behind us is the bottom third of the Olympic torch.



Barcelona spoiled the visitors of the Olympics with outdoor escalators all over the place.



Statue of Christopher Columbus. A little thank you for finding a bunch of land.

We walked a lot. It was for the most part very luxurious, wide lane sidewalks.

On our last day we stopped off at the beach, which was packed. It wasn't really that hot and the water was still cold but people were loving it. 

The Sagrada Familia. I think might be the #1 tourist attraction in Barcelona.  Its only been under construction for 130 years. They are hopeful to be done in 15 years so maybe on our next visit it'll be done. Having said that, it was by far the most impressive building I've ever seen in my life and I've been to the gateway arch.

I got tired of walking so we rented a car for a day.

We had a local dish. Paella. I was the only one willing to get my hands dirty with the langoustine (fancy crawfish)

View of the Ramba. Long strip with a big walkway in the middle full of vendors and an army of guys selling something that allows them to sound like beatboxing hamsters (gentrys comparison. I was thinking more mini singing ducks).

Hopeful that the rest of our eurotrip goes as well as Barcelona.