Well, we've done quite a bit of touring around these past couple days. I need to get back in the swing of bloggin'.

Sunday was a rainy day to start off but it ended bright and shiny with lots of "yellow"!! Yeah, we couldn't resist the crazed 'foule' that pressed all the barricades along the Champs d'Elysees, so we joined them. Michelle, Christina and I pressed in with a wild and diverse crowd of Tour gawlkers. Hours upon hours of standing just to see him speed by in his bright yellow jersey- Lance Armstrong! We came within a couple meters of him and watched him pull out the last 10 laps of the sprints. Among the gawlkers we discovered standing near us "Rowdy Rowdy Piper"- arms as thick as trees, gazing upon the crowd and racers from his perch on the Champs. ....Lance won for the 5th time in a row.

I've taken time to see a few sights before I launch back into school. Christina and I visited the chic department store La Samaritaine and enjoyed sandwiches and juice from the upper terrace. What an incredible view!

I hit the books on Friday at 8:30am. I am reverted to the morning schedule but I think it will work out just fine. I have morning classes and then a few seminars 3 days a week. It will be nice to be in a bigger campus setting. I hope to glean from the French culture in a new way these next few months. I also hope to get to know a bit more this grand city in which I find myself.

We're saying good bye to Sophie who has a teaching post in Austrailia. I'm sad that she is leaving; I wish I could have spent more time with her. Her flight is Monday.

"its raining, its pouring, the old man is snoring..." Some days are grey and so is the case today. We feel lazy and have been hanging around. I did get my email inbox cleaned up a bit. Now I can write another newsletter and get blasted again. So to top off the day, we're taking Christina into Paris to see the Champs d'Elysées at night. I'll take my camera and finish the roll that I started the other day.

I have decided though, that I can't keep shooting film. This must come to an end! I can't afford it. So I'll be looking for a digital camera that will be more useful here on the ministry field.

Tomorrow the chasers of Lance Armstrong will cross the finish line in Paris and I plan to be there. A friend predicts that Lance has already won and followed his comments with "vive les US!"

I did get enrolled to start my next leg of language studies. From August 1 til December, I'll be studying at the Friends of the Sorbonne.

Amazingly I'm back at bloggin'. The OIKOS team has survived another summer of evangelism, the joy and tears of hard work, and, for me, what it is like to slip back into life in France. I watched a terrific team of new friends leave on airplanes from Charles de Gaulle, but I was left here in Paris to begin another chapter of life here. Instead of going "home" to rest or return to school or work- I'm here. Shopping again for bagettes, creatively slapping together my best salsa, and considering the fall.

To be honest, the outreach was very tiring and I've decided to stay in hot Paris for the month of August. Today I go to enroll at an affiliate school to the Sorbonne to begin my studies again on the 1st. This means I will be back in school, but like I have never been in my entire life. The Sorbonne is huge. It is ancient and renown and I am a pitily american trying to learn the language they will teach in. I am so glad that I am not to be enrolled in Paris IV, but that I will occasionally receive the lectures of those profs. My courses will be advanced language learning, phonetics- lab and all, and culture and civilization lectures. August will be my running start for September. It all starts on the 11th and will culminate mid-December with exams.

So I'm going to get to experience August in Paris- and I'm grateful that today and the next couple days are cooling down. There are places to explore, classes every morning and La Rentrée to experience. I have also enlisted myself in an exercise discipline. We can pray that I will be faithful to my commitments and that I will physically benefit from the blood-pumping. Yippee!! I certainly would love to find a program a little more interesting than a morning jog, though.

So I survived my second Bastille Day in the heart of Paris. 2000 was pretty spectacular. We were seated in the front row, if there is such a thing: right up under the Eiffel Tower and just before the bridge over the Seine. We were sprinkled with the cinders of the artificial fire accompanied by a very powerful sound system that stretched the entire length of the Champs de Mars.

This year, 2003, we were again joined by the masses to view the light and smoke display. My perspective was a little different, though. I sat nearly at the end of the Champs, out of earshot of the powerful speakers and my view was blocked by that large pointy monument known as the Eiffel Tower. The show took on a new nuance as the Tower lights were exstinguished and the smoke and lights backlit the scene. They used similar plumes of sparkes as in 2000 and even the same twirly white ones that I had so admired. Our little clan was fortuante enough to take the 3rd to the last train home from the city, while our other half was separated and took the scenic route home..., at 8am. In some ways I'm jealous of the grassy sleep-over they had and the moonrise silhouetted Tower they witnessed.

