A Summer in Review

Boots to the Ground!

Hello from the Foy Family!  Trust you all had a wonderful summer - ours was certainly adventure filled!
 Our boots hit the ground on June 17th, the day we began our 3 weeks of Boot Camp in the swamplands at Teen Missions.  We all would say it was a difficult and challenging time for us!  We faced the flu (Lori), kidney stones and surgery (Shonn), delay in traveling to India with his team (Jesse), and the Slough of Despond (Erinn).  We struggled and learned through it all and we're so grateful for the storms God brought us through.  I was challenged with a song we sang in worship this morning, "Jesus Bring the Rain", and it really made we reflect on the truth in the lyrics that say "What's a little rain?"...after all Jesus suffered for us.

Boot Camp     Merritt Island, FL

We ended up with 11 teens on our team, 9 girls and 2 boys.  They really were an amazing group of kids and everyone told us how blessed we were.  We definitely had an assorted group of personalities but they did a good job working together and being patient with one another.  At Boot Camp we traveled in a line as a team, each team member was assigned a number for role call, they shared tents, ran the obstacle course together, attended puppet, drama, music, phonics, and evangelism classes, and each night weworshipped together in the nightly rallies.  We definitely became a team both physically and spiritually as we endured the heat, rain, mosquitoes, illnesses, and other various trials involved with Boot Camp!
 

Eiffel Tower

The project we all expected to do in Nantes, France, working with children's Bible clubs didn't work out, so when we left Boot Camp on July10th we headed to Paris and began working with a group called 'Cijem Force'. They were a dynamic group of Christians intent on revolutionizing Paris!  Each day we did worship and Bible study with them and then in the afternoons we would go with them into the Metro system and do evangelism. One of the highlights of our time with Cijem Force was the prayer walk we did with them.  We left in the early hours of the morning and walked to the different areas they had chosen to do ministry for the next week and prayed for the people who would cross our paths.  It really left an impact on all of us. 

After about 10 days with Cijem, we began to also work with Youth With a Mission (YWAM), doing evangelism at the Trocadero plaza in the evenings.  The Trocadero is right in front of the Eiffel Tower, so we were there each night for about 2 weeks.  Thousands of people went through there and YWAM uses dramas, dance, mimes, and personal testimonies to draw people.  Our kids helped hand out literature and spoke to people about Jesus.  During our last week in Paris our team had the opportunity to do some of their dramas as well.  It was a great experience!
                                 

Team France in Montauban, France

Our last week in France was spent evangelizing in a city called Montauban, in the South of France.  We took an 8 hr night train and began our time with a group of about 150 whose misison was to "Bouge Ta Ville Montauban" (shake your city).  We spent time in worship, prayer, and Bible study in the mornings, and then in the afternoons groups would split up to do work/service projects, visit in the nursing homes, and street evangelism.  In Montauban our team was able to use their dramas, stomps, puppets, balloons, and one on one skills to share Jesus with the people in the city. A highlight of our time there was a carnival that all of us did in a park in the middle of this beautiful city!  

We've been back in Indiana for about a week now and we're happy to be back in the Midwest for about 7 weeks before we relocate to Florida permanently!  We'll blog about that soon :-)

Because of Jesus,

Shonn and Lori Foy