France Trip: Day Two / Arriving at Poitiers

Like I said in the previous entry, we arrived in Paris on Sunday (September 21) about 6:30 am Paris time. We got through customs and security in about an hour. Paul Keidel was scheduled to meet us and pick us up. He had the wrong information so he was late and he also went to the wrong terminal. So we turned the tables on him. Instead of him greeting us with a sign, we made a sign and greeted him. I think he was somewhat amused when he arrived around 9:00 am. I had called his cell phone 3 times earlier and also got a hold of his wife so that made our eventual meeting possible.


We left the airport and headed to his home in a suburb of Paris. We saw some incredible buildings as he pointed out where the people of royalty used to live. We stopped for a couple of minutes to take some pictures.

We then went to his home, got cleaned up, had a wonderful lunch, and then drove about four hours to the city of Poitiers. I tried to stay awake but my attempt was in vain. I and the other guys slept most of the way there.

We arrived at the church about 30 minutes before 5 pm when their church service started. They had scheduled their service to be in the evening that week especially for us. We met the pastor, Norbert, his wife Lucy, their two kids, and some other folks who were getting ready for the service. We were able to scope out the work at hand.

The service was great. The other guys sat in the back while I sat with Paul in the front. He gave me the play by play so I could know what was going on. The music was good. The people sang with great energy. Some of the songs I even recognized.

I had the opportunity to share a message with the people. Paul translated. My message was about being on God's team and about teamwork. I didn't realize then how appropriate that message was going to be.



After church, we shared a meal with the folks. Their church is very diverse, people from many different backgrounds. Norbert is actually Swiss and Lucy is Peruvian. There was a woman from Columbia there. There were two female university students who were Dutch. One white Frenchman was married to a woman of African descent. Another guy, John Noel, with whom we developed a great friendship, was born in the Congo. There was also a Japanese woman and her daughter there. The diversity was beautiful to see. We had many unique foods there, some I had a hard time getting down, but I did not want to offend the people.

After dinner, we all went to Norbert's home, relaxed a bit, and then went to bed to get ready for our first day of work.