Beginning a new chapter

Bonjour mes amis! Hello friends!

It has been an amazing summer, and God has been very good to me. This past week has been a blur of goodbyes, driving around, eating out, and emotional ups and downs. The Lord has divinely rearranged schedules and given me some very sweet moments with some very dear people. The past few days have been spent doing laundry, packing, and trying to prepare myself (mentally, emotionally, physically...) to go back to Montpellier.

The hardest part about leaving this second time has been trying to balance the grief of leaving with the excitement of going back. In the midst of trying to sort out all of my emotions, God gave me this verse:

"She who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with her." Psalm 126:6

Even though I am sad to leave behind people I love and miss out on parts of their lives this next year, God has promised to bless the seeds we sow, and I know that we will return with joy and a plentiful harvest. This is my prayer for this next year!

Thank you for your prayers for me and my ministry - I am so thankful for all of you!

Long overdue, Looking back, Looking ahead

I may have set the record for tardiest blogger ever... For all of those who have been faithfully following, checking, and waiting for news - I apologize! I have many excuses (some legitimate, some less so...) for my over three months of "radio silence," but I won't bother you with those here. Rather, I would love it if you would take some time to read through my reflections, my words of thanksgiving, and my increasingly nostalgic thoughts as my STINT year here in Montpellier draws to a close. Thanks for your patience as I process through a lot of this stuff...

One thing I'm extremely thankful for, looking back over this year, is for all the ways that God has provided for me. I am still amazed and occasionally speechless when I think about how God provided for me to be here with the financial and prayer support of so many - how He put together a support team for me that has come alongside me in incredible ways to help me and to help make ministry possible. God has also provided community, friendship, support, learning, encouragement, and family in my teammates here in Montpellier. I am so grateful for each and every girl on my team, and I know that God knew exactly what He was doing when He put us together. We complement each other perfectly, and each of us was essential this year for the work He had planned for us. God also provided an apartment for us to live in - no easy task! After several weeks of sleeping on Amy and Caroline's floor, I was beginning to get frustrated and wonder what God was doing. In the end, as usual, He knew exactly what He was doing. We found an apartment that is perfect for all of our needs, great for hosting people, and ideally located. He also blessed us abundantly with the real estate agent who manages our apartment, Emmanuel. Emmanuel (God is with us! What a great reminder!) has been extraordinarily helpful, patient, and available whenever we have needed him. In addition, God has provided many rich, beautiful friendships for me this year with many Christian Agape students and other non-Christian friends. Beyond friendships with students, He has blessed us in our relationships with our "people of peace" - individuals who are not associated with Agape or with a church, who may not even be believers, who bless us by helping us out in different areas. When I think about "people of peace," my mind goes straight to our favorite bartenders at Fitzpatrick's Irish Pub and the wait staff at Le Ranch. Fitzpatrick's is the pub where we have English club each Monday night, and the staff there has always been extremely kind and friendly with us, allowing us to use their space. We have been able to develop great relationships with them, and I enjoy our interactions each week. Le Ranch is a restaurant near one of the main university campuses that allows us to host our discussion nights there every other Thursday. The staff reserves a section of seating for us, despite the fact that we are often loud and few people actually order anything to eat or drink. They are very friendly as well, and being able to meet in that location is a huge blessing. God has also provided for me with two (TWO!) thriving church communities where I can worship, be welcomed and cared for, learn, pray, and connect with Him. Finally, God has blessed me by providing numerous ways and opportunities for me to connect with friends, family, and supporters at home. Feeling connected despite being so far away is something that I really need, and God has richly provided for that.

Coming out of this very rich, intense, and challenging year I am also extremely thankful for all the ways God has helped me to grow. I have grown in my relationship with the Lord, learning how to depend on Him and trust Him in new and deeper ways. I have grown in my knowledge of His Word through personal and collective study. I have also grown in prayer through our focused times of prayer as a team throughout this year. I have grown enormously in the areas of initiative evangelism (walking up to someone and striking up a spiritual conversation with them), and relational evangelism (sharing the Gospel in the context of friendship). I have gotten more comfortable sharing the Gospel and having spiritual conversations with students (and in French!). I have also learned how to listen carefully - both to the person I am speaking with and to the promptings of the Spirit. I have learned more about asking thoughtful and thought-provoking questions, and about how to build relationships with new friends.

