Adventures in France: Le Pire Film

Day Sixty-Seven

Today I wanted to try a French church service so I went to the 0930 service at the eglise évangelique de pentecôte--lyon. It was two-hours long and quite different from what I'm used to--definitely not what I was expecting of a church in France. The first hour was essentially a time of praise music and people praying out loud for everyone to hear--you definitely don't see that too much around here. The second hour was the sermon and sadly, I only understood about 50% of it. But it was a great experience. It was JAM PACKED in there. Afterwards, I came back to the apartment for lunch and met my "host-grandparents" and they were very sweet. Apparently, my host parent's brother lived in Seoul, South Korea for 3 years so they were talking to me about kimchi and seaweed, haha. It took me a while to understand what my host grandmother was trying to say when she said "chou" and it took about 5 minutes because no one knew the English translation haha.

Then I ventured out to the northern part of the city to find the Hillsong Lyon church. I took a wrong turn and the only way to make up for it and be on time was to go up a stairway to heaven lol. But totally worth it! It's a small group because they're just now starting up but seriously, I couldn't have felt more at home there. I really wish I had discovered this place when I first arrived in Feburary. Everyone was so nice and hospitable. The music was amazing--most of the same songs that I've actually been listening to on youtube for French Hillsong!!! Very cool and ironic haha. The sermon was so powerful. The pastor was visiting from Hillsong Paris and honestly, one of the most convicting pastors I've ever heard--and it was in French. Everything was translated into English/French and the translator for the pastor was impressive! She spoke with the same passion as the pastor and literally would say the translation right after he spoke a few sentences. What an amazing talent! But yeah, I could've listened to him for hours. Afterwards, I met newlyweds where the girl is just finishing her senior year at the University of Washington and she has a French husband! They help lead one of the Bible studies during the week and they were so sweet. Like I said, mannn I wish I had found out about this church earlier! But what can you do. We exchanged numbers so I'll hopefully have the chance to try a Bible study (they're once every 2 weeks). But yeah, I'm glad I was able to open my horizons on discovering Christianity here in France. I had so many misconceptions but the Spirit is absolutely working in this country.

Coming back from church, I had to run back to Place Bellecour to meet Josephine (girl from class) for dinner and then the movies. Being short on time, I thought I could rely on my own sense of direction (thinking I was going in the right direction)...of course when I ended up at the river to help guide myself, I had completely gone in the OPPOSITE direction. Seriously, just my luck. It's fate that just when I thought I had a nack for finding my way around, I lose it. So I asked someone on the road how to get to where I wanted to go and he said about 1-2 km along the river in the opposite direction...with 10 minutes to go. Sooo, I ran like a crazy person and ended up getting there before she did--sweating a storm, of course. Haha but still it was a great time. We had pasta and wine at Pizza Pino then met up with Jihui from class and watched A La Merveille. A serious contendor for worst movie ever. No joke. There was no plot and there were several times I was about to just leave because it was a waste of time. And this was after a friend highly recommend I saw it--so of course I made a date of it with some other friends. lol, oops. Even more dissapointing is that Rachel McAdams and Ben Affleck are in it! So of course I thought that validated her recommendation. Nope. Haha oh well

eglise évangelique de pentecôte--lyon. I wanted to take a picture inside but it was so crowded, I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable taking a picture of them lol