Community of Peace

It was the last day.  We were exhausted.  After a short break from knocking on doors at a corner café, our group split in two.  Three guys were going to hang out at another bar/café where we'd met some people the day before; Jordan, me, and another guy were going to knock on some more doors then head to a local park.

It took everything in me to walk the few blocks.  With a bowl full of chocolates, we turned the corner into an alley of apartments unlike the high-rises where we'd spent our previous days knocking.

A group of people sat on their porches chatting and stopped upon our approach.  "We have some chocolates, if you'd like," we began.  "We're also here to pray for the community."  They hesitated and declined the chocolates; just as we thought this was not going to be a place for spiritual conversations, a man pulled up a chair and welcomed us to join them for a drink.  We gladly accepted.

Similar to this photo, the apartments were originally built for
miners and their families.  With doors facing one another, with
no place for cars to drive, it truly creates a communal
atmosphere unlike anything we'd ever seen before.

With 18 occupied homes in this little alley, neighbors know each other by name, parents leave their small children outside to play, dogs seem to have no particular owner, and conversations and drinks flow freely.  We estimate that there were probably 15 people in and out as we sat in the midst of this community for nearly 3 hours with invitations to return.

God opened the door for us to share openly - both as a group and with individuals.  When the "gate keeper" of the community, M, learned that Jordan played guitar, he handed him his acoustic.  Jordan played songs of praise in English and in French for several hours, often explaining the meaning of the songs, while another joined in with a cajon drum.  During our time with this community, I explicitly shared the Gospel with a man from Morocco; I explained to another man that no, each person is not their own god; we shared our desire to communicate with the people of France that there is a God who loves them, despite our brokenness; our friend had the opportunity to toss a frisbee and exchange phone numbers with a teenager who said he believed in God but had never gone to church (the teen had already contacted our friend by the time we were eating dinner that same evening); another friend played drums with a talented musician in the community; still another set a date to bring pizza to the group and discuss the Bible.  

It was amazing.  We were looking for People of Peace and we found a Community of Peace.  Praise God!






This story is part of a series of posts describing our time in northern France.  To see other posts, click here, here, here, and here.