Throughout this year, I have seen God do many miraculous, amazing things. Probably the most awesome has been the ways I have seen Him working to grow Agape here in Montpellier and across France through new believers like Alice who came to faith in November, and through Christian students getting more involved in ministry. This year, we had many students step up and give of their time and energy to serve on different leadership teams. We have also seen more students committing (and recommitting) to internships with Agape - trusting God to help them raise support and giving a year of their lives to do ministry with their peers. In Montpellier alone we have Julien who has recommitted himself to do a second year of internship, Joelle moving from working part-time with us to doing an internship, and Christian doing his first year of internship. Please pray for each of these dear friends of mine - Julien as he raises support again and gets ready to move to Toulouse for his next year of life and ministry, Joelle as she moves to full-time ministry and begins raising more support, and Christian as he gets ready to beginning raising support for the first time, moving to Rennes, and doing all of this in the context of extreme hostility and persecution from his non-Christian family.

This year has also been very challenging and occasionally difficult for me. The most difficult thing about this year has been continuing to hold out hope for our friends and for the students we meet on campus; continuing to share the Gospel, take relational risks and pray with hope, trusting that God is working and thus our work is not in vain even when we don't see much visible fruit; persevering in hope and belief that God will save our friends. In the midst of this, I know that God has continued to encourage us in many diverse ways. I am sure of it because without Him renewing us and encouraging us daily to keep praying, believing, and hoping, we would have despaired and given up long ago. He has continued to use us in each others' lives to point one another to the truth of His promises and to remind us of His presence with us.

I have been disappointed this year as well, especially as I near the end of my time here, that God hasn't worked the way I hoped or expected He would in the lives of my friends. I am disappointed that more people haven't come to know and trust Jesus as their Savior this year, particularly as we have made salvation and revival here in France a specific focus of prayer this semester. And yet, despite my disappointment, I know that God is working, that His timing is perfect, and that He is calling me to trust Him in this as well. He wants me to continue trusting Him with more and more of myself, and He also want me to trust Him with the lives and eternities of the people here who have become so dear to me. After all, He loves them even more than I do! He has a good plan for their lives as well as for mine, and I am not responsible for their salvation - He is.

Along with spending some time looking back over this year, I have also been spending a lot of time thinking about what God has for me next - looking ahead. Looking ahead to this summer - to homecomings, reunions, reconnecting with family, friends, and supporters, and enjoying American food and culture after time away. I have been thinking about raising support again, stepping out in faith to ask for prayer and financial support and trusting God to once again provide for all my needs. Looking ahead to next year - to moving back to Montpellier, adjusting to a new team and new roommates, and beginning a new year of ministry. There is still so much I want to learn, and so much am I asking God for in this next year. I have already seen God working to change the atheist, humanist, naturalist culture among students and have personally experienced shifts in their thought patterns and beliefs. I pray that God would continue to transform how they think and what they believe, that this this city and this country would experience radical change, awakening, and revival. I pray that people would begin to really hunger for truth, to hunger for God, and that He would bring many to salvation. I pray that those people would turn around and reach their friends, family, peers, colleagues, and neighbors. I pray that God's Kingdom in France would advance, that more and more people would be able to hear the good news of Christ's death to pay for their sins and resurrection to bring them new life, freedom, and restored relationship with God. I am holding out hope for dear friends like Adam, Julie, Mathilde, P.J., Israel, Marion, Elena, Ben, and others. I am praying that God will save them, and trusting that He will do it.

I don't know exactly what God has in store for me this summer, or this next year, but I am really excited. Thank you for your patience with me and my lack of communication, for your prayers and support, and for all your encouragement and kind words. God has used you to bless me in innumerable ways, and I am grateful. Please pray for me as I finish up the year and transition home. Pray that God will help me strike a balance between joy and thankfulness for this year and the adventures to come, and grieving well as this chapter comes to an end. Que Dieu vous benisse! (God bless you!)

Blessed Rest

Time has really been flying by for me - already we have tulips pushing up in our window box and we're starting to think about spring! It's hard to believe that I have been here in Montpellier for almost 6 months! God has been so good to me - He always is - but I would like to share two huge examples of His goodness in my life from January.

