Prayer Room

Retreat!
For the past two weekends, the CEMistes have been on retreats! Both retreats were at the church’s camp in the Centre Massif. Last weekend, November 1-4, we had the all-Francophone teen retreat, with teens from the churches in Lyons, Geneva, Lilles and Paris. The best represented church with the largest group was, of course, Marseille, with two van-loads of CEMistes and teenagers. The theme was “The Mission” and every session came with a discussion group/prayer time afterwards, which was a great way for the teens to share their experiences and encourage each other. I was really impressed by two teens from Lyons, Naomi and Constance. Naomi said that she had prayed to have a Christian friend in her class, and this year she had two! The two talked about the difficulties they have in getting their friends to listen when they talk about Jesus. Nevertheless, it sounds like they share their faith a lot in class.

A photo from a walk in the woods during Free Time at the teen retreat.

This past weekend, November 8-10, we had the Marseille Church “Family Retreat,” a time where all church members were welcome to enjoy Centre Bonnefoi, share great meals together and have a mini retreat. The theme of the retreat was “make me a servant.” On Friday night, we shared stories of persons who helped lead us to Christ and our “dreams for the church.” Some of the dreams were rather humorous. Katie’s dream was that some of the old CEMistes would come back and help serve and expand the church in Marseille. Joelle has her own version of the same dream: that all of the CEMistes (except for her of course; she is going back to Paris) find spouses in Marseille and have at least 3 children. That would be a very effective way to expand the church. What terrifies me is that I am never sure if Joelle is serious.

Derek, Esther and I worked on making a “Prayer Room” for this retreat. I went on 3 out of 4 of Campus Crusade for Christ’s “Fall Retreats” while at college, and each one had a “prayer room,” a dimly lit, quiet place with various stations, prompting prayer for different subjects.
The CEMistes worked to put together something similar for this retreat. We wanted to make 5-6 stations, each with a corresponding verse, an activity, and a prayer-prompt. Our prayer room:

1. Adoration-worship the Lord. Psalm 104. Praise the Lord for his marvelous creation. Each person drew a picture of something God created and that they wanted to praise him for.
2. The world/my country. Verse: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” and, from Revelation, “every tongue, tribe and nation will confess that Jesus is Lord.”
3. My church. At this station, we provided paper and envelopes for people to write a note of encouragement/thanks to someone else in the church, particularly someone who wasn’t able to come to the retreat. I delivered about 10 notes at church on Sunday.
4. My friends/my family. For this station, I made a less sophisticated version of Dan Cooper’s “Friendship Evangelism” cards, encouraging people to pray for five friends or family members to come to know Christ. When Philippe asked for prayer requests at church on Sunday, Benjamin (one of the teens) spoke up and reminded the church family to pray this week for the people on their card.
5. My Enemies. We read the story of a Christian martyr, who saved a soldiers life and, as a result, lost his own.
6. Moi-meme, myself. At this station, we posted 2 CEMistes who offered to pray with the people finishing the prayer circle, for whatever requests were on their heart. In my 30 minute “shift” I got to pray with Monique and speak with Hughette. Rather than sharing her prayer request, Hughette shared a Psalm:
“How good and pleasant it is
When brothers live together in unity!”
Psalm 133

I was very honored to get to pray with the people of my church. I ended up spending (almost all) of my free time in the prayer room, watching people go through the stations, seeing the CEMistes at the 6th station praying with each other when there were no visitors, and even seeing a few church members linger to pray in their own corner after finishing all of the stations.
Even if I had been the only one to use it, it would have been worth all the work on the prayer room.

The CEMistes are trying to think of more ways to better integrate prayer into our everyday lives. We may set up a prayer group, a prayer room, and/or have a few fasting events.
We appreciate your support through prayer! Thank you for your prayers for the CEMistes during our year of christian-apprenticeship.