Youth Convention ’23

I’m sitting down to write this on Friday night, while I wait for traffic to die down heading out of Angers.

This morning, there must’ve been an accident on the highway into the city. The traffic was backed up on the regional road, about 2.5km before I even arrived at the highway. Thinking I’d be clever, I quickly veered off and took a “short-cut” through the vineyards and into one of the neighbouring villages, figuring I’d come into Angers ‘the back way.’

No luck. Not only did some others have the same idea, but that road tends to be busy at the best of times during peak traffic hours. In the end, I was about an extra 35mins getting to the school.

After 7 contact hours with students, the last thing I want to do is jump right back into the heavy, supper-hour traffic. Sitting in the school library (empty of students who’ve returned home for the weekend), ‘talking to you’ is way better than playing start-stop-leapfrog in traffic. I’ll let things cool down & head back a little later.

Convention de Jeunes

This time last week, we were having church prayer via Zoom & then finalizing preparations to head up to Melun for youth convention. We drove up first thing Saturday morning in time for the 1:30pm start.

The guest speaker this year was Evangelist Justin Henry, out of Odessa Texas. He hit me / us between the eyes a number of times, but personally I’d say that his first message was the first big blow: The Story We Tell Ourselves. (When it gets published to YouTube, I’ll include the link because it’s well worth the listen.)

In a nutshell, he talks about the inner dialogue we maintain with ourselves, which can be based on feelings, on circumstances, on others’ feedback… but not always on the truth of God’s word. Ultimately, the danger is that we can tell and re-tell ourselves THAT (imperfect) story more frequently than we remind ourselves of what God has to say about us and his will that’s being worked out in our life. … and, whatever we tell ourselves the most, winds up being what we believe.

Ouch! … right between the eyes. I told you!

He preached two other messages that were preceded, each time, by a short message by young people from the French church. Between that and the incredibly anointed music… wow… powerful services that did the heart (and the spirit) GOOD!

Of course it’s also a time to connect with a few good people! I find that as time goes on, I’m a little less comfortable in crowds of people. Not that I go into panic mode or anything, but I’d rather connect with a couple of folks more deeply, than glad-hand my way through the crowd and make the same small talk over and over.

Time to Head Home

After the services on Sunday, we spent a little bit of time together with the group from Bordeaux and Troyes at McDonalds. Just a nice time to relax and chill over some hich-class, one-of-a-kind French cuisine!

We’re thankful for what God is doing among our incredible young people… both locally and in France more widely. God is raising up a wonderful generation anxious to see His Kingdom come!

The future is looking as promising as the sky did on our way home.