Cole Marie Photography: Work Week and Church Camp Weekend

Hello Everyone,

I just wanted to update you on how things have been going here in France and the most intense work week to go along with the most AMAZING weekend. First to start off everything in the shop has been so busy this past week. I am exhausted just thinking about how much the team did. I am so thankful to know our hard work is resulting in some great things for Jesus Christ. I am not sure what the total number is, but I believe its around 50,000 comic book Bibles that we have almost finished. We are in the process of sewing all of the signatures together (signatures are sections of a book) to eventually glue later this week when the American team is here working in the shop. I feel so blessed to have seen the process of making this book all the way through this far and I know I will not look at a book the same again. Its a BIG process! I had no idea. We are almost ready to put the covers on in a few weeks and cut them to size, it will be fun to see the last two machines work full steam. Heres a picture of some of our hard work after we put the signatures together from the three sections by hand and stacked them for the next machine...

Here is a picture of our hard work.. Can you tell its an octopus? I am glad to say everyone here has a fun spirit and we work as hard as we play and joke around...

This weekend I was fortunate enough to experience a French Christian Retreat. It was about 3 hours away from Marpent by Reims France (South East France) and it was in the middle of the smallest town I had ever seen. There were about 70 Christian Youth there (ages 15-25) which was awesome to meet my brothers and sisters in Christ half way around the globe. 1 in 400 people are christian in France and so it is very very rare to get so many youth together for one weekend. It was so amazing because many churches from around the area It was so fun being able to mingle with everyone and try to talk to them about life. The topic of the retreat was about Purity. And to be honest, going into the retreat I was kind of like.. man I have heard the purity talk like 1 million times. But because of the translation (thanks to Valerie) and the amazing speakers my eyes were opened wide to so many more things. This weekend allowed me to look at my own life and examine how I was living. What was cool about it was that the scripture was the same but the description and explanations were so different than the things we say in America. It was so awesome to see the Bible on Purity in such a different light. I was so Glad Valerie was there to translate for me! Boy would I have been lost without her! We were able to go Canoeing during saturday and I played Ultimate Frisbee in the morning with an "American" Team in honor of fourth of July. Which I had a blast doing. All of us were the English speakers at the camp (Mostly the people I work with). All an all it was an amazing retreat. God is just as good in France as he is in America.

Later that day still playing Frisbee

From Left to Right: Me, Valerie and Kirsty

In the huge barn where we had all of our speakers and worship band..

Canoeing with Valerie

the whole gang of kids from the weekend..

On the way back Valerie, Kirsty and I had a fun time because it randomly started pouring rain from a like 80 degree weekend. It was so weird but really fun at the same time. I took some pictures with my point and shoot out the window for you because it was so beautiful the storm and the sun together. The clouds were unbelievable and the farm fields seemed to go on forever. We listened to Jack Johnson, Robbie Conrad and Phil Wickham the whole way and were able to just talk about life I felt really blessed to have such great friends on a road trip like that. I think that was probably the best part of my whole weekend. We had some good laughs and here are some pictures on the drive home. I am amazed with how God can just paint the most beautiful landscapes here on earth. Hope you enjoy them...

Just the highway to go home.. no big deal..