Season’s Greetings, dear readers!
There’s nothing like a snowstorm in the Alps to put you in the Christmas spirit! Here are the highlights of last weekend’s Sozo training seminar adventure:
Our team of 5 decided to arrive a day early to enjoy a little tourism in Annecy. We drove 4 hours south through Switzerland to get to this picturesque French town. It was perfect: we avoided the weekend crowds at the Christmas market on a Thursday night and the snowstorm didn’t arrive until the next day. We shared a cheese fondue dinner in a beautiful restaurant (on the left in this photo of an ancient prison that sits in the middle of the canal.)
The wife of the pastoral couple has a psychology degree, and she wanted to make sure their young church got off on the right foot by offering inner healing seminars each month. "The Sozo Method" was the final seminar in the series. Friday we had personal Sozos scheduled for morning, afternoon, and evening, plus the first session to teach, but snow throughout France created havoc for attendees. A group from Normandy cancelled and a couple that drove from Paris missed their afternoon appts. Instead of twiddling our thumbs all afternoon, we used them to send messages to our intercessors. And lo and behold, by evening the temps hadn’t dropped and the roads got cleared, allowing us to squeeze in some late night ministry sessions and have a full house for the teachings on Sat.
Those of us that did 6 2hr personal Sozos sessions in those 2 days in a building that had serious heating issues were given a lot of grace! My French flowed well and fatigue was minor, even during a 9-11pm slot! One favorite was a woman who got to the root of her hate and saw flames burn it up completely. Another was a man with fear about the future, and after tearfully forgiving his brother, he departed an hour later with a smile on his face, saying that he got exactly what he came for! Another young woman had to confront the lie that she and her family did not deserve to suffer the death of her beloved brother. Jesus gently showed her that He did not deserve to die either. That death opened the door to fear that her husband would also be taken from her, and she heard Jesus promise that she would never be alone, even if she lost him. She was also struggling with infertility without any physical reasons, so she couldn’t wait to hear my testimony in that area, and now that she has a renewed trust in Father God, I’m expecting her uterus to respond accordingly!
I got home before midnight on Sat. night and Oceane returned from her weekend home on Sunday night. We dumped her suitcase and ran over to the cathedral for a free concert by a boy’s choir, hoping to get some rare Christ-centered entertainment. And indeed, the finale was the Hallelujah Chorus, which is a Christmas tradition that I miss terribly here. I could barely sit still since I’d learned the 2nd soprano part in high school choir and they were singing it in English! However, the French audience was so unfamiliar with it that they started clapping before the final "Haaaa-leeeee-luuuuuu-jaaaaaah!!" It was a glorious end to my Christmas weekend, but along with hearing hours of family pain and abuse, it was also a sobering reminder of the society we are living in.
We are starting to see the realization of some hopes and dreams that I have written about over the last several years. I’ll update you on those in the new year!
Christmas blessings, Angela