An Adventurous Day!

Definitely had an adventure of a day today with Vanessa and Jessica!! 

First Jessica and I slept in, which was lovely, after which we had a delicious lunch at a cafe right in front of the cathédrale :) 

Then, we ran to the tram and just barely made it, jumping inside right before the doors closed. We went to a meeting for internationals at our university, and then met up with our new French friend Vanessa to take the bus into Kehl, Germany, where we went grocery shopping, had dinner together, and almost got attacked by a homeless man...well, not exactly, but he did have a can attached to the end of a fishing pole which he thrust at us (with a smile), frightening us a little bit. Haha. Then we went back to the bus stop, where we waited in the cold for about 30 minutes before realizing that the busses weren't running tonight due to a workers' holiday or a strike or something like that. So we took a taxi instead. Then, when we were just about to enter the Foyer (where we live), we were approached by two young men, one playing the guitar, and both wearing labcoats (and nothing else besides the labcoats, mind you). They were high school students from a biology program who were trying to raise money for a field trip. It was very strange, but kind of hilarious. 

Needless to say, we were very glad that Vanessa was with us during the crazier moments, or we would not have known what to do. But now we do :) Now just to learn enough German to actually find what we need at the grocery store next time...haha. 

Que Dieu vous bénisse, 

Marie 

Reality

I'm so excited to go to France...but at the same time it doesn't seem real to me. I feel like I'll still be here doing the same old things in a few days, even though I know I'll be all the way across the globe experiencing a new culture...and I think that my brain's not fully grasping the idea that I'll be in a foreign country simply because I've never really experienced it before. I've never been overseas, never been to Europe, never been to France...so my brain is having difficulty picturing myself there, imagining myself there, comprehending what I'll do and what it'll be like and what I'll see. It's as if, because my brain has no experience with it, it has difficulty picturing this trip as reality.

I think perhaps the same is true with us and heaven. We read books about it, we see paintings with an artist's interpretation of it, we may even dream about it here and there. But our brains cannot truly grasp the magnificence or the reality of the experience that we will have there when we arrive. It's something we have never experienced before, and unlike France, it's something that we can't and haven't even come close to experiencing here on earth. We have literally no idea of how it will be. Therefore, we go on living our lives from day to day in a very earthly mindset. Our brains can't grasp the reality of another world towards which we are always working, and therefore pushes the thought away because it cannot grasp it. This causes us to forget about our true purpose here on earth...to forget about the eternal souls that are around us, souls that may be going to hell if we continue to sit back and do nothing about it. We forget that everything we do, whether it's flipping a burger at McDonald's, preaching a sermon in a small church, or being the CEO of a multimillion-dollar Fortune 500 company, that it's all for something - Someone - higher and greater and more transcendent than all of us put together. We're not working for our own glory. We're working to glorify the One with Whom will we live for eternity once our life on this earth has come to an end. So why do we allow ourselves to forget these things? Life in heaven is hard to grasp, hard to visualize, hard to imagine as reality, but we have to keep meditating on it, keeping it ever present on our minds, in order that we may live to reflect those principles and that love that brings people into that eternal, incredible, and yet incomprehensible life with our eternal God. 

Que Dieu vous bénisse, 

Marie 

Visit www.gofundme.com/emariebaker to see how you can support my semester in Strasbourg, France.