Joyeux Automne! (Happy Fall!)

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It is hard to believe that it has been a year since our vision trip to France! So much has happened and we have much to be grateful for, in particular, YOU! who have been with us on this journey for sometime now! We are eager to get back to France and begin the work that we believe God has called us to do there and we are happy to say that every day we are getting closer to making that a reality.

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November 1st is coming!

We are praying and working hard to reach the 80% mark of our needed monthly budget by November 1st! We are still looking for monthly or annual partners to help us make this goal. If you would like to become a partner, visit our partner page!

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P-ART-NERSHIP

In November, we are launching an exciting Kickstarter-like campaign to raise a portion of our launch funds for France! If you aren’t familiar with this type of crowdfunding website, basically there are levels of gifts to help reach the fundraising goal. Each level has certain "rewards" associated with it, anything from a virtual high-five to a handmade guitar! As you know, art and music are playing a key role in our ministry in France. So, we have decided that for some of these "rewards" we would include some items that artists, including ourselves, have created and donated to help launch us. If you are a professional artist, musician or know of someone who would be willing to donate an item or items to help support this campaign, please email Joanna to talk about becoming a p-ART-ner (cheesy, I know, but it works!) We already have some great items on this list and are excited to share them with you in a few weeks time!

Two Partner Churches!

We were very pleased to learn this month that two churches have officially decided to make us mission partners—the Gate Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee, and Christ Church Chorleywood, in the UK. The Gate is a place where we have served as house church leaders and found community while we have been in and out of Nashville over the past decade. It is also the home base for the Messenger Fellowship network with which we hope to work with when we are in France. Convenient how God does that, huh? ;) Christ Church Chorleywood is a church where Tom served as the Youth Leader during our time in England and a place where we were released in many ministries as young twenty-somethings. Both churches have been hugely formational in our development and we are so blessed to have their support as we head to France. Praise Jesus!

Trip to Dover, DE

Tom will be jetting off to Dover—the city where he spent most of his youth—the weekend of December 4th. He will be sharing and helping to lead worship at Grace Church. If you are in the Delaware area and would like to connect, please email Tom! He would love to see you!

Autumn is a time where we think about the harvest and are grateful. We are certainly grateful for all of you! Praying peace and blessings on you and yours!

Video Update from The Appels

We made a little video update along with some French Lessons from the Appel Boys!

Prayer Points

Thank you for praying for us! Here are somethings that we would love for you to keep in your prayers over the next few weeks.

• Pray for the development of church partnerships. We are currently in process with two churches that will be making important decisions this month about partnership. We are also looking for more congregations who might feel led to partner with us in ministering to France.
• Pray for our family health. We feel like God is calling our family to rest, heal, and strengthen as we prepare to go to the field. We also are praying for continued health in Joanna's pregnancy as we get ready to become a family of six!
• Pray for France. We are burdened for the people of France to know Jesus. Pray for the strengthening of the church and the ministers already hard at work in France. Pray that people would continue to be open to the message of love and hope that Christ brings to all.

New Seasons

Bonjour Nos Amis!

We hope that you are having a lovely spring and getting ready for all the summertime fun coming soon! As we exchange our boots for flip flops, you may have heard that we are exchanging our trucks and superhero gear for ribbons and bows with the news that we are expecting a little GIRL in September! We are in a bit of shock and feeling out our depth after living in boy-land for so long, but we are so grateful that God is bringing something completely new to our family! What a ride!

MDiv—Check!!!!

ALSO—with a whole lot of “YAY!” in our hearts—we are within reach of Tom completing his Masters of Divinity! He will be in Indiana these next two weeks taking his final intensive course. When he comes home, HE IS DONE! This is thrilling for us as he has worked so hard for four and a half years, whilst working a full time job, growing our family by three and a half, and moving four times. All we can say is we have a superhero in our family! We are so proud of him for this big accomplishment and, at the same time, so very happy to see the end of seminary!

Finding Ministry Partners

This new season for us is one of focused fundraising to get us to the field in France (there’s some alliteration for you!). We are planning to fill our days and nights with phone calls, meetings, Skype chats, presentations and concerts - basically doing all we can follow this calling to France quickly. We have never been so excited to be so busy! We are eager to partner with God in what He is already doing in France. We are feeling such peace in our calling to go and in simply seeking out the people God will stir and call to partner with us financially. We are taking a trip to South Carolina via Atlanta in June and have a few other things in the pipeline too! We are so grateful to already have 36 families and individuals who have started partnering with us! Thanks folks, this means we are at 27% of our needed monthly partnerships. We are in need of both one-time gifts, which build up our launch funds (visas, plane tickets, set up costs, language school etc.) AND monthly partnerships which sustain the work we will be doing in France and will keep us there! If you would like to meet with us or simply are ready to partner now, please visit our Partner page by clicking the button below:

God is on the move in Europe!

