Bonjour

We are here safe and sound and nestled into a cute little apartment in the 14th district. We have a computer but it has a French keyboard, so it is a pain to type on...good for French, not so much for English.
The flight went smoothly and weve kept busy meeting up for various meals with Michelles friends around the city. Saturday was our first encounter with folks from Trinity as they had coffee and pastries for their once a month get together at Genesis...their ministry base. Sunday was of course church in the evening...which felt familiar...as they meet in an old church that is shared by 2 other churches. There was the typical set up and tear down which going to Hope has more than prepared me for :). The service was done in both French and English so it was interesting to hear some familiar praise songs done in both languages and see the same worship happening for both. And the diversity of the body...countries all over the world represented...was awesome to experience. It looks like Im going to be playing with their worship team this week which Im quite excited about.
Sunday night after church a small team of us headed out to hand out bagged lunches to some of the homeless. A couple of them were real characters...couldnt understand what they were saying to other team members, but I'm realizing that there really is a good bit of conversation that is unspoken.
Yes...we are getting to sight see some as well...we spent a blustery 2 hrs at the Eiffel Tower yesterday. Very cool of course and got some great pictures of the city.
Today we're (MB just informed me of where the apostrophe was located on this keyboard) headed to the Crusade office for a day of whatever they need us to do...full day. Then this evening we'll be at the Price's for dinner...a former Nashville based family.
Sorry this is mostly informational, but I'm having to think about almost every word I type. Wanted to let everyone know all is well and we so appreciate your prayers. Love yall.

Renewal

I've been concerned lately b/c I've felt exhausted...pushed beyond myself with responsibilities continuing to fly my direction. I've been wondering how useful I'm really going to be in Paris when I don't have enough energy for myself let alone to pour out in service.
Last night, I had absolutely no energy and was ready to just crash into bed when God was impressing on me to finish up my daily reading plan in 1 Thess. 3. 1 Thess. hasn't really been clicking in with me...fine book, but I haven't been able to sink my teeth into it like other books. So I basically told God I trusted Him to give me something in 1 Thess. 3...b/c I'm running out of fumes to run on. I found myself drifting off to sleep asking "are you working on establishing my heart as blameless in holiness before the Father? would you root me back into the ground by your living water...bring me back to abiding in the vine?"
This morning I woke up with a little better night's sleep under my belt, but I also feel like a fog has lifted. As my alarm came alive this morning with music from a local Christian station, I felt excitement to hear praise music and a hunger for my time with the Father this morning...a realization that something was coming alive again.
And all I can do is trust that God will give me what I need for each day...b/c I can't produce this on my own.

Fumes and hearts

The best of intentions to get in here and post, and life just seems like it's coming at 150 mph right now as I'm living on fumes. Good thing about that I guess is that it's driving me to the cross like no body's business!

Despite the busy, I'm getting more excited about Paris. Please pray that God would continue to develop and grow my heart for this city. I feel like my time to think about it and prepare like I might want to is limited right now with so much going on at work and church.

He's been good to strengthen my friendship with Michelle most recently through teaming up to pull together our church's spring women's retreat on prayer. I'm excited to see how he is going to use us over there.

Hearts...pray for hearts...and Christ to invade hearts...all kinds of hearts...here...there...mine...yours...that's where the intimacy and the good stuff happens!

