Paris Adventure

In the chaos of a river

2 o’clock in the morning and already I am descending on Paris, with the feeling of being carried along in the turbulence of a river. After dropping off some hitchhikers, I arrive at my destination, a hall filled with 3,500 people with video broadcast over the internet to more than 10,000 live links. Meetings with well-known speakers (whom I don’t know) and me (whom I do know), an unnoticed bystander with a very particular mission: to draw live on the big screen at the same time.

Crash, bang

I realise very quickly that what I am doing is ground-breaking. Indeed, nothing is organised for me! I don’t let myself be thrown, I improvise the conversion of an amp’s flycase into a drawing table, I dangle a kind of film camera on the end of some makeshift Sellotape that was just lying there, transform a kind of sausage grill into a luminous spotlight.

The thing that serves as my head is one metre away from a big amp, enabling people at the back of the hall to hear very distinctly even the tiniest the fart of an ant…. (my consolation: the smell will not be amplified!). I remain standing as I draw, balancing on my makeshift installation. The slightest stroke I make is relayed on to the big screen during these 3 days. But I sense the presence of God who every so often takes hold of my pencil, creating the most beautiful sketched improvisations. I feel like a receiver that is hypersensitive to the Spirit breathing in the hall and re-transcribing in pictures all these wafts that I am picking up, most especially during the praise time.      

The time of the apostles

I look up, and I am the silent witness of the sudden and spectacular coming of the Holy Spirit on the crowd…You would think that you were back in the time of the apostles described in the Bible: the less fortunate are healed of incurable illnesses, demons (yeah, you’ve read it right), unable to bear the celestial atmosphere, come out of several people, screaming (it’s scary !) and words of knowledge are given, directed at particular individuals in the crowd and with detailed precision. And, positioned as I am, it was bound to happen, I got a prophecy full in the face from the main speaker, saying some freaky things that God has planned to do with me (It’s silly, I am so surprised that I am being addressed from on the stage that I didn’t catch any of it…). 

What I like most at these big meetings is again what goes on behind the scenes, far from the stage. To my great joy, I notice that the sincerity of the contributors is the same as on stage.   

The door on the side…

I go outside to escape the incessant hubbub of the crowd. I am missing the gentle chant of the leaves rustling in the forest. A hedge wall runs alongside the path that leads to the hotel. Suddenly my eyes catch sight of a discreet little door, made of wire netting, embedded in it, a passage…

I look to the left, to the right, no-one there, my curiosity cautiously pushes me inside (it isn’t me, it’s the curiosity!) And there: surprise, surprise! In the very heart of this stressed town,

I find myself directly in the intimacy of the presence of Jesus, slap bang in the middle of a huge, verdant rugby stadium, surrounded by countryside and birdsong…Is this actually real? Free-roaming rabbits scamper about in the undergrowth (!!? okay, there’s no need to try to understand…)

I got a full dose of His tenderness.

In the evening the organisers of the meeting give me 3 mins. to speak to the big crowd. 3 mins. is very little, but in front of 13,000 people it’s a lot…What shall I say to them in so little time?

But the full dose received in my one-to-one with the Lord of the rabbits (and, incidentally, of the universe) in the afternoon overflows from my heart and despite the large size of the hall it fills it right up to the ceiling…

End of the evening, I am clapped out, everyone is leaving, deserting little by little the big hall. As very often, I am one of the last to leave the boat.

I remain alone with my thoughts, clearing away the comic books displayed on my stand. At the mediocre result of my sales, I wonder about my usefulness and my actual impact….

But when I raise my head, I find myself face to face with a not very large group of young people who have deliberately come to see me, visibly overwhelmed, they thank me with great warmth. One young girl, with tears in her eyes, tells me: ‘The three minutes when you spoke was what touched me most out of the whole weekend…’

The greatest thing that you can give is not your work (even if it is for God) but Jesus himself…