Drifting Thoughts

Before I start on my massive load of backlogged posts, I wanted to just jot down some thoughts that I've been having lately.. in no particular order.

Weekends in France
Because I spent almost the entirety of September and October traveling on the weekends, I've technically only had two real weekends in Paris. Part of it was because I wanted to take advantage of the light courseload and the nice weather- part of it was because I wanted to leave Paris. After planning the rest of my semester out, I realized that I accidentally planned my travels so that I have a month-long gap in which I'm here in Paris for my weekends. I've currently passed 1/4 of those weekends, and while last weekend was fun because Paul was here and I had to catch up on some schoolwork, I was really afraid of the coming weekends, particularly because Jenn, Erica, and Garam are all leaving this weekend to travel. Even though I  have been opening up to Paris a lot more ever since my parents left, I wasn't sure if I was at that point where I could be comfortable spending a weekend here by myself. I was so nervous and desperate that I began searching for flights to literally anywhere.  I just wanted to get out this weekend, and almost booked a solo trip to Poland on a whim, but ended up deciding to stay. I realized that I have very few weekends left in this marvelous city, and that this would be a good chance to explore the city on my own and actually reach out to the friends that I've made here this semester. Chris is visiting next weekend, and Sharon is coming the week after, so technically this may be the only weekend that I have here by myself. I realized that that too, is a gift, so I hope that I can enjoy it to the fullest.

Worlds Colliding
Speaking of Chris, my home friends Lois and Chris got to meet with Steve, Paul, and Patrick in London yesterday. Lois has known Steve for a bit, and definitely liked him, but it was the first time that my home friends and school friends were hanging out without me. I was definitely envious, as I miss them all terribly, but I was also very excited for them. Turns out that they all had a really great time together, and it felt so wonderful getting back such positive feedback from both parties. I'm so happy that Lois and Chris not only approve of Steve, but that they actually genuinely like him as a person and us as a couple. The opinions of all my friends are important to me, but to hear such encouragement from those that are dearest to me really put a warm feeling in my hear. Especially after some weird encounters with my home/college friends earlier during my sophomore year, this meant a lot to me. I hope that we will all continue to hang out together and grow even closer to each other in the near and far future.

Church
Because I've been traveling, I've only had the opportunity to go to church one weekend this semester, and that was back when I first arrived. I finally had the chance to go back to Hillsong Paris this weekend, and I am so happy that I did. Although the worship is in French, the sermon is giving by pastors from Hillsong London, who genuinely love and believe in the French people and the ministry as a whole. In a country that is as secular as France, religion isn't very highly regarded, so coming into this closed space and seeing so many Frenchmen and fellow outsiders praise and worship so freely was the biggest encouragement. This is kind of embarrassing, but the tears just kept flowing from my eyes at times. It's amazing to know that wherever we are in the world, that wherever we are in our lives at any given moment, we are praising the same God.