it does my heart good

Coming off a mission trip can be a weird experience. You spend a week serving closely alongside people and very focused on the Kingdom and doing things that would be considered overt ministry. Then you return and miss that experience and focus and closeness. You try and re-create the time you spent with your team, and while it can be close, it's not quite the same. You find yourself feeling out of place because you're on a spiritual high, so-to-speak, and the rest of the world is going along with life as usual. You don't feel like you fit in and you want to pull others alongside you to where you are. You fear getting back to life as usual...and then you do. The tasks and details of life come washing over you like the next wave and you start to swim in the ocean of normal life just like everyone else....getting pulled further and further away from the experience where it all starts to seem like a dream as you begin to swim into the current.
Yes, it's getting a little foggy now...I can look at pictures and smile or recall stories and experiences as that time becomes more of a memory. It does my heart good to recall and tell the stories of that week. To tell of God working through wood, strings, notes, paints, pencils and dance. What an amazing and creative God we serve.
Speaking of which, I wanted to share a bit from the creative arts academy.
3:30 pm...a bunch of excited elementary school kids come pouring into Hillside church to stretch and work out their creative muscles. The menu is a bit varied...dance, visual art, singing, playing instruments...enough to choose from where hopefully anyone can find an outlet for the week.
The setting for music...we're in the sanctuary at Hillside. Up front are 2 drum kits set up for 3 very eager players, and in the back are 3 guitarits, two bass players and 3 teachers crammed into a little room with only a thin "pull together, curtain-like partition" to block out the banging 3 aforementioned, eager drummers.
The song of the week is a new Chris Tomlin track called "Everlasting God"...so from vocals to strings, we're also hoping the kids are hearing the message of this song as they're learning how to play it. Like last year (and with any new guitar player), everyone had hurting fingers...but seriously, you go drive some metal wires into your fingers and tell me if you don't start hurting. It was interesting to see their intrigue with the callouses on our fingers as they wondered how long it would take to get them (a hard covering of skin on metal wires doesn't tend to hurt as much). All you can do is tell them to play through it (and actually press down harder to get the notes to sound!)...as you see the look in their eyes of "this is harder than I thought". Heh - how much is that our reaction to a lot of new things in life?
It's intriguing investing in kids...seeing them struggle with new things, but then flourish when they start to "get it". Seeing the light in their eyes as you encourage them and acknowledge their progress and even the smallest of accomplishments (ie-making a chord change on time). But also knowing that underneath the cheers you can provide, God is opening a door to their hearts if you're available and open to seeing it. The avenue to be able to talk to them about school, family or even a school dance...whatever may be on their heart. It makes it hard to leave after just a few days...you're just getting to the point where that's becoming more possible.
So after 4 hard days of learning 4 chords and how to transition between them (or at least coming close to it), we've got 3 guitar players and 2 bass players ready to strum/pluck out a song about our Everlasting God. Friday night is showtime where the full band comes together to show their stuff for their parents friends in a big concert. Everyone gets a chance to see what its like to play in a band by plugging in their guitar, bass and steping up to to a microphone.
It was amazing to see 12 kids play together on a rather challenging song after 4 days. They did such a wonderful job and we were so proud of them. You just knew God was singing and dancing over the praises that were being offered up to Him. And to see the smiles on their faces after seeing what they could do when they were challenged. All the kids that played, danced and showed off their art were so proud of what they did...and they had every right to be. When you start to believe in them, they start to believe in themselves too. Just imagine what they and any of us could do if we only realized and believed that about how God sees us and believes in us...His children.
...it does my heart good...and i am challenged to apply the lessons i learned as i swim though the normal current of life...

reflection

First off, I have posted the pictures I was able to snap in Ireland. It is the music perspective, and I wish I'd been able to catch more of us "in action", but obviously being "in action" doesn't lend itself to taking as many pictures. This will at least give you an overview and allow you to see some of the kids we impacted...and some of the amazing sights in Ireland. Just paste the link below in your browser:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lori.mccurry/IrelandFebruary07

We've been back in the states a little less than a week now, and I think jet lag is starting to wear off for most of the team. Our pastor really stressed before we left how he wanted the team to truly be in community so we could live it out while we were serving in Ireland. God must have really moved on that prayer b/c the team has been going through withdrawal of each other and serving and Ballymena this week in a big way. So much so, we're having a little marathon weekend of hang time. It has just been further confirmation of the special bond that comes from serving God together and how we'll all be able to share in that closeness with one another and Jesus when we get to heaven and are doing such things full time.

