Traveling as a Novice continued...
(Here we traveled through France on our way to Africa.)
This morning, Dave awoke before me. As he left the hotel in shorts, he found that he was the only one on the streets not in business dress or skinny designer jeans-truly, my all-American Dave stands out in Europe. :)
Today, we plan to travel to the Palace of Versailles (Chateau de Versailles). We will have to make many train transfers to get there, but we're really starting to get the hang of the French train system. Today, we imagine that we'll travel like pros. Right.
As we made a transfer and sat down on our next train, a local French man struck up a conversation with us. Between Dave's French and this man's English, we were able to enjoy conversation. After gathering that we were American, he pointed out the French Statue of Liberty. We soon found out that our new friend, Patrick, was an astronomer for France's NASA. Of course, this opened up a great door of opportunity to testify of God. As we spoke to Patrick about how the earth was in exactly the right place to sustain life (not too far or too close to either freeze or burn up), we explained that it could not be coincidence--It was by a Designer's hand that this was done. Patrick agreed with us, but then explained that he had objections to the Church. He explained that the Catholic Church and the Pope did not make sense and had many contradictions. Between the corruption of the Crusades and the infallibility of the Pope, he just could not follow their teachings. When we were able to separate ourselves from the Catholic Church and explain that that was a different kind of Christianity, we shared the Gospel with Patrick. He seemed to understand much of what we were saying, and he was intrigued. We exchanged e-mail addresses with plans to continue this conversation.
It is not by mistake that Patrick set next to us on that first train. He clearly has questions, and we were fortunately able to get to know one another on that long train journey. Patrick, an educated man, was impressed with Dave's education and knowledge of many languages. He shared a common European joke, "3 languages=trilingual, 2 languages=bilingual, 1 language=American." How silly I felt to basically fit into this stereotype-Perhaps it is time that I learned another language. My high school Spanish classes hardly make the cut.
All of knowledge and languages aside, God has led us directly to this searching man today. I am so thankful for a God who ordains each step we take.
(Later that day...)
We will soon be continuing on to Benin, West Africa. Although Paris has been beautiful, Africa is really the part of our trip that I'm excited about. I can't wait to get there.
The missionaries from Africa had requested that we bring French study Bibles for the African pastors to use in their studying and teaching. Ironically, we were unable to find the Bibles in America, but we had the address for a Parisian Christian book store. Perhaps we will be able to find the treasures there!
After navigating through Paris once again, we found our way to the Christian Book Store. We searched the store, and we were elated to find exactly what we were looking for. A money gift from a big-hearted man in our church would meet the need for the cost. We are thankful for Gospel partners, who although they may not be taking this missions journey with us, their heart is set on the furtherance of the Gospel. God is good. What a joy it will be to present these study Bibles to the Beninois pastors. We cannot wait to give these gifts!
Only one more day until we're there.
We also purchased a copy of a Gospel Apologetics book for Patrick. We look forward to continuing to plant Gospel seeds in his searching heart.
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