because God told me so

To trust God in the little silly things can be a challenge for me. This past August God showed me His faithfulness when I let loose of this challenge.

Just a few Sunday's ago I was on my way to Church on an empty stomach, and I was craving a croissant for breakfast. I had two euros in my pocket. So I asked God, could I buy myself a croissant for breakfast? He said of course, so I picked out a croissant and ate it while I biked to church.

After worship our church normally has tithe and offering, and as they were passing around the basket I felt that God wanted me to put in the seventy cents of change I had from the croissant that morning. I thought God was being silly, what difference could seventy cents do? But He insisted, so I pulled the change out of my pocket and dropped it in the basket.

That day I rushed home to welcome two guests that was going to stay at our YWAM hospitality flat. It was a couple who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary in Paris! They are pastors from Minnesota. After explaining the flat to them and getting them settled in they asked if I wouldn't mind taking them out to the city for a bit of site seeing and that they would happily treat me to dinner. Being a missionary who lives off of support, I said yes rather quickly. 

We had such a great time exploring Notre Dame and the Louvre. Before I knew it, it was dinner time and so we found an adorable french cafe. I was so blessed that night, I ate delicious food and even had a creme bru lei for dessert!

The next day they invited me to come along their adventure again, and that they could buy me something to eat again. After that day it was a ripple effect of God's provision. I ended up not buying a single meal, including breakfast, for the next six meals! That was about 2 and a half days of God taking care of my belly!

I really felt like God wanted to remind me that it's about including Him in my day. Asking Him questions, and doing the little things He asks just because He says so.

With trust and release comes the blessings, comes the provision. I'm not saying that God provided my meals because I gave seventy cents to church, but just because God sees my heart. And He loves to pursue me and take care of me.

So be encouraged, ask God what He wanted you to do with the little things. Prepare to smile and be encouraged by His love.

Like a: CHILD

            I remember when I was a little girl and my favorite spot to be was my dads lap. My dad had his own special chair in the living room that he sat in everyday, no one else. I can still picture the warm lamplight that would illuminate my dads grey eyes and endless wrinkles. My dad would prop one leg up on his knee, and as a little girl I would climb onto his lap and sit right in the middle where I fit perfectly. It didn’t matter what fun games, laughter, or chaos that were going on in the living room, I would not be distracted, I was in my dads arms telling him my own stories and hearing his stories.

Most mornings I would even wake up at the crack of dawn to make his orange juice for him to drink while he was at work. My mom would hug and kiss my dad goodbye, and so would I. I will never forget the smell of his coffee stained, orange juice smelling beard. My dad would choose one of my siblings to take on breakfast dates every Saturday; if I was the lucky child to get picked to go on this fun adventure then I was the happiest kid in the world! I loved being in my dad’s presence.

I also remember the times when it would be a long school day, and I would give my mom nothing but trouble. Instead of disciplining us herself, she would tell us “wait until dad gets home”. Disappointing my dad was always the worst. Seeing his grey eyes not so bright, but disappointed, changed my heart. Though, even after being restricted from watching TV, a few tears, maybe even a few jumps of temper tantrums, at the end of the day, I would still climb onto my dad’s lap and be so absolutely loved. The past was in the past, I was in my dad’s arms and that’s all that mattered.

Reflecting on these memories as an adult brings an instant smile to my face; I pray that I will never lose these memories. To compare and contrast my relationship with my dad on earth and with my Dad in Heaven, God, gives my heart a better comprehension of God’s father heart for me. It’s a beautiful blessing that our God calls us His sons and daughters, and loves to spend time with us. He has a special place on his lap for each one of us and adores listening to our endless stories, and He also adores to share His own.

This idea though, of a disappointed dad on earth is different from our Dad in Heaven. When we fall down, when we make mistakes, it’s his compassion and grace that is seen in His eyes. Me, being human distorts my vision to see God’s eyes. How can I understand a dad of complete and total grace?

