Rome & Pomezia, ITALY
Carpentras & Codognan, FRANCE
Valetta & Mellehia, MALTA
TRANSFORM 2010 - ITALY
This summer started off for me in Rome, Italy with about 500 other believers in a conference room lifting praises to the Lord together. People from all over the world met together in this one place for TRANSFORM 2010 with the same vision to reach the Mediterranean Area for the Lord. We all met in Italy to spent 5 days together for prayer, worship, and learning before going off to about 15 different countries around the Mediterranean for outreaches and ministries. The 5 days in Italy was like one big day with lots of worship, teachings and classes on subjects that will help us during our outreaches. This was a very busy time with little sleep and rest, but a very good time of worship, prayer, and learning. We also went out to Rome together for outreaches which resulted in a new brother in the Kingdom of the Lord. A drug addict was changed by the Gospel of Jesus and found who he was looking for::Jesus.
At the end of my time in Italy I hopped on a bus for a 14 hour journey through Italy and France to end up the next day in a place where I have left a piece of my heart forever ::Carpentras, France...
Carpentras Outreach - FRANCE
Carpentras. What can I say about this place other than I love they city and the people who reside there with a GREAT love.
This is a town in the the south of France known for little colorful candies, colorful buildings, and the constant song of the "Cigalles". But that is only what you see. What is unseen is that it's in this town that has ONE CHURCH of about 50 people, but a population of 29,100. This place packed with history and markets was the place where I spent two weeks with a team of about 8 others (and many people from the church) doing surveys, open-air skits, Kids Clubs, and paintings in order to share the Gospel of Christ.
We spent a lot of time at the markets where we knew there would be many people walking around. Surveys were a great way to approach people and hear their hearts. We did a survey on Love where we asked people what they think love is and then went into talking more about the love of God. There was one question on the survey that said, " 'God loves you.' What do you think of this?" Responses were something like this: A. God doesn't exist. B. I know that God loves me and sent Jesus to die for me. C. I would like to believe that.
I was so very surprised at how over half of the people we surveyed answered that question with "C. I would like to believe that." After and during the survey we would talk with people further about their thoughts on the subjects and then offer them literature before they left. This was a great way to get people to think about these things here in France. Many people are very closed off and hard to open up, but I saw that with these surveys they were quite willing to talk about these things. And many people took literature! At the end of our time we surveyed over 200 people! Praise the Lord! Please keep praying for everyone that we meet, that they would continue thinking about the things of God and what we talked about.
Also, while in Carpentras we did "Open-Airs" where we found a park or place on the street to present the Gospel through a little show type thing. We started off with playing music to attract people, then went onto doing a mime, puppet show, painting, of something creative like that, onto presenting the Gospel to those who were listening. This went well, mostly, and one day we had about 25 peoples attention! Praise the Lord!
KID'S CLUBS!
This was my favorite ministry in Carpentras. We put on a Kid's puppet show about every other day. We found a great park near the church near the government funded houses, where many immigrants and refugees lived. The kids in this park were so excited about our kids clubs and kept coming back each time we did them. This is what we did:
Game to start
Songs with movements
Puppet Show
Bible story and verse
Craft with the verse they learned
One last thing I want to say about Carpentras is I've never met a church who has been so much like THE CHURCH in my life. They were a very amazing group of people who were so willing to do anything we asked them too. They were so passionate about reaching their city and learning new ways to do it, as well as so hospitable to us, giving us whatever we needed, using all their resources for our benefit. Me, Ashley, and Tamsen, have already gone back to visit them for a day and hope to go back soon to help them with painting their youth group room. Pray for the church in Carpentras and that they would daily be refreshed in Jesus and see many come into the Kingdom from their city.
Codognan, FRANCE
After our time in Carpentras was over, my team and I went to meet the other half our our team in a town called Codgnan who's campagne was continuing. Here I did a lot of door-to-door handing out invitations for a Music Festival that was about to take place. In the evenings we did Kid's Clubs and Open-airs in nearby parks. It was a bit harder to do in this area and the people were not as receptive to what we were doing, but even so there were people who listened and heard the Gospel!
Near the end of our time here, the 10 day music festival began and there was a professional mimer from France who came for the first night. Then the next night we were there, then there was a French/Arab Christian Comedian who came, and the night after that there were a few rap groups who came. The next day we left for our two week break, which for me was to the island in the center of the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Italy, called Malta...
MALTA
These two weeks in Malta were such a blessing to me: I got to rest, see some gorgeous places, have much time to spend alone with the Lord, and learned A TON about the spiritual condition of this island.
Not too long ago I didn't even know that this country existed and now I know that it is forgotten and unknown by many, but such an important country for many reasons. It has been fought over for years by European countries and so many people have colonized that country and now their language, Maltese, is a mix of Arabic, Italian, French, and English. It's also the country were Paul ship wrecked on his way to Rome, which now has been turned into a tourist attraction and "St." Paul to be idol to many. Roman Catholicism is the main religion here, but Malta also has the OLDEST PAGAN TEMPLE IN THE WORLD. Islam is also growing on this island due to the many N. African immigrants. Me and Sara got an opportunity to visit the Malta Prayer House, which was a blessed time for me. That was a great time of prayer and prophecy and God is good. I learned that there are only about 200 believers and maybe 15 Protestant churches on the whole island. There is not a lot being done in Malta for spreading the Gospel, but those who are there are being faithful. Please pray that the Church in Malta will grow, that people will be called to serve there, and that the Church in Malta will be called to missions in Malta as well as to other places in the world. Thank you to everyone who was praying for me and my team during this time. Please continue to pray for the people who heard the message and for those have turned to the Lord during this time, and that their faith would continue to grow.
I'm very excited to be back in Nantes. This summer has given me much encouragement and refreshing to keep going strong here. This marks the halfway mark for my internship here and I know that the Lord has so much more planned for these next 8 months! =)
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