Paris - Day 1

We arrived safely and with about 1 hour of sleep, we stayed up for about 33 hours successfully by taking a whirl wind tour of Paris. We saw Notre Dame, the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore, Champs Elysee, Eiffel Tower, and Arc du Triumph, Genesis and Trinity - our partner church. We must have walked miles in order to see it all and most of us were able to sleep pretty well that first night. Kristen, the intern from Genesis, helped us get from the airport to Genesis with 9 bags, 4 backpacks and a lap top case through what felt like miles of train tunnels. She helped us find our way around Paris as well. Thanks, Kristen. The Clasons are hosting all six of us graciously and comfortably.

Paris - Day 2
Since the Clasons live so close to Versaille, we decided to spend the day at the chateau. We witnessed the excess and opulence of 17th and 18th century royalty - that being the chateau of Versailles and a beautiful little town to go with it. After blocks of restaurant hunting, an French gentleman offered us an English menu to his restaurant and there we ate serenaded by guitar and violin. We've gotten to know each other better and we are rested and ready to get to work.

Paris - Day 3
Tomorrow we leave early in the morning to take a couple of trains to the bus that will take us to the retreat in Normandy where we will engage in children's ministry for the weekend. Al Clason said that about 60 percent of the church will be attending the retreat. Praise God! We appreciate your prayers for safety and a successful retreat.

Une maison de prière pour toutes les nations

A house of prayer for all nations...Mark 11:17

This postcard is part of a task we have been given while in Toulouse. We will be distributing part of the 2500 cards to homes in the Toulouse area. This card has the name and address of the church (epi-prier.org) in Toulouse on the front. On the back is an invitation to anyone needing prayer. That they simply write their request and mail the card to the church, which it will then be prayed over.

Please pray that these cards might reach to those desperately in need of prayer, but who don't know to Whom to turn.

Team Photo

This is our motley crew.

From left: Matt Enwald, Sarah Enwald, Taylor Zorn, Shannon Zorn, Michele Miller, Michele Hoffmann.

Very little time remains but so much packing still to be done!

We have been getting last minute requests for items from the teams in France all week.

Pray that we can get everything into our luggage!

The countdown has begun

We leave in 8 days.

8 short days of final preparations after months of praying, planning, and panicking (just a little).

8 days until we board a plane headed to France.

8 days until some of the members of our team set foot in Europe for the first time.

8 days until they get to practice some of their French.

The aforementioned "we" is a team of 6 people from Alliance Bible Church in Mequon, WI planning our short term trip to France. We are going to serve with the international workers at some of our partner churches, specifically with Trinity International in Paris and EPI in Toulouse.

One of the aspects of the partnership is to assist our partner churches through prayer, financial support and through physical support. That's where our team comes in. We have been asked to serve by running the children's ministry portion of Trinity's church retreat in Tailleville, France. This will be a wonderful opportunity to meet the members of Trinity as well as to minister to them. Many might wonder why would Trinity need a team from the US to come and run the children's portion of the retreat? Don't they have their own people to take care of the youth?

That's exactly the issue, the members of Trinity who do the youth programs don't get an opportunity to participate in the retreats, they don't get a chance to be refreshed by the Word of God and through fellowship with other church members. We can provide a simple yet important ministry by helping with this need.

Another aspect of our trip is serving in Toulouse. Among other things we will be doing are distributing prayer request postcards for the church, going on prayer walks, and possibly conducting some English classes.

How can you pray?

• Pray for safe travels for the team
• Pray for a successful and reviving retreat for members of Trinity International
• Pray for the church, EPI, in Toulouse - that the prayer request cards might open a door into that community
• Pray that we as a team would be able to minister to our partner churches in whatever way they need, in whichever direction God leads

We will try to update as much as possible, hopefully with pictures.