His grace for His children is an overflow, a never-ending fountain of hope for each person who accepts God as their personal Dad. To be human means its difficult for us to comprehend the forgiveness and grace of our Dad, but even Jesus spoke about the beauty of being a humble child, and how necessary it is to be a part of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Matthew 18:3-4

“…I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven.  So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Jesus, telling it like it is. We need to receive it, believe it and walk in it. I for one will make the choice to do so, to climb on my Father in Heaven’s lap and be wrapped in His presence.

to be: Faithful

Before coming back to Paris people would ask me questions. 

What was my actual goal in joining a missions organization, what did I really believe God wanted to do in my life? Do I have a desire to build a ministry; do I want to forever be a missionary, or my favorite question, what kind of need is there in a Western country like France?

I would try my best to give them a simple answer, and of course it was always accompanied by a verse.

“Well, all I know is right now is that I am young, single, no babies, no wrinkles or aching bones, I might as well give my all and follow God wherever He takes me and do whatever He asks me while I have this freedom right?”

Ecclesiasties 12:1-3 “Don’t let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your Creator. Honor him in your youth before you grow old and say, “Life is not pleasant anymore.” Remember him before the light of the sun, moon, and stars is dim to your old eyes, and rain clouds continually darken your sky. Remember him before your legs the guards of your house start to tremble; and before your shoulders the strong men stoop. Remember him before your teeth your few remaining servants stop grinding; and before your eyes—the women looking through the windows see dimly.”

Usually people would just laugh at me and tell me that’s easy to say now. I wonder what they were really thinking, what they really wanted to say.

So here my best friend, my Lord, my God has taken me. I am in my third month of making beds, stumbling in the process of the French language, playing with Parisian kids in the park, and making a slight dent through prayer and determination in one of the most influential cities in the world, Paris.

When we are faithful to Him, He is faithful to us.

Deuteronomy 7:9

 “Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments.”

You ask me what I am doing with my life, I am giving all that my human self is capable of giving to my Maker who gave His all for me.

Paris take 2! I have arrived!

Dear friends and family,

            Hello there! Yes I am alive and well and settled in my flat in Paris, France! Journeying here wasn’t too bad,; on the 7 and a half hour long airplane ride I made a friend with a Jewish University student who was full of good and interesting conversation so the time went by fast, and before I knew it my dear friend Amber who is also staff at YWAM Paris greeted me at Charles de Gaul airport.

             Since then it has been a whirlwind of excitement and lots of settling in! I live in a decent sized apartment in Belleville with three other fellow YWAMer’s and we also have a friend boarding with us for the next month. It is SUPER cozy in the apartment but I wouldn’t have it any other way!

            I have also met with my leaders here and they have already assigned me to special jobs! I’m writing the blog and running our Facebook page. I’m also helping with hospitality, which means making beds and folding laundry (ob boy!) for our guests that come through. And my most favorite of responsibilities is Friday’s I’m looking after three kids for a French family that are leaders of King’s Kids Paris. I get to plan fun activities, and hopefully brush up on my French since they don’t speak any English, what fun!

            Speaking of my FRENCH we had our first French lesson today! We will be totally immersing ourselves in the language, we have French class 3 times a week for 2 hours, plenty of homework, and we also will be having creative French learning times! I am super nervous about tackling a whole language but I know God will give me lots of grace and help.

            I also got the opportunity last week to help at our restaurant Kiwizine. Cooking in the kitchen was loads fun, but crazy being cramped up in a tiny kitchen! I mainly worked on putting the entre’ together and with the deserts. It was challenging but everything turned out delicious!

            So God and I are really being creative with making things feel natural in this big city. I am already feeling at home and enjoying being back with the team here in France.

If you would like to pray for me here are some good ideas…

*Pray for God’s help and grace in learning French. I’m already getting a bit afraid of it !

*Pray that God will provide more in FINANCES. I still need a lot more people to sponsor me in monthly financial support, so if God puts it on your heart to support me please email me!