The first is my parents coming to visit! I am so thankful and feel so blessed that their work schedules (and mine) could be arranged so that the three of us could spend a week together! It was really exciting (and also a bit strange) to have them here with me and to feel my "two lives" colliding. We spent a lot of our week together hanging out and visiting the city. I was able to take them to my favorite places and restaurants, and also spend some time being a tourist in my own city which I very much enjoyed. We also spent a good amount of time just relaxing and being together, which after this much time away is what I miss the most. There's just no way to get caught up on the daily life stuff over skype! They were also able to meet a lot of "my people." They came to our weekly English Club with me and got to meet some of my Christian and non-Christian friends. We also had a team raclette dinner (if you haven't had it, it's melted raclette cheese over baked potatoes with veggies and deli meats on the side - delish!) where they got to hang out with my stint teammates as well as our French interns, staff members, and their family. We also took two day trips together - one to Nimes, and one to Carcassonne.

Nimes is a very old nearby city that was founded by the Romans. There is a whole lot of history there, including an old Roman guard tower, arena (like the Colosseum in Rome), and temple. We had a ton of fun exploring the city and finding the different traces left behind on the architecture. We were also surprised with snow while we were there - real snow! It was the first time all winter that I had seen any. My favorite thing we saw was probably the arena - unlike the Colosseum, there were almost no other people there, and we had a lot more freedom to explore. We climbed all the way to the top and looked out over the city, then all the way to the bottom and walked out onto the arena floor. We even did some bullfight playacting! 

Carcassonne is another nearby city that is also very historic, just from a different era. The original walled city (complete with medieval fortress!) is situated up on a hill with a beautiful view of the newer low city. We all really enjoyed the castle, but Dad was definitely the most excited! We climbed up on the ramparts, explored the curving streets of the walled city, and looked out from high guard towers with arrow slits. Dad got more and more excited and kept shouting lines from the Lord of the Rings like "Fall back to the keep!" and "Orcs on the stairs!" We really enjoyed ourselves despite the cold weather. Here's a picture of us "guarding" the gate - we take our job very seriously (clearly).

The week really flew by, and before I knew it I was dropping them off at the airport I had picked them up from only 8 days previously! While I was sad to see them go, I was (and am!) so grateful to have had them here. I feel like they understand life and ministry here in such a deeper way because they have seen it in action. I am so thankful that I got to share it with them! 

Only a short week later, it was time for us, the stint team, to pack up and head to Nerja, Spain for our Mid-Year Conference. We spent a week in the south of Spain, a short hop away from the Mediterranean, in a beautiful resort. We had great teaching, lots of time to relax, lots of time with the Lord, and opportunities to reconnect with other stinters from Europe, Russia, Africa, the Middle East, and South America. It was amazingly encouraging to hear stories of ministry from all over the world. I also felt extremely loved, cared for, and supported by the Cru staff who were there and who helped organize and lead the conference. As a result of their hard work and encouraging words, I was able to come back to Montpellier refreshed, excited for a new semester of ministry, and really feeling like I had heard clearly from the Lord. I'll only include one picture of the view - I don't want you to be too jealous!

So, to sum up, January flew past in a shower of blessings from the Lord. I am so grateful to be here, to have this opportunity to be in the front row and see how God is moving, and to have another semester of life and ministry in France. Thank you all for your prayers, for your words of encouragement, and for your unwavering support of our ministry. Please keep praying that God would use us here in His campaign to make His name known and to bring people to Himself! A la prochaine - until next time!

C.N.A. in pictures

Bonjour tout le monde! (Hello everyone!) Sorry to be so late in getting to these - but I would love to add to my last post about our Christmas conference (C.N.A.) with some beautiful visuals! I hope you enjoy them!

A photo of all the students, staff, and staff kids from Montpellier who attended C.N.A. this year

Students doing various prayer stations at one of the nightly programs

John McNeil - a fantastic Irishman and the head of Agape Campus ministries in Europe. He came to spend some time with students and staff, and to share his larger vision of student-led ministries - empowering our students by giving them vision and ownership

Students (and STINT interns from Paris) enjoying the Reveillon (New Year's Eve) dinner together

Part of the group that went to Lourdes on our outreach day in the city - they spent time sharing hope and God's love through song!

The Kellums - this wonderful couple has been on staff with Agape in France for 19 years and was honored at C.N.A. for the years of service because this is their last before they head back to the States as their two oldest will be in college and they want to be nearby. Praise God for people like the Kellums who are so faithful to the call the Lord places on them to go and serve!

