Hello Friends and Family,
First of all, THANK YOU for coming to our aid in prayer when we asked a month ago! We feel so honored and blessed by you, our partners, we are very privileged to have you on our team. The Lord answers prayers and your outpouring of prayer for us was answered by several miracles in our family. Reuben’s stomach pains are healed. Eli’s planters wart is healed. Both Reuben and Eli’s arm’s are back to normal, and Elodie has a surgery scheduled in June! All of these I believe are healings that happened because of your prayers for us. Thank you again from the bottom of our hearts!
I don’t know about in your neck of the woods, but here in France, we are having a very late spring. We have had many nights below freezing in the month of May, very little sunshine and a lot of wind. Things are just starting to warm up here, blossom and bloom, but it all feels a little late. Like the land has been waiting, along with the people of France, for life to open up again.
We are approaching the 77th anniversary of the D-Day landing here in Normandy this weekend. Normally we would be hearing bagpipes all day, every day down by Pegasus Bridge and battling old army jeep parades and tourist traffic to get the kids to school, but this slow immersion from the global pandemic has France on an auto-pilot of work, school, home until further notice. There are still many restrictions in place. France recently closed the border to the UK (for the next month at least) due to the rising numbers of the Indian COVID variant, this means a serious lack of tourism for our region in particular and a further rupture in relationship between the France and the UK post Brexit. Plus we are still under a 9pm curfew and a mandatory mask order. It still feels difficult to plan ahead or to gather in any kind of group, which makes life and ministry somewhat challenging. But things are starting to slowly show signs of life, the cafes and restaurants were able to open for outdoor seatings in late May for the first time since October! Needless to say, we had lunch at Keys & Co, despite cold and wind. It was glorious! Museums and theaters have been allowed to open, with restrictions, and there is a well laid out plan with DATES which will bring life closer to normal. We are hopeful that these signs of life will continue!
Bless en Famille
We are so thankful that the restrictions lifted enough for us to have our church weekend away in mid-May called Bless En Famille. We made our way down to the campsite L’Orangerie de Beauregard, in Villedômer near the city of Tours. This is the campsite that is owned and run by the Rockes, a family in the Bless Network who are also leading a Bless church plant in their village. We hosted and lead three days of worship, teaching, prayer and fellowship for about 35 church members with a guest speaker, Jonathan Manou, a pastor in Paris and a friend of Tom’s through Messenger Fellowship.
It was a really special time to be together after so many months of isolation. We had powerful times of worship and prayer, healing and deliverance. We left the weekend feeling much more connected and encouraged by the deep works the Lord is doing in our church body. Also It was such a joy to have the kids so actively involved in ministry with us, Silas drummed in the worship band, Reuben ran the words for worship on the computer, Elodie danced and cuddled and Eli was our sign maker and go-getter, he would just hop on his bike and run and get what or whoever we needed at the time. We really enjoyed camping as a family and we will be doing much more of this in the coming months.
France Field Leadership Council with GEM
Tom has now begun to settle into his new role as the Community Director for all Greater Europe Missions missionaries in France. As a reminder, in February Tom began this new role of field leadership on a council of three: a partnership director, ministry director, and community director. The easiest way to describe what he is doing is that he is a pastor/community organizer for missionaries on the field in France. Plus he is the director for all new appointed missionaries coming to France. The Leadership Council meets weekly and also tends to have a number of zoom meetings with individuals and couples throughout the week. It is quite a big task to add to what he is already doing with Bless, we are seeking the Lord for balance and wisdom for how to work with our two organizations well and without burning out.
Caen
We are beginning to settle into a rhythm of gathering as church in Caen on Sunday evenings at our building, #3. Above are some pictures from our Pentecost Celebration Service. We have been broadcasting live on Facebook in order to connect with those church members who do not yet feel comfortable gathering in person. This week we are hosting a BBQ at our home for the church to celebrate the warmer weather, D-day anniversary, and being together safely outdoors!
Every week, Tom is leading a French / English language group for refugees who come to #3 before SOS Chai. He has really enjoyed developing relationship with the boys and hearing their stories. There is a growing number of lads showing up every week! We are excited to see how God is growing this ministry.
La vie associative has re-started this week! That means that we are able to attend our local clubs and see some of our friends for the first time in months! We have concert planned with the Nashville Caen Twinning association to celebrate the Fourth of July much like last year. We are excited to play music out in the city again!
Summer
School lets out on the 7th of July here and we are going to take a few weeks off to go camping in Brittany and then back down at l’Orangerie de Beauregard. The first week in August, we will be serving at the campsite in Villedomer as camp pastors, leading morning prayers and doing the worship and teaching at the church plant on Sundays. Also during this week we will be attending GEM’s Annual Conference online. Normally we would be traveling to Slovenia, but due to the pandemic, we have had to postpone our in person gathering for another year.
Prayer Requests:
Family Health - Tom has a complicated dental situation which will hopefully be resolved this afternoon by a local dental surgeon. If she is unable to do it, it could be months and travel to Paris before it gets fixed.
Elodie has a tonsillectomy and an adenoidectomy scheduled for June 23rd. Pray for everything to go smoothly, with no complications and a quick recovery.
Church in Caen, that it we would see breakthrough and more people coming to know the Love of God in our city.
Pray for comfort for our family - many of our missionary friends are returning to the USA for the summer or longer. We are feeling the disappointment of not returning ourselves this summer as we had planned. We feel it is the right decision for us, but we are missing friends and family.
