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Hello friends!
I am moving back to Paris, and thought it would be sweet to use this same newsletter to continue what the Lord began in 2020. So hello to new and old friends! I am thankful for your support in both prayer and listening to me share what God will be doing.
First, some logistics: I leave September 26th and my visa ends May 14th. To my understanding, I can stay on a tourist visa for 90 days after, so it is up to God when I return home! Maybe He has me there a bit longer, or maybe it is time to move back to the States, or maybe graduate school in Paris...
I will be teaching/assisting in an English class in two primary schools in a suburb of Paris. I am only getting paid to teach twelve hours a week, so I am looking to work some cash jobs like nannying. (I can only work one official job on my visa.) But! I am also excited for ministry work, as I was involved with a church in 2020, and have a friend who is moving back to Paris full time as a missionary working with refugees.
Trusting the Lord with housing and roommates! Excited to share what happens there.
Now to share a little bit about my thoughts and my heart as I move:
Every one of us has a desire to be known and loved. That rich warmth knowing that there is someone who understands, listens, and gives grace to our silly human manners, someone who forgives us for our pride and for our judgements. I am thankful for friends and family that display this love, but I serve a God who is this love. He has redeemed my life, and He has given it such great meaning and value because of that sacrificial love displayed on the cross.
The capacity in which this love can be shared expands when taken to a different culture and country. As I step into unknown situations in a new language and culture, there is more of me to be emptied and therefore more of me to be filled. I know that when I lay down my comforts and desires, when I turn my eyes off myself, the Lord fills me with a love that my flesh could not give. In periods of homesickness or fear or confusion, I pray that I would seek truth in the fact that my God fully knows and loves me, and that I will turn to Him and invite His spirit to be with me as I show that truth to those I encounter.
The Lord has given me a sensitive heart, and this can be such a sweet gift when I stay close to Jesus and listen to the Holy Spirit. But when I listen to the lies of the world; lies of fear, worthlessness, anxiety, and rejection, I immediately fall into pride as I insecurely believe those lies. This heart can be Peter on the water: in awe and surrendered to the holiness and great love of Jesus, until the lies tumble and crash around it. The sea mumbles and then shouts and my heart looses sight of love. By God's grace I pray I may stay close to Him so that I will not fall into the pride of fear and subsequently judgment.
"Celui qui n'aime pas n'a pas connu Dieu, car Dieu est Amour." 1 Jean 4:8.
Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:8
I am nervous but trusting the Lord, and overall thrilled to be moving back to such a gorgeous city with beautiful histories, people... and food :)
A lot of this was shared above, but here is a list of prayers that you can be joining with me in!
- Safety, wisdom, and clear thinking
- That the work the Lord is doing in France and Europe would be evident to me, and that I would engage in it without fear
- That the spirit of worthlessness and fear I have struggled with be gone in Jesus name, and replaced with worthiness and faith and truth - that I would not let these lies cover me
- that I would stay close to the Lord, and that my heart would be sensitive to Him alone
- housing!
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