That's all for now! I'll update you soon on my parents' visit (which was such a blessing) and our Mid-Year conference with all of the STINT interns in the Western hemisphere taking place in Nerja, Spain this next week! Prayers for safe travel and guidance for many of us seeking God's will for the next year of our lives are much appreciated! 

C.N.A.

As promised, here is my C.N.A. update!

For those of you who don't know, C.N.A. (or Camp du Nouvel An - literally, Camp of the New Year) is the Agape Campus France Christmas conference. For the last few years, C.N.A. has been hosted in a retreat center in the small mountain town of Cantan, near Tarbes, in the Pyrenees. The center we stayed at was made up of two main lodge buildings - one housed the girls and included the dining room and a game room that had couches, fussball, a pool table, and a bar for tea and snacks. The other building housed the guys and also included the main meeting room.

It was a lot of fun (and also a bit scary at times) to be a part of the workers for this conference instead of a student. My teammates and I worked with the Agape stinters (American interns) from Paris to organize various aspects of the conference, including the "gouter" (before dinner snacks), the prayer room, the reveillon (New Year's party), and the decorations of the main meeting room. It was really rewarding to spend time planning beforehand (over skype from Montpellier to Paris) with our fellow stinters, and then to see it all come together that week to really bless the students who were there.

Altogether, we had all 5 of our partnership cities represented (Montpellier, Toulouse, Lyon, Rennes, Paris), with about 80 students and 20 staff members and their families. It was so encouraging and exciting to see a bigger, more national picture of ministry in France! One of my favorite parts of the weekend was getting to meet so many amazing people - students and staff - and hearing their stories. Each person had a story, and each story was evidence of God working in France in amazing ways. 

During the conference, we had great times together as a large group hearing from our speaker, Michel Petrossian (a pastor from Paris), and worshiping in French. We also had some really cool workshop sessions hosted by different staff members and nightly sessions with different themes. One night, we had different prayer stations where students could fold their prayers into origami, make things out of clay, and paint on a large banner. Another night, we talked about the need for missionaries worldwide and had different booths around the room representing various countries that students can go to as part of a short-term missions trip or a year-long internship with Agape.

In addition, we had a day of sharing where students - organized into two groups - took steps of faith to share the Gospel. One group stayed at the retreat center and did an internet outreach where they sent messages to specific friends asking them to meet up and talk about spiritual things. They also explored various internet resources that they can use to share the Gospel. The second group (I went with them) went to Lourdes - a nearby town known as a pilgrimage location. Back in the day, a young woman (Saint Bernadette) was going to a natural well in a grotto to draw water when she saw a vision of the Virgin Mary. Ever since then, the source was considered a holy site and there are many instances of miraculous healing that have been reported. Today, there is a large, very beautiful church built on the site and many people come to pray. We went into town to do street evangelism and to talk with the people we met about hope - what gives them hope in their lives. It was very interesting for me to see a town like Lourdes, that is so well known as a pilgrimage site and was also a disturbing example of religious tourism. It was distressing to see how people had twisted something beautiful and holy - where miracles occurred and people connected with God - into something so corrupted and commercialized. It was very exciting for me, however, to go sharing with Randy (my partner). Randy is an Indonesian student studying in Rennes (in the north of France) who is learning French to work on his master's degree. It was really encouraging for me to meet Randy, to see him share his faith for the first time, and to hear about his story and how God brought him to faith and to France.

All in all, it was a very eye-opening and encouraging time. God is doing some truly amazing things here! Thank you so much for your continued prayers!

December

December was a busy and exciting month full of many blessings! We worked really hard, and saw God come through in big ways. 

During the month of December, we had two big Christmas outreaches planned. The first one was a party hosted at our apartment where we invited Agape students and our non-Christian friends to come, hang out, and celebrate Christmas. Two of our involved Agape students, Jonas and Donerse, put together a program presenting the Christmas story through Scripture and songs. Jonas also shared a short message about the meaning of Christmas, and the different ways we can react to this good news. He challenged us to react like the shepherds - who go immediately to see Jesus, and return praising God and telling everyone they meet the good news of the Savior come to earth. We also had a scavenger hunt for the different "characters" of the Christmas story, who all slowly made their way to our manger scene. After the message, we did our white elephant gift exchange. We had asked students to bring something small and funny, but as the white elephant concept isn't huge in this culture, we had mixed results. For the most part, people just brought chocolate (not that anyone complained!). We did have some funny ones though - my favorite was a tie between the giant pumello and the Buzz Lightyear lotion!