*Pray that my team stays connected to each other so we can serve God and the city of Paris the most efficiently

            Thank you all for taking time to read this and for supporting me in my journey, it means the world! God bless!

-Eleanor Wynne

email: eleanorcwynne@gmail.com

paypal: eleclaire@aol.com

Cambodge time!

Hey there! I just want to update you guys on a few wonderful things God has been doing here in Siem Reap, Cambodia!

My team of 13 students and one other staff have really been spread out in multiple different ministries’ here in Siem Reap, there is so much work to do here! One team is working at a school right in the city where they teach English, French, Computer, Art, Music, and Dance.  Another team is volunteering in a village about 30 minutes away, they teach English, Math, and Dance there and also have a Children’s Ministry where they teach Bible and songs and also teach them personal hygiene. I take a team out about an hour drive away in a village called Tapouk. It’s a brand new village though!

They have never heard about Jesus, most of them all are Buddhist. Cambodian’s grow up believing that they all have to be Buddhist because all Cambodians are Buddhist, so they have a hard time receiving any other truth. But at this new village they are so hungry for Education and for the real TRUTH! So my team that goes out there is one girl from Russia who is 21 and one other girl from Northern Ireland and she is 19. We have a children’s ministry that we play games, teach songs and dances, and share about God’s story with them. It’s SO amazing to start off from scratch and have a clean pallet for them since they have no preconceptions about God!

We also teach English to about 150students all under the age of 30. It’s a lot to split between three of us but we truck forward and is worth it. The students practically jump out of their seats when I ask one to come up to the front to write something on the board. Their so hungry for learning!

God has been giving my team and I so many opportunities here in Cambodia, it really is a joy to serve the Lord here and see His Kingdom grow!

I have a few prayer requests though,

One for sickness. A lot of have been getting diarrhea and throwing up. The heat and the working so hard really takes a lot of our bodies, but it’s worth it!

We are on our last of three months on outreach, so pray for more encouragement and motivation for my whole team.

Thank you so much for all the prayer and support! Sending my love!

Eleanor

Seeking the KINGDOM in Paris!

Hey friends and family! Bonjour from Paris yet again! Whew, it would be a novel f I was to write in words all the incredible things God has done and revealed to me in the past months. So instead, I’ll just share a piece of God’s character that has really been high lighted and bold ink penned to me in the past couple of weeks. It’s about Jesus’ promise to us.

Matthew 6:31-33 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

If I wrote up a list of all the things I have prayed and asked God for practical things to give me, which are more then the patience I have to count, in the past 3 months you would laugh at me. But then again if I rewrote the exact same list and told you that God had given me EVER SINGLE THING you wouldn’t be laughing.

To just go ahead and start with a major request I had for the Lord, I’ll tell you a story. For the Discipleship Training School Outreach to South East Asia that I’m staffing we needed to raise over 7,000euors in just a couple days. So I asked God, is there anything that I need to do that is stopping the flow. He challenged me with a simple thing, empty out my bank account and put all I have towards outreach. I did, and within a couple of days all the money for outreach flowed in so naturally, without any force, any tears, or any worries. I told my mom about God’s challenge and how I was on my last few dollars for food money, and she offered to give me $50. I confidently told her not to worry about it; my Dad in heaven takes care of me.

Two weeks past and the weekend came; I have to pay for all my food over the weekend and for my breakfast foods for the week. I had about a euro fifty to my name, which definitely could not last me for two days. I felt silly and naïve for telling my mom I didn’t need her help, was I just being stubborn and unrealistically confident?  I prayed and asked God about what I should do, should I go back and ask my mom for money?

That night this amazing French woman came up to me and gave me a French “baiser”(kiss) on the cheek and slipped cash in my hand. It was exactly 50euors. I cried, my heavenly Dad is the BEST. Seriously I call upon Him and He provides everything I need! I even was able to buy a new pair of socks!