I have had a chance to start reflecting on the week and wanted to start sharing with yall. This trip has been my favorite to date. Having been before, some the acclamation time was taken away which allowed me to jump in full force faster. I didn't think much about it while I was there, but I'm thankful for it.
After leaving Nashville around 10:30 on Saturday morning, we started the week getting into Ballymena around 8am on Sunday morning and our accomodations at the Faith Mission center not being ready yet. In true Ireland fashion, flexible came into play and we were divided up into church members' homes to shower and get breakfast. The folks at Hillside are hospitality experts and opened their homes up readily.
We made it to church for the noon service at church where we fought off the sleep that was lurking from such a lack of it. Because we'd gotten in so close to church time, the Nashville praise band didn't come on until Sunday night when one of the girls from the church had her baptism service. It was an honor to be a part of that as Becky made her faith public and hopefully impacted her peers and other listeners with how God is working in her life and impacting her with His Word. And it was cool to see how God brought together our praise team even without having all the prep time we would have liked.
After the evening service was over, needless to say a Nashville team that had been up for around 36 hours or more was more than willing to hit the sack.
Our week consisted of visiting schools 3 of the mornings during the week (most kids around middle and high school age), the creative arts academy in the afternoon for primary kids and then working 1 on 1 with the newly formed youth band that plays at weekly outreach times for kids called "Kids zone".
Our time in the schools was generally a few classes that were around 45 minutes or so. We'd sing a couple praise songs and try and teach and get the students to join in (sometimes easier said than done). After that, a couple of us gave our testimony, and then as there was time we broke off into smaller discussion groups. I gave my testimony a couple times during the week, which focused heavily on the excerpt I included in an earlier post about the older brother and the prodigal son. I don't think it was coincidence that I spoke of how my good works were doing nothing to make me right in God's eyes but have been in the past more of a means of controlling Him. A big focus of our discussion time focused on grace vs. merit since many of the kids are in a culture that focuses on doing good as a means of getting into heaven. It impacted me so much as I admitted my older brother tendencies the first time I gave my testimony, that I broke down in front of a class full of kids. Not exactly what I would have planned, but if nothing else, I had their attention and hope God said what He needed to through me.
As we left our first school, Steve (our pastor) likened our experience to trying to take a teaspoon to moving a sandy beach. It's hard to establish any kind of connection in that short amount of time, so all you can do is hope God will use something you said to plant some seeds...which seemed to be an ongoing theme for the week...
The last school we visited was the flagship Catholic school of the area (most schools are either affliated with Protestant or Catholic). Generally, it's not as accepted for a more protestant group to come into a Catholic school, but because of Hillside's consistent work in schools throughout the year, we were accepted and quite welcomed. The teacher who was our liason with the school had such an amazing heart for ending the Catholic/Protestant fighting and just had a tender, Christ-like spirit about him. It was a pleasure to be around him...and he even played for us a song he had written in the 80's when tensions were high...so moving. I snappe his picture which you'll see in my photo album about 1/2 way through the pictures...salt and pepper hair and a beard.
Anyway...more to come in the next installment!

2:40 am

we are back in Nashville and safe and sound. after a traditional las palmas run with most of the team upon arrival in town, i'm in my condo alone and feeling the day's travel....8:40 is what my clock says, but not so much what my body's thinking...oh well, maybe i can find a nice bit of tea tomorrow and hope the caffiene will do its thing!
i'll elaborate more on the trip in the coming days, but for now, please know it was an incredible time. i already got an email from the girl in the youth band i spent the evenings with working on guitar. she said she played with more confidence this evening in kidzone since we worked together. i dont need to know all that God's going to do with the work we did and the seeds we sowed, but it is a pretty cool gift to hear first hand how God used us to make a difference.

to the go-ers if you get a chance to read this: it seems a bit weird to not be out with my teamates or hear them down the hallway, but i guess i'll be used to it in a couple days. a big thanks to all my commrades...sha co, big A, d mo, g-baby, m-dog, T, big poppa, cindy, haley and lauren (can't remember your name :) ?). take care friends...it was an honor and a blessing to serve and share life with you this past week. we need a tea party soon!

thanks again to every last one of you...God is on the move...

winding down

hey everyone -
it's been a great week here and we're getting ready to have a feast with some of the folks from Hillside. they're using the turkey fryer that Steve brought them and the house smells great.
we'll leave for the airport @ 6:30 am tomorrow morning, so there's some packing and cleaning to do later.
it really has been an awesome week and kids seem to have really responded. we were so proud of them last night when they played the song we taught them, showed off the art they did and performed the dance number they were taught. i loved experiencing this week and pray that God was able to work through all of us.
thanks for your prayers...i look forward to talking with yall!