A New Generation of Workers

Tonight we had Catherine over for supper. She's in her early 20s and has been in Paris this semester taking some French courses, as she's majoring in French at the University of Hawaii. She came to our church in September through the recommendation of Janet, a former language school classmate from Albertville (1988-89) who now works with YWAM in Hawaii. She's been faithfully coming to our church on Sundays and makes intentional efforts at speaking French. She's returning to the U.S. next week, so we were glad to have her over at least once now. She got along great with the kids. I wish that we had invited her over sooner.

I just read an e-mail from Ashley, a college sophomore at Michigan State University who is interested in studying French and doing ministry here in summer 2008. She got our names through her home church, which also happens to partner with us.

For the last several days, I've been following the news about the killings at the YWAM base in Arvada, Colorado and at New Life Church in Colorado Springs. While I've never been with YWAM, I love YWAMers whom I've come across during the last 20 years. In Paris, I've been privileged to cross paths with probably 100 different YWAMers over the years. In August, I went with my parents to the weekly Friday morning prayer meeting at New Life Church. We even walked in the lobby where the murderer was taken down by courageous volunteer security agent Jeanne Assam.

Anyway, it's sad to think of the snuffed out lives of YWAMers Tiffany Johnson (age 26) and Philip Crouse (age 24) in Arvada and sisters Stephanie Works (age 18) and Tiffany Works (age 16) in Colo Spgs. Stephanie had just returned from some mission work in China.

I do find it exciting to see a new generation of potential workers rising up. One of my favorite aspects of our work in Paris is getting to help and encourage different ones. One never knows how God will use these different ones. But that is up to Him.