Centre Evangelique de Lognes 2005

Today my whole family spent several hours at the Centre Evangélique in Lognes, a far eastern suburb of Paris (and not far from Disneyland of Paris). Every November there is a 3 day (Sunday-Tuesday) convention that draws many different Protestant denominations, agencies, publishing houses, and bookstores from all around Francophone Europe. I normally spend all of the Monday at the CE. However, because of my upcoming trip to the U.S., my only time at the CE was today. I enjoyed being there as a family.

It's a good time to run into some ministry colleagues whom I only see once a year, at this event. Today I ran into Pat Berning, Dan Hoang, David Razzano, Dale & Sherri Anderson, Pierre & Marie-José Maré, John & MaryAnn McKee, as well as several people from Belleville, including our daughter's godmother Catherine. The Sunday is a time that targets families and other lay people who might not normally be able to attend during the week.

Our kids enjoyed getting to look at different displays, children's books, videos, etc. It was fun to have them there. We bought a number of kids books and videos for them.

I appreciate the CE because of its work of bringing different Christians together. It's a major annual event in the Christian scene in Francophone Europe.

This morning, Stéphane Lauzet, Secretary General of the Alliance Evangélique Française(French Evangelical Alliance), visited our church. He travelled up from Nimes for the CE and took advantage of being here to visit. I had met him at the Michael Moynaugh conference "Changing World, Changing Church" in Paris in 2004. It was a pleasant surprise to see him standing in the back of our church when I was going to the nursery to get our son. I even got to chat with him a little and give him a bulletin. At our church, you never know who is going to show up on a Sunday morning.