I am reminded so easily how pitiful man is. Tonight, the 15th of July, God had another light show scheduled. The french are amazing architechs, and serious pyros when it comes to their independence day. But their show only reaches so far into the heavens and their fire leaves smoke, and their sound system sounds like the cheap paper speakers that get blown on the first trip out in comparison to the light show God put on tonight.

Tonight I witnessed, for free, from my own house, viewed from any window or perch with a view of the sky, the spectacular power of a living God. I started into the dishes and a few flashes of lightning lit up the clouding sky. The wind had picked up and the humidity and heat that still clings to the cobble and pavement collided with fantastic bass and frantic white light, fingering out across the sky- 20 times the size of anything we saw at the Tower. It started slow and began to gain momentum. I dropped the dishes and ran for the windows and threw them open to have a clearer view. The storm moved around the house so I went outside and joined 10 more worshipers of our amazing God and his fire show.

I can't help but wonder if one person in Chelles asked God for a sign, or if God was just putting on the show to put us Bastille celebraters in our place, or perhaps he was throwing a rave party for the angels. One can't say; but I know this- That a sky that is lit by fire that cannot be tracked, anticipated, or predicted; accompanied by bass and percussion like no other; and can be explained through scientific means, really is authored by something much much greater than any human ever has or will be. This is my God: awesome, powerful, renown, merciful, and patient.

We stayed out until the rain began to push us in, but I recovered a perch in my kitchen widows. I had a wide angle lens view of a diving lightning bolt that split at the tail and forked into the black sky. Over and over again, but never once the same. Clouds splintered one piercing beam making the lightning remind me of fishbones. Never in my life have I been so in awe of nature powered by my God.

I came to France with anticipation of seeing these lightning storms, but never have I seen one so powerful, expansive and magnificent as was tonight. I'll quote Roy on this one, "I wish my eyes had a record button."

After more than a week of long, hot draining days, the main thrust of our evangelistic outreach is coming to a close. 10 Korean Americans joined the 4 of us OIKOS girls, Jonathan and Karen (and Sammy), a crew from the church at Claye and Lagny, and a clan of Alsacans who love Jesus and play all kinds of brass instruments. We sang love songs to our Savior, talked about our God, and prayed to Him for the select lives that we would meet in the town of Chelles.

46,000 people later, we gleaned an astounding 60 interested souls, listened to Soul music, Gospel music and shared our lunch with neighborhood kids playing in the park. We trudged from door to door in 90 degree weather, trusting the Lord to direct our steps and our tongues. I admit that I have never felt so wonderfully tired in all my life.

Everyone made amazing efforts to keep the team moving forward. We were a generally calm team with few bumps in the road except that we were forced to give up one super team member, Audrey, on Thursday. She finished strong in prayer and in ministering to her hospital roommate. (It is now official that the OIKOS apartment stairs are quite dangerous and all persons must now used the handrail without fail.)

Pictures and video are available for viewing at Michelle's blogspot and at the LA Hanmi website. You can also meet the Korean team here and see stills of people that I know like Evrard and Swanson and the Hodapp family. Enjoy!

We are swinging full speed into our mission in the city of Chelles. We have a team of about 25 people, from France and the States. Tomorrow is the big day when we walk all over the town putting invitations in mailboxes. It is a crazy day and we all get very tired, sore feet.

My responsibilities are for the worship time each morning. So far we are getting in the groove and teaching a few of the main songs in french and english. Our american team is doing wonderfully as they learn to twist their tongues around the new words and sounds. This whole project of leading my team in songs to the Lord is a curious one: I am doing my best to go ahead and struggle- grow and not be perfect. I'm also challenged by coordinating a large populous of talented musicians with differing styles. I keep reminding myself that it will all work out, not to get frustrated.

Well I finally got some pictures up in a new album.

We are full speed into a 10 day mission. I hope to keep updating my thoughts. So far, I'm stoked to be meeting 10 Korean Americans from LA. They bring honest positive attitudes and fresh reminders of why I'm here for a longer time. They have reminded me of the differences and the reasons why I am struggling with certain cultural differences for the moment. I pray that I can reestablish my heart attitude and enjoy the change of pace, even though it is faster than normal.