MISSION TRIP TO FRANCE / FAMILY TRIP TO DISNEYLAND PARIS - Part I

Greetings from Paris, France!

On March 9, a very snowy morning, our family left Vancouver to go on a Mission Trip to JIL Europe (France). This is a very special trip for Pastor Aldrin and me because we will be joined by our two precious kids, Jappy and Alyssa. Their two-week Spring Break in school started this day so we decided to bring them along with us so we could spend time as a family during their Spring Break. Thanks to our RBC Travel Rewards, we were able to redeem points for their plane tickets!

Even though our mission trip in JIL France will officially start on March 14 (Sat), we decided to arrive in Paris at an earlier date so we could have a short family vacation and spend time together in Disneyland Paris until Friday, March 13. We also found it a very good idea to bring our kids with us in some of our Mission Trips, whenever there is an opportunity, in order for them to see what we are doing in the work of the Lord and give them the opportunity to be involved and appreciate it as well.



We arrived in Paris on March 10, Tuesday, at 9:00 a.m. local time via an Air Canada flight. Pastor Vicky Tiesenhausen, our Area Pastor of JIL France, greeted us at the airport, together with some brethren. It was a pleasant trip except for some delays at Vancouver airport due to the de-icing that needs to be done to our plane, but we still arrive in Montreal at just the right time to catch our flight going to Paris. It was a rainy and cloudy day in Paris when we arrived. Pastora Vicky and Bro. Noel brought us straight to Disneyland Paris from the airport. It was almost an hour trip due to traffic. They just dropped us off at our hotel and they went back to Paris.

When we arrived in Disneyland Paris, we can’t check-in at the hotel right away because the check-in is still at 3 o’ clock, but they gave us our Park tickets already so we could roam around while waiting for the time. The weather is a mix of sun, rain and clouds. We went first to Disney Village and ate lunch at McDonalds.

The cost of food in Paris is quite expensive, it’s almost the same price in Canadian Dollars but it is in the Euro currency. A combo meal in McDonalds costs around 7 euro. The exchange rate is 1 Euro = 1.7 Cdn$. If you want to check the website of Disneyland Paris, their website is www.disneylandparis.com. I booked our vacation package through this website and their UK website had very good deals and special offers that made it more affordable for us. We chose to stay in one of the Disney Hotels, the Disney's New York Hotel.



Disneyland Paris has two themed parks, the Disneyland Park and the Walt Disney Studios. We visited both parks on our first day just to scout and plan what we will do on the next day. But when it started to rain quite hard, we decided to go back at the hotel, checked-in, and spent the rest of the day resting and sleeping to get ready for the next day. Although we were not able to sleep straight through the night because of jet lag and the time difference, we still tried to sleep the best way we can so we can have enough rest and adjust as soon as possible. Thanks to melatonin!

Our Mission trip in JIL France consist of a JIL 12 Summit on March 14, JIL Paris 18th Anniversary on March 15, a 5 day meeting of the JIL European Management Team (EMT) from March 16-20 in Cannes, and a Joint Anniversary of our JIL Churches in South France (Marseilles, Cannes, Nice, etc.) on March 22. We will be back in Paris from Cannes on March 23 (Mon) and will have our flight back to Vancouver on March 25 (Wed).

We are asking for your prayers while we are on this Mission Trip. I will be giving updates as much as I can about this trip through this blog, so please come back and visit again.

Until next time. . . . . God bless you all!