This is Benjamin with a messianic Jewish man (not the week's speaker, but another guy. He came for one night and showed us Jesus in the passover seder meal traditional for Jews.
So- I don't know if I could adequately describe all the things that have gone on this week. It started with a Mon like most weeks, and our new teacher was a South African white guy, quite old and peculiar looking. He was really nice and you could tell from the way he spoke in all present tense that he was not from Scotland like my American ears thought. I have never heard a S.A accent up close and personal, it really sounds like parts of it had that furry "r" like people from Scotland and then he would speak in improper tenses, which made the translator sometimes have no clue what to say in return b.c he didn't know where he was going with the sentence. With my limited French, he did quite good. Our translator this week had been trained-in (like bussed in, but on a train,, I though I would make it a verb, hmm doesn't really work does it?) and he is an age-less 20-something year old young man. Ageless b.c he could be anywhere from the age of 19-29. Couldn't really tell. He is an Englishman from Birmingham, but has lived in France nearly all of his 23 years. So, as he got to know the school in which he was translating for the South-African, he was obviously very excited about what he was saying. The words that were coming out of the older man's mouth, and then his own were obviously having an effect on him. You see, in YWAM (Youth With A Mission) if the school needs a translator, it is up to the school's leaders to find one. We have Ruth and Mark and they have been looking for translators to cover the 12 weeks of school for this DTS for quite a few months. It was not until a coupla weeks ago that Benjamin (the translator) had been sent an email and he'd responded with a "yes", not really knowing what he was getting himself into. He actually had never really heard about YWAM before, but a friend of a friend of a friend had known of his translating ability, so here he is. It was cool to sit in the back of the classroom and see him talk, the words of the older man going thru his mouth and then you could see the delayed reaction of his mind realizing the gravity of which the man had spoke and what he actually was saying. The topic for this week was "Intimacy with God", and the teacher is a man that walks around the city of Marseille with a large walking stick, no- a staff, in which he prays for the nation, talks to God, has communion with the God of the Universe. One could just imagine how odd that might look, but one could also surmise that this man has a deep relationship with God, and that is something to be envied. Luckily for us, we all have that opportunity, and we are not all called to walking around like a shepherd in a city with no sheep. I thought it quite ,, interesting, as I has, previous to meeting him that Sun night, had a vivid dream about shepherds. Yes, you heard me, shepherds. Complete with sheep and staffs and all that jazz. The sheep pen, herding dogs. Funny, when I came in the classroom that Monday and realized that my dream was setting me up for the teaching that week. I had woken up that morning and researched in the Bible all the times that Jesus referred to us as sheep and to Him the Good Shepherd, and it was so cool to see that I was right in line with the teaching for the week. I even used some of those analogies when talking with some of the students.. SO it has been good. A big surprise came to us in the form of Benjamin, the translator, wanting to stay on with YWAM. He was so deeply touched by the teaching that he wanted to do a DTS! So, with a few days of quick prayer and very little planning, the other staff, and Nolan and I got together to pray for the possibility that Ben could stay and take the school. It was a strong feeling that he should with no "no" felt or heard, we told him to pray about it. After 24 hours of wrestling with the idea, he decided to stay! It was really cool to see the whole thing happen as only God could have sent someone at the very last minute possible for him to be able to still enroll and also some people from his church heard of his plight and gave him some starting money. I couldn't believe it and everyone else was shocked but also very blessed as well. Ruth had been told that we would have 12 (between the staff and students) and with the addition of Benjamin, we are 12. It is so cool how creative and crazy good God really is. Amen.
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