crazy:life, sharing the gospel, and other stories...

Friends.

Life in Paris has been insane the past couple days. I am get excited even thinking about writing this post. Ahh!

Last I left you, James and I were couch surfing with Jessica, which was such an awesome experience. Well that next morning James and I had a really slow morning and then went into the centre of Paris (since La Defense is in Zone 3) around like 2, lol. We were going to go to the Catacombs with some girls from Montreal that we were surfing with, but turned out the catacombs were closed because someone had vandalized it. It was sad, but we'll be back in Paris.

So James and I left the Canadians, who decided to go to the Louvre gardens instead, and just got lost walking around the Denfert-Rochereau area, which was really beautiful. We spent a while looking for a boulangerie but stumbled upon worlds most awesome (altho expensive) vinyl store called Crazy Rock Circus. It was neat to know that middle-aged French men into good rock music look just the same as middle-aged rockstars everywhere; long hair in ponytail, jeans, quintessential button up...Lenin glasses (that are now reading glasses) and that "Yeah man they rock" way of talking...you know what I mean. :)

We left Crazy Rock Circus and finally found a bunch of boulangerie's where we got our pastries, and then left to go move from Jessica's apartment (we'd spent our max of three nights there) to Mario's apt. The move was easy because it was still in Courbevoie, just a mile away down the street.

Mario's place was awesome and in an Aparthotel just under the Grande Arche, a great accommodation.
But even better than that, was Mario.

Mario is in his late twenties and actually wasn't French, but was Italian from a small town just outside of Florence. He was going to school for cinema and additionally also worked for a small independent film company in Paris (how do we keep meeting flim people here?!?). However, Mario actually didn't like French people and was leaving to live in Valencia, Spain the very next day. We would only stay with him for a night.

Mario was really sweet and accommodating, but even more than that, he was a captivating conversationalist. Within ten minutes of us being there he was asking James about his Couch Surfing profile and what he meant when he wrote that "he lived for and loved Jesus".

For the next hour we got to share the gospel with Mario and talk about what it looked like for us to walk with God. Mario was raised Catholic, like a typical Italian, but in his twenties has since become skeptical and has converted to agnosticism, like a typical Italian. He believes in a great energy that interconnects everything... but not much more.

He asked us questions like "What do you mean you can talk to God without a priest? How do you talk to God?" and "Why do some people believe the Eucharist is the real body of Christ and others believe it's just bread? And if they can't agree on that why is anything else true and not just ritual?"

Because I grew up Catholic he also asked me what is was like to profess belief in something then completely change to something else, and how I dealt with knowing that I used to believe something different before.

It was a really engaging conversation. James shared stories and examples from the Bible and we both shared our hearts and painted him a picture of what our relationship with God looked like.

At the end of the conversation we had to go meet with another couchsurfer and bring him back to the apartment, but Mario thanked us sincerely for talking with him because he said there weren't a lot of people in Paris that he could talk to about religion (which breaks my heart.)
We thanked him for talking with us and for his honesty and good conversation. It ended simply, but I know the conversation's not truly over and that James and I are both committing to pray for him.

Please join us in prayer for Mario as well. He is searching and I am confident that those who seek truth will find it.

As a sweet side note: by the time James and I are in Barcelona, Mario will already be living in Valencia and he said he would love to join us in Barcelona and play with us while we are there (so Sarah, maybe you will meet him!). So pray that we can talk more when we meet again.

After meeting up with Robert from Prague we all went to the Eiffel Tower for a bit. Then Mario made us dinner at his aparthotel. Sleep came easy.

The next day....oh the next day...

The next day was day #24 of our travels, which if you know anything about me you know that this day was my day (cuz it's my favorite number). So James declared it would be a day of pattiseries and ice cream and tartes and cheese and pizza and all the good and lovely things that I love but my body decided it doesn't like to eat. And rose wine, my fav, and picnicking, my fav.

That day we were also unsure of where we were sleeping that night, since Mario could only host us for a night since he was moving to Valencia, so after posting on Emergency Couch Surfing, we decided to just sit somewhere pretty for a bit and then periodically check CS at an internet cafe. James declared that it would be "Homeless day" lol. If our lives were movies we would call this "foreshadowing" lol.

We couldn't think of any place prettier to picnic than the Champ de Mars, the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower, so luggage and everything in tow, we found ourselves a little piece of lawn and just sprawled out.

We started the day with our favorite pastries and a baguette and butter and jam that would fill us for lunch. A little after lunch we each had a Magnum bar, which I have craved since I left Asia, and America sadly is without, and finally around sunset, after napping and eating and reading and writing all day, we left to look for an Internet cafe.

Oddly enough we couldn't find an internet cafe anywhere, and the one's we found were closed already, so, frustrated and hungry, we decided to just go eat and figure it out later. We found this cute little Italian restaurant in the Dupleix area around Tour Eiffel that advertised PIZZA (which would of course be dinner on day #24) and ate the most amazing four cheese pizza ever, afterwards indulging in some really great tiramisu.

There was a hotel across the street from our restaurant that sold their WIFI for E6 a half hour, which was an outrageous price, but we didn't have another choice. Towards the end of dinner I made a joke that "if we didn't find housing tonight we could always just find the prettiest place in Paris and hang out there all night" but James' demeanor went serious after I said it and he challenged me to forget spending money on internet and to just do it.

And if you know me and challenges...

An hour later, rose wine and baguette in tow, we ended up on the same spot on the Champ de Mars as we had been in all day, except now fire twirling and breathing gypsies had joined us along with French young people and a couple American foreign exchange students.

We drank, we ate, we watched Jim Gaffigan...

The gypsies spent the night as well, after their fire show extravaganzas, and it was nice to not be the only ones alone on the lawn.

We put on layers of clothes and went to bed around 3am. I woke up at 5:30, having to go to the restroom. As I did so I could hardly believe what my eyes beheld: dewy grass...shift...starry sky...shift Tour Eiffel.
The bathroom was on the road on the other side so I had to walk through the park, under the Eiffel Tower, then along the Seine.
Poor me. Being homeless. :)

Yes, we are a bit crazy, but I'm so glad we did it. We went to a boulangerie for breakfast after walking to Trocadero to watch the sunrise over the Tour Eiffel. After breakfast we went to an internet cafe where we found out we still had no housing. I reposted and we decided today we would live in the Tuilleries, so off we went and after some time hanging out in the Tuilleries listening to music and reading, we went to Avenue de L'Opera where we found internet and a home...back at Jessica's!

It was so sweet to come back here and stay with friends and fellow couch surfers. We made an amazing Thai meal together that a fellow surfer from Indonesia cooked for us, and then gathered around to listen to James play. In the middle of his playing a streetperformer James and I recognized from Montemartre walked in, and we laughed about how random it all was that we had seen him on the street singing and how we were now couch surfing together. Life is just crazy like that.
They each played us some music, some originals, some covers, and after rounding out the night with the best tea and wine ever, we crashed.

Oh how I love my life.

Today I think we are going to the Louvre for free then exploring the Marche aux Puces (flea market) in Saint-Ouen. Then perhaps an organ recital at Notre Dame and then overnight train to Nice.

*sigh* really? :) yep.