International Treasure Hunt: Europe Phase
The first 3 months of our International Treasure Hunt consisted of time in Italy, Greece, and France! Some of the stops on the journey were planned in advance partnered with organizations such as BELL Beyond or YWAM France, while others were spontaneously found along the way! But throughout the whole journey, the greatest treasure of all was going on the journey together with Jesus!
Diversity of World-Changers
Upon my initial arrival in Italy, I was met with nearly 100 other people from all around the world who were joining BELL Beyond to do English teaching for the summer! Some of them knew the Lord and others didn’t, so it was a really powerful secular environment to train together and hear from people of different walks of life!! My room during the training week included the 3 legends pictured here, Tomas from Ireland, Thabo from South Africa, and Arthur from Iran! Truly we were the Diversity Room as we each represented an entirely different continent! Even beyond that initial Cesenatico training session, my entire time in Europe I met people from all over the world, including folks from Canada, Nigeria, Senegal, Benin, Germany, Reunion Island, and many more!!
Childlike Faith Rising
As I was blessed to teach English in Cassano d’Adda at the English camps, it was so encouraging to see the excitement and joy of the Italian children on a daily basis!!! Through the games and lessons we did, my childlike faith was also reignited, and there were even some moments during teaching that I was able to share a bit about my faith as well!! I also got to live with an amazing host family in Cassano d’Adda where the father Mario gave me an opportunity to play ukulele with him at a local concert!! Plus we also shared many amazing meals, went swimming at the pool, and more! There’s nothing quite like discovering new things in a new culture for the first time, and watching my childlike side resurface here was truly more powerful than words can say!
Powerful Divine Appointments
During my time in Cassano d’Adda, my host family gave me a bike to ride around the city, and so one weekend, I was just riding around the little town and somehow pulled up on this amazing church called Missione Grande that was doing music & flag worship in a tent on the street!! As I approached them, I met this guy named Pedro who invited me to the church that following Sunday, and here in the picture you can see how I was so warmly welcomed into this community! All of this happened though, only because I met a church worshipping on the side of the road!! Many moments of this nature happened throughout my time in Europe, and it was always so powerful how God would bring the right people into my path at the exact right moments, such as this girl named Kim that I met while staying at an airbnb in Greece who was able to encourage me in one of my lowest points, or this one man who helped me make a tight 7 minute train connection on my first day in Italy when I had no idea how to navigate a train station!! And then when I miraculously made the train connection, I met a Ukrainian refugee on that train and worshipped with her! Crazy stuff, and God is in the business of making it happen!
Years of Prayer Answered
Easily the most profound of all the divine appointments that happened in the Europe Phase was meeting this guy, my Fulani Muslim friend Abdoulie!! God first put the Fulani Muslims on my heart back in 2017, and I started talking to Abdoulie online because he sent me a random instagram message in 2019, and then for the 4 years after that, I constantly prayed for him and hoped that we would be able to meet and that he would come to know Jesus some day. Abdoulie comes from a very poor Fulani family that lives in the Gambia in West Africa, so I thought I would have to go there one day to visit him, but in a complete crazy twist of fate, Abdoulie decided to take a crazy immigration journey to Italy in the same summer that I was going there, and so our paths were finally able to align after all that time!! I was able to get him his first train ride, his first pizza, his first Bible, a journal, and we even wrote a song together!! It was so powerful to be able to finally meet this man I had been praying for over all this time, and though he still is a Muslim, the fact that God had us meet in person in ITALY of all places, even against all the odds after ALL THOSE YEARS of prayer, gives me confidence He can also show Abdoulie the beauty of knowing Jesus as Lord and Creator King!!
J’ai Besoin de Toi
Though my time in Europe was filled with many iconic God encounters, it was also filled with moments of deep weakness where I needed to cry out to God and was humbled as I realized just how difficult it is to do ministry without the body of Christ working alongside you. This picture comes from Rome, when I sat at the front of a Catholic chapel on my knees and these words rushed in my mind; “J’ai Besoin de Toi”. This phrase is French for “I need you”, and in that moment, that was my prayer to God; I NEEDED HIM. And then as I went to Corinth, Greece the following 2 weeks alone, that’s where I realized the need didn’t just apply to God, but it also applied to needing support from the body. We NEED God, and we NEED each other. Luckily, by the end of my time in Greece, God met me powerfully and I even ended up recording 10 songs while I was out there, and they all came from the place of me needing Him, but Him coming through. You can check out the song here! J’ai Besoin de Toi
French World on Fire
Once I landed in France, it was absolutely powerful being able to partner with the moves of God happening in this nation!! At Paris Je T’aime, we would go out and do worship at famous Paris landmarks each day, and it would truly shift the atmosphere! The people who came to Paris were from so many different places, yet we had a unified vision of seeing the French World experience Christ!! And that expanded to my trips to YWAM Marseille & YWAM Bridges of Life as well! In fact, at YWAM Bridges of Life I even got to serve at the national YWAM France gathering, where missionaries from every YWAM base across the nation came together to pray for the nation and to get unified vision of how to continue to bring the kingdom to the French!! Truly my heart was moved so deeply for the French speaking people in this time, and I hope one day to be able to be part of the movements happening here in a greater capacity!!
The Kingdom Can Come Anywhere
Even with all the big crazy places I went in Paris and the giant worship moments I was a part of with YWAM Paris Connect, perhaps my greatest encounter in my entire time in France happened at the end of the nights, on my way home from the worship, I would always stop at this local shop next door where a cashier from India named Karim would always chat with me as I would buy a can of pineapple juice to end the day. Each day after finishing the big worship events, I would tell Karim a bit about what we did, and eventually, he had a day off work on a Sunday and we were able to explore the city together!! I even got to take this guy I met at the local shop to an amazing French church with my friends Elodie & Agathe who I met at the Paris Je T’aime event, and it was his first time going to church in his entire life!! After that, we went to the mall with a bunch of their friends as you can see pictured here, and then we even did some worship in the mall parking lot!! This story is one of my all time favorites from the Europe Phase because a simple friendship with a local shopkeeper quickly became an incredible day of kingdom come when we were able to explore the city together and go to the French church & the mall with this great community!! Truly it was marvelous in every way!!
Europe Phase Newsletter Archive
In the International Treasure Hunt newsletter series, there were 9 updates that span from right before I left for Europe and extend to my time back in the USA processing it all before launching to New Zealand. You can check out all these updates at the links below!
Newsletters and Links
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