Sunny Day #1

Today was the first real beautiful day in Annecy since I've been here. It was wonderful and a blessing to be able to be outside all afternoon. I had morning class today which went alright. It is sometimes rather discouraging and difficult when we do oral exercises like on cassette tapes...I just feel stupid sometimes haha because I'm not very good at them...never have been actually. I feel incompetent because I can't understand everything they say, it's just so fast. Anyway, I get easily discouraged after that, but hopefully it can only get better, right? Sandra decided today that she wants to speak more French with us since we usually speak English. So I was like yeah, let's try it, so hopefully it'll help us with our speaking and whatnot. After class the 4 of us went for a picnic by the lake. I got my first rays of sun! it was happy, I even got a little red. After we had finished eating, the three of them wanted to go check e-mail at the school but I wanted to stay in the park, so I stayed. I ended up falling asleep for a bit, but then I read my Bible. They came back to find me a couple hours later. We chatted some more before heading home.

Someone complained to me the other day that there's not been much about the battlefield in my blog, and I've guess I've been kinda neglecting that part, and the battlefield in my life. I told a friend that I felt like I had been retreating for so long I no longer knew the direction of the battlefield haha. I started spending a lot more time with our Jesus after that...the General as we now affectionately call Him. I've been noticing more areas where I could choose to fight...however, I've still been sitting back. A few examples...I'm around Alex a lot just because we know each other, but sometimes it gets really hard for me to be around him so much. Most of you don't know, but Alex is openly gay...he is also perverse, promisicuous, vulgar, etc. He knows my views on things, and sometimes, like the other day, he will stop because he doesn't want to upset me. It's just so tiring not having any strong Christian friends right now here with me. I often feel like he judges me because of my views. I know I'm dealing majorly with the fear of man here. I just need to keep praying boldness and courage into my life. Another example was yesterday on the bus before we left for Chamonix, there were people making bad jokes and talking about how the church has hurt them (I think more specifically the Catholic church, but I'm not sure...) and how they don't need God because they've done fine without Him. I wanted to say something, but I wanted to ignore it because I was getting angry and didn't want to speak out of anger. I ended up saying nothing...stupid fear of man. I'm hoping that God will show me the right time to minister to these people and prompt me to speak to them when that time comes...that He will light something in me that will burn and hurt until I speak! I'm believing Him for that and for boldness, I hope you will believe Him for that for me too!