Our second big outreach was a "Fete de Noel entre filles" - a Christmas party for girls - hosted by Jeanette and Kathryn. We (the team) spent many hours that morning baking many, many sugar cookies in preparation for the afternoon. It was well worth it! As I was talking with some of the girls, I realized that none of them had ever decorated cookies before. I had no idea this was an American tradition! As a result, they were all pretty excited, and everyone had a really good time expressing themselves in an artistic (and tasty!) way. After the cookies, we spent some time as a group (there were about 30 girls in total) sharing our family and cultural Christmas traditions. There was a lot of variety, and it was really fun learning about what other people did to celebrate. Next, Jeanette talked to us about a gift she had received as a child - a wedding Barbie. She had coveted and dreamed about the toy for weeks, and was so excited when she opened it Christmas morning and realized it was hers to keep! After a few weeks, however, the excitement wore off and she started playing with it less and less. She no longer valued it as much as she had before. Jeanette used this present as a way to talk about the best present she had ever received - the only one that is still as valuable to her today (and even more valuable) than when she first received it - Jesus! It was a beautiful message, and many of the girls were visibly touched by what she shared.

We also had a Soiree Film (a movie night) in December organized by Leo, one of the Agape students on the Outreach team. It was so exciting for us to see him taking ownership of this event! We watched a film called "Life in a Day" that was made by Ridley Scott - and many others! The movie is actually a compilation of movie clips shot and uploaded to YouTube by people all over the world. All of the clips date from a single day (July 24th, 2010) and were shot in many different countries. The film was very interesting and thought provoking - with many beautiful, touching, disturbing, and tragic moments. We had a really great discussion afterwards in small groups with questions that Leo had written. I was in a group with Floriane, a non-Christian friend of Kate and Amy that they met on campus. She is very sweet, and fun to talk with. I look forward to how God will use that night, and our interactions in the future, to continue to speak truth to her!

Right before Christmas, I also had the opportunity to make the most of my days off and do some traveling! Teammates Kate, Caroline, and I took the train up to Strasbourg in Alsace to spend a few days exploring the city, eating well, and doing some serious shopping at the Christmas markets. Strasbourg is such a beautiful city and we had so much fun together! It was a great vacation (even though it was brief) and we returned feeling rested. We also had the opportunity to see the Body of Christ in action in a really cool way while we were there (and before we left). Caro had been working on finding a place for us to stay, and contacted some friends from church who live in Strasbourg. One of them, Simon, had told us that his parents had just purchased a place in the downtown area that should be ready by the time we were there. Unfortunately, he emailed us the week of our trip to let us know that it wouldn't work, but that his friend Sophie could help us. We emailed Sophie, and she responded right away saying she would have to check with her roommates, but that she would love to host us. It was such a blessing to meet her, to have breakfast with her, and to have her trust us after she left halfway through our stay to take care of her apartment. Although the Christian community here in France may be small, it is very connected and people have a very strong sense of hospitality. It was really cool to see it in action!

Finally, Christmas arrived! Christmas Eve we got together as a team with a few friends who were still in town and not home with their parents to eat some delicious chili and watch The Nativity. Christmas day started with scrambled eggs and monkey bread with my roommates and opening presents from each other and our families by the tree. Afterwards, we swung into high gear to prepare the mashed potatoes, salmon, green bean casserole, and desserts that we were bringing to our team dinner at the Skur's house. Everything didn't go completely according to the original plan, but it all got done and we had a lot of delicious food and great fellowship together. After supper/dinner, we had our team talent show (Caro's idea) that was a mixture of the serious (Kathryn played piano, Ainsley sang) and the silly (Amy danced the Napoleon Dynamite routine and Caro walked on her hands). Next, we opened our secret santa presents for each other and the Skur kids opened their gifts from us. It was a lot of fun and a real blessing to all of us far from our own families to spend time with our Montpellier family on Christmas.

Right after Christmas, we left for C.N.A. (Camp du Nouvel An - Camp of the New Year) - our Christmas conference in the Pyrenees. More on that soon - I promise! In the meantime, thanks for your continued support and prayers! I hope you had a very Merry Christmas, and that your New Year would be blessed!

