First Agape!

07 Octobre, 2008

Le premier Agape

Tonight we hosted our first weekly meeting of Agape – the event we’ve been looking forward to basically since getting here. Language classes done, planning with the student leaders begun, and my apartment all cleaned (J’ai nettoyé beaucoup!), we hosted the first meeting at my apartment. Including the six of us “official” Agape folks, there were 16 of us there, which filled basically every chair available. We were thrilled with the turnout!

The evening began with (in typical French fashion) the sharing of a meal. It was potluck style, which was a pleasant reminder of good-old Minnesota get-togethers. Everyone brought something, and the table was filled, with all filling their plates. The meal was blessed, and we all dove in, conversation filling the room, in both English and French. After everyone had eaten, the meeting officially commenced. Our purpose tonight was to present the vision of Agape nationally, share our vision for the campus, and talk about how that can be lived out practically in students’ lives. The national vision of Agape is the same of that in the states, which is “win, build, send” or “gagner, construire, envoyer.” We talked about as a campus that “on est la pour encourager chaque étudiant à prendre le prochain pas vers Jésus et à le suivre où il l’envoie.” This means that we are here to encourage every student to take the next steps towards Jesus and serve him wherever one is sent. Fitting into our vision of “win, build, send,” this means that we are motivated to reach out to students who are non-Christians to encourage them towards Christ as well as build into students who are believers to help them grow more Christ-like and develop them in their walk with the Lord. “And serve him wherever one is sent” speaks to our desire to send students out to all nations and occupations committed to serving Christ and being a witness wherever the Lord leads them in life.

We had a time of worship, which I led with a guitar (it went pretty well, but let me tell you, I’m no Matt Damico…). We sang one awesome French song that I had never heard before yesterday called “Jusqu’au bout,” which means “Until the end.” (I’m pretty sure…) It talks about being sent out into the world clothed in the light of Christ (but in French). It’s a pretty sweet song. I enjoyed being able to play it, and was sad when the girls who’s guitar I borrowed took it back.

Afterwards we had announcements, and then dessert! It was Katie’s birthday today, so we surprised her with a sweet fondue cake thing with trick candles and sang “Happy Birthday” in French! (“Bon anniversaire à toi!”) People hung around for a little while, enjoyed dessert and more conversation in French/English, and then took off for the night, until the meeting next week.

Overall, my impression was that it was a successful meeting, it was certainly fun to meet some of the other Agape students finally. After putting my apartment back together, I celebrated with a glass of peach-mango iced tea and some Bach violin sonatas. Mmm… (some things never change, right?)