“The Christian life is what you do when you realize you can do nothing.” ~Dallas Willard (from a 2008 SAU Residency class)
Over the course of a few months we went through the process of joining up with Global Outreach Mission to be our sending agency to go to France. This process consisted of testing, interviews and many conversations to see if Global would be a good fit for us and the ministry God is calling us to.
Ok, so just to be clear, the entire time we were in Alsace was great. Saying this is the "fun" parts doesn't mean the other parts weren't fun, just that this is more about the sight-seeing we did as we explored this beautiful region. We met some awesome people and had great conversations during our visit, but we also were able to explore the beautiful landscape of Alsace.
So some of the fun stuff we did:
The trip from Paris to Alsace was only a couple hours as we sped through the French countryside. As much fun as we had in Paris, and as many sights as we were able to see, we were very ready to get to Alsace.
No good vision trip would be complete without God showing up somewhere unexpectedly. This trip was no exception.
Not long after God said to start thinking concretely about going to France, we decided that we really should take the kids to France soon. We knew that they really should get a chance to experience traveling internationally, flying in an airplane and visiting a country where they didn't know the language to see how they would handle those new challenges.
Short answer: they did great! They handled all the new situations and challenges wonderfully, and it didn't phase them at all!