Thanksgiving and Praise!

Bonjour mes amis! I am sorry it has been so very long since I have posted anything at all! November has been a crazy month full of so many things to be thankful for - including Thanksgiving itself! For those of you who don't know, Agape in Montpellier hosted a huge Thanksgiving outreach dinner this year, as we have done for the last 7 or so years that we have been in this city. Much of our month was spent planning, preparing, and praying for this event - and it was amazing to see God at work in it! The planning for the food alone was a huge undertaking! Each household had a traditional dish they were responsible for, as well as 3 pumpkin pies for dessert. My roommates and I made 8 giant foil pans of stuffing and ended up with enough pumpkin mixture to make 5 pies instead of 3. At one point on Wednesday the day before, we had to start putting pans of food on chairs and coffee tables in our family room so we had enough table space to eat lunch!

We also had a lot of publicity work to do to help get the word out to students on campus that we might not know personally. On Monday of Thanksgiving week we went onto two of the biggest campuses in Montpellier to do a blanket invite and publicity campaign using...sugar cookies! Amanda and Caro headed up our publicity team, and planned the whole "cookie campaign." We spent the weekend making dough, rolling it out, sprinkling, baking, bagging, and tagging them with beautiful fliers made by an artistic French student friend Simon. We set up a table on campus, and stopped students as they passed to offer them cookies and invite them and their friends to the dinner Thursday night. It was a huge step of faith for many of us to walk up to French students we don't know and try to engage them in conversation, and there were many rejections and people who ignored us. In spite of this, God was so faithful! He gave us a lot of joy and enthusiasm, and we were able to bless a lot of students (we made about 450 cookies!) and also generate more publicity for Agape. We also were blessed by running into some students we knew and having great conversations with them!

After spending Tuesday and Wednesday cutting up baguettes (about 24 in total) into tiny cubes and baking our 5 pumpkin pies, we arrived at the big day! Kate, Joelle, and I (the decorating team) arrived to the church where we were hosting the event mid-morning, and started decorating and setting up the room.

Before we knew it, it was 2:30 and time to head home for a quick "lunch" and a few minutes of rest before heading back to the church loaded down with pies (our other roommates brought the stuffing closer to dinner time). God provided in amazing ways with the tables we needed, and the happy volunteers necessary to help pull it all together. It turned our really beautiful!

All of sudden, it was beginning! Students began arriving, picking seats, and settling in. Before dinner, Robyn got up in front of the group and shared the story of Thanksgiving - the faith of the Pilgrims, and their thankfulness to God and to the Native Americans that provided the food they needed to survive in this new land. It was really well done, and so exciting to share something so culturally American with our French friends. 

We also had two French Agape students get up and share their testimonies of what they were thankful for. Simeon, a first-year university student, shared his journey of how he came to faith in Christ, and how thankful he is to God for saving him and for giving him new direction in his life. Joelle, our fellow intern and dear friend, got up next, and shared how thankful she is to God for the challenges she has faced in the last year (including losing her mother this spring), and how she has felt Him in her life in such a closer and more intimate way as a result. You could hear a pin drop in the room while they were talking! It was so beautiful to see how genuine they were, and to have them both present the message of the Gospel so clearly to a room of 90 or so students (at least 60 of whom were non-Christians).

Next came the food! The students were genuinely excited to try these classic American Thanksgiving dishes (except the pumpkin pie...that got more of a mixed reception!) It was so great to be able to serve them and to share with them! After dinner, we did the "traditional" (it has appeared at all of our Thanksgivings here in Montpellier) turkey hand craft. Students really seemed to get into it! It was a ton of fun to watch them getting creative in designing and constructing their turkeys, but it was even more fun and meaningful to see them truly reflecting on what they were thankful for.

Tracing and cutting out our hand turkeys!

Adam with his beautiful turkey! (Adam came straight from work in order to help us out as a greeter - he is such a blessing and a dear friend! Keep praying that God's truth takes root in his heart!)



All in all, Thanksgiving was a wonderful night! All the preparations went smoothly, and God's hand was definitely on it. In addition, we were able to welcome and feed about 90 students, who were blessed by the food and the stories shared by Simeon, Joelle, and Robyn! Thanks to all you were praying with us - we have so much to be thankful for!