I wrote about our Paris trip earlier. I have so many more stories about our time there! We played one concert in the middle of a street, on a cement median, in blistering hot weather. At least we had a few trees for shade, but with the heat, and the noise of the traffic, that day was probably our most difficult.
We also got to play a concert in a theater where Mozart once played in downtown Paris, and another concert in a theater adjacent to the palace of Versailles. The fading red velvet and flaking gold trim in these theaters were a poignant reminder that earthly things will not last. Here we were in these formerly extravagant concert halls, performing in order to bring awareness to how many refugees slept on the streets outside.
That was perhaps the most vivid memory of the trip – visiting the locations where the refugees had been sent, along the sidewalks of Paris, waiting to get better housing and permission to work, sleeping on the streets on pieces of cardboard with little else to their name.
But there were some with hope in their eyes, and eagerness to talk with us after discovering we were Christians. Some of them shared our hope in Jesus, and despite their circumstances, they trusted Him. And everyone near them could tell that they had this unusual peace, unexplainable to them, but perfectly natural to other Christians. We also had experienced that unusual peace that trusting in God brings.
And after over a week of driving all of us around, seeing everything we saw, hearing everything we said, our bus driver committed his life to Jesus and became a brand new Christian. What more reason do we need to trust in God!
You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD himself, is the Rock eternal.
Isaiah 26:3-4