Dear Friends and Family,
In this Advent season, we’ve had a practice of lighting candles at the breakfast table. It’s a great reminder of light shining in darkness – and the kids love blowing out the candles! We’ve also been doing Advent readings from the Bible out loud each day. Something about speaking out words of hope and truth feels like an antidote to the uncertain and disappointing news of our world.
We have had several Christmas celebrations with our Bless Church community this year, including a Carol service, a Christingle and a Nativity re-enactment. We led worship at these services and loved singing this version “Noël” in French by History Makers Music: Noël
Thanksgiving
Thank you so much for praying with us for our Thanksgiving celebrations. We had an amazing time. We hosted about 70 people over two days with three turkeys and lots of delicious food. For many of our guests, this was their first American Thanksgiving dinner, and it was wonderful to share our traditions around the table and giving thanks to God. Hosting a couple of big dinners is a lot of work – especially for Joanna! Yet after all the dishes are washed and put away, we are sure that this is worth the effort.
There is a sweet spot for us in this sort of event in which we are creating intentionally welcoming spaces for not-yet believers and Jesus followers to be in community and where we have the opportunity to speak about Jesus. We sang “The Blessing” over our guests in French and English before the meal and we really felt the Lord’s presence in our home and His blessing on our guests. Thank you for your prayers and support for this important event in our community.
Year End Giving
We want to say thank you so much for your prayer support, your care for us and express how grateful we are to the Lord for the financial provision that allows us to join in this work. One-time financial gifts help us to make up the slight shortfall we have in our monthly support and help us with larger expenses that come up from time to time. Would you please prayerfully consider partnering with us in this way at the end of 2021? Click here to visit our partnership page.
Prayer Points:
Our family, as we are in France on our own for Christmas. Pray for much needed rest and restoration.
The homeless refugees that we work with in SOS Chai. Pray for food to be provided and places of warmth and shelter as the weather is cold and spirits are low.
Pray for our church community in Caen. We are at a point of growth(!) and we feel the need to find a location to rent and meet on Sunday mornings. Please pray for us as we follow the Lord’s leading in timing and location.
The Chosen, a crowd-funded Netflix style series on the disciples and the life of Jesus is going to be on prime time television this week in France! This is an amazing opportunity for the real reason for Christmas to be made known in France. Please pray that people watch and their hearts are opened to the Gospel. We have told our friends and hope to speak with them about the series!
We are thankful for your love and support to us this year and always. May you know deep and abiding hope as we celebrate Emmanuel, God with us this Christmas.
Love,
The Appels
