Paris Day #4

Today, as we walked through the city, we saw many things- both spiritual and historical.  There is so much to see in both realms here in Paris and it is a true blessing to be here, serving alongside Envision and these great team members.  Jen's knowledge of the city has been indispensable to our entire team as we have traversed much of Paris over the last few days.  I am forever grateful for her help in getting us around as well as leading our students in not just through directions to find the way, but in spiritual direction as well.

Tomorrow, we engage in our ESL time with the local French young adults.  We will then invite these other young adults to engage with us in deeper, more personal conversations.  In this, our goal is not to make them a project, but to develop friendships and to allow room for real relationship.  This takes time.  We, in essence will be helping the missionaries on the ground here to develop long lasting friendships with the people we interact with.  It really is a blessing to be working alongside the folks here and seeing their passion for this city and her people.

One of the things that struck me was how much of the art we saw today surrounded Jesus.  The painting above depicts most of the passion of the Christ in beautiful snapshots. Yet, even despite this beautiful art pointing to Christ, you could sense people seeing it admired the art, but simply viewed as many of us view the Greek mythological statues; nice, but simply history.  It was as if all of the churches have become museums, rather than places of worship.  In interacting with a young man the other day, we discussed the religious tone of France.  In that conversation he stated: "The French are either atheists or Catholic.  Yet, those that are Catholic simply follow the rules.  Jesus is not discussed.  The churchgoers are not allowed to ask questions but blindly do as they are told.  When a French person grows up, they have the choice to choose their "path" and many choose atheism because who wants to be forced to be rigid and strict without knowing why!?"  This was a poignant moment for me as I was struck with the larger view of religiosity in Paris.

In this blog, a young lady on the trip with us- Amber Kanoza will be sharing a bit of her experience on the trip.  She too was taken aback by some of the "museum" feel to the churches around. Below is her experience in her own words.

"Whenever I told someone back at home I was going to Paris for a mission trip I always got “the look”. The look that says is that REALLY a place for missions or are you going for a glorified vacation. From the outside, Paris looks extravagant, beautiful and most of all flawless. We were told to come into the trip with no expectations and to not look at the city with our tourist lens. However, today was our team’s “free day”, so the day’s main goal was to get the tourist mentality out of our system before our true work began. Even with my tourist hat on, the spiritual darkness still broke through. It really stuck out when we went to this beautiful church in Montmartre called Sacre Coure. As we entered the church, the first thing I noticed was this barrier between the tourists and the churchgoers. The roped path for the tourists was filled with sculptures and gorgeous stained glass windows but, one couldn’t help but notice the giant number gap between the two areas. Many were viewing the beautiful sanctuary, but very few were praying. It seemed like people looked at this beautiful place of worship like it was only a museum, like it should belong in the Louvre. On the outsiders pathway around the church there was the option to buy things like prayers, candles and souvenir coins with the Pope on them. It was then that I truly saw the spiritual numbness this city has developed. This city is desperate for something, and that something is Jesus Christ. I cannot wait to really dive in with the people that I am going to interact with tomorrow and show them the love Christ has for them, simply by being a light in there midst." - Amber



 

Pray for tomorrow folks.  I asked the students to do two things: 1. Take the tourist hat off completely and 2. Leave your phones at the hostel so you are not distracted from having good, meaningful conversations.  So, parents and friends of students on the trip, they will not be so easily accessible...don't freak out, just know it's all part of the process.