Jesus says, “Seek first the KINGDOM OF GOD…and ALL these things shall be added to you.” Not just some things, EVERY THING. I laugh at my child like reliance on Him, but to enter the Kingdom we have to come with a Child like Spirit, and trust in the Father for every little thing.

Prayer Points:

*Outreach is 3 weeks away, lots of preparation and lack of sleep up ahead. Pray for motivation and productiveness and grace with sleeping habits!

*For our last weeks in Paris to be impactful on the spiritual and physical world. We have local outreach day on Saturday and it will be our last week of that. Pray that God really reveals Himself to the people we have been getting to know and connects them with other believers.

Sincerely, 

                Eleanor

Oh Romanians!

Hey home world! I just want to share something super neato God moment that happened with some of my students and I! Over the weekend we brainstormed things we have noticed about it, what is the heart of the city, what does the city lack, and how can we contribute to it? So we all broke in to groups that we felt God wanted us to be in, and I joined the homeless people group.            

We met first and prayed and asked God for His anointing and leading, and we felt Him leading us to go to the metro at Republique.  So we split into two groups and two of my students, Dallas, who spoke English and Spanish, and Leah, who spoke English and French, came with me to the town center in Republique. We didn’t even walk down one block before our eyes met with a homeless man sitting down on the corner of a shopping strip, he had a cute puppy sitting with him, and had a sign with something with French written on it and a jar with some loose change. Immediately I felt a pull to talk to him, so we all said Bonjour to him.

We quickly were met with a jumble of confusing words, he didn’t speak English, French or Spanish, he was actually from Romania and only spoke Romanian. But he had a huge smile on his face and was just chatting away about something in Romanian. I prayed and asked the Holy Spirit to tell us what he was saying.

The Holy Spirit didn’t give me the interpreting gift, I was kind of disappointed. Then I looked over at Dallas, and he started translating the man! The man’s name was Oin, and every day at noon he prays to God. He was going on about how despite his circumstances of sleeping in the metro, and not having a place to live, he still praised God and had him in his heart. To confirm everything Dallas was interpreting, a man that spoke French speaking Romanian man came over and started explaining in French to Leah, and everything he said that Oin said was exactly what DALLAS said. Insane I know!

Oin asked us to come back the next day and pray with him and his friends at noon, we agreed. So the next day we went back to meet up with Oin. This time Oin had two other friends, the two other friends were Romanian but they spoke French, and we quickly found out they were Jehovah Witnesses. We soon realized that Oin was actually not what we thought he was, but that these two men came every day to pray with Oin and to convert him to be a Jehovah Witness. So we started chatting with the men in French.

They started asking us lots of questions, about if we ever been to other countries to preach the gospel, I said yes, and if we ever saw any miracles happen in Jesus name, and I said yes. Then they started pulling out Bible verses saying how Jesus wasn’t God, Leah just so happened to have a French bible and a English bible! So we started having a bible study right on the street corner with two Jehovah Witness’s. It was great! Just the past week we learned about the character and nature of God in lecture, and how God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit were one, so we had all these bible verses memorized.

At one point the men just got angry at us, they were pulling the bible frantically away trying to prove their points, I believe they thought we were just ignorant students. But we weren’t! Finally one man got frustrated, gave us back the Bible, told us we didn’t know anything about the bible or how to read it, but that he did, and that we were wasting his time. He asked us to look up on line what the word Jehovah meant, and I asked him to pray and ask God to reveal him truth. I believe God will reveal His truth to everyone who asks!

Prayer Points:

We are preparing for outreach to Cambodia and Vietnam. I’m co leading the team to Cambodia with my school leader Amber. We’re leaving in one month, I’m super excited! Just have lots of preparation to do.

Our team still need 7,700 euros to pay for outreach by tomorrow. Crazy amount to us, small amount to God! Just pray that God opens heaven on us and that He spares some pocket change.

Missing you all dearly!
God bless!


-Eleanor