Even though we are not yet in the field, we are excited to share some of the news from GEM and the Bless Network, who are sharing the love of Jesus to those who are suffering in the Refugee Crisis. 

Photo: International Business Times

GEM Refuge, an initiative through our sending agency, Greater Europe Mission, has teams on the ground in Lesvos, Greece, working with the refugees who have made the treacherous journey across the sea in hopes of a life of peace. Visit this site: gemission.org/refuge and see how the love of Jesus is impacting these who are in need of hope through GEM missionaries!

S.O.S Chai - Bless Network

The Bless Network, based outside of Caen in Normandy (which we visited when we were in Europe in October), has recently acquired an old ambulance and transformed it into a tea truck with the purpose of serving the refugees living in "The Jungle"—a large refugee camp in Calais, on the North coast of France. We love their heart and creativity in finding a way to serve. Here is a blog post about their latest trip to The Jungle:

Thank you for reading and journeying with us. We are grateful for you and hold you in our prayers!

Á la prochaine! (until next time!)

Blessings,
The Appels
Tom, Joanna, Reuben, Eli, Silas, and Baby Girl

Appel Update 🍎🍎🍎+🍎

Our March Mayhem

As many of you know, we moved to Nashville in mid-March in order to engage with several churches and our established networks more readily before we go to France. The first rental we moved into turned out to have some major issues and after a week of hard work and heavy prayer, we decided that we needed to move out. Thankfully, we have generous friends who were willing to house a displaced family of five for a week while we found a new place to live! We were able to quickly find a rental south of the city that was a manageable in price for us and CLEAN! We have been here two weeks now and are just starting to get rid of the boxes and come up for air. So we apologize if we have been uncommunicative or MIA for a while but this has demanded all of our focus and energy the for the past month! This has been a period of many transitions, disappointments, pests and mold, but also there have been so many times where God has shown himself faithful and that He has gone before us in this process. We are grateful in the midst of our weariness.

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Another Blessing!!!!

We are looking forward to this next season of strengthening our family, training for the field and fundraising. There is much to do to prepare for a move cross-culturally not to mention we are expecting to add another little one to our family come September! Jo is 18 weeks pregnant! We are excited to have a growing family and to be able to have this baby whilst still stateside and amongst family and close friends—not to mention English speaking medical care! We believe in God's perfect timing and are confident that we can still meet our goal of heading to France by the end of this year, with four little ones in tow! 

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Gratitude

We know that you have all kinds of plates spinning in the air, balls that you are juggling and simply “life” that fills up your time and zaps your energy.We appreciate your prayers and your support for us as we have dealt with “life” these past few weeks and months. We look forward to the time when we can speak to you in person and thank you for all the prayers that you have lifted up on our behalf. Prayer has carried us through a very difficult time and we are grateful to you for included us in yours!

Light Breaking Through, Angers

Prayer Needs

• Tom, as he has a month and a half left of seminary and it is a doozy! Finishing up six courses in that time with epic final papers and portfolios before graduation is no small task. Please pray for endurance, for blessed writing, and peace as he completes this important degree.
• Joanna, as she watches the boys in Tom’s absence and continues to settle into our temporary home. Also pray for times of rest for her in the second half of her pregnancy.
• The Boys, as they handle the many transitions we have had and that they can find a sense of rhythm quickly.
• The Baby, as it grows, for health, strength and peace.
• France. The attacks in Belgium happened in the midst of our moves and we have been devastated by yet another attack on innocent Europeans. We feel even more urgency to get over there to help spread the Gospel of Peace and the message of Jesus’ love, hope and redemption. Pray for peace, for God’s light to shine in the darkness, and for hope for the hopeless in France.

Love and Grace and Peace to you all,

The Appels
Tom, Joanna, Reuben, Eli, Silas and Baby Appel #4

Moving to Nashville

Au Revior Texas!

We are saying “Goodbye” to our current home with Tom’s folks in Keller, Texas this week and looking at our final stateside move before we head to France! Woot! The time here with close family and new friends has been sweet and also a welcomed rest with grandparents to help with the our rambunctious boys.

Bonjour Nashville!

We are excited to be moving back to our “hometown” of Nashville, Tennessee! It is the city where we went to University, where Tom and I got married, and where the twins were born—needless to say, it is a very special place for us. Not only are there some tremendous memories and familiarity with the city, it is a place where we have some roots! If you are a Nashvillian friend and would like to get together, please let us know!

Partnership Update

We are thrilled to have more people joining us in ministry to France this month! Thank you so much to those of you who have already begun to partner with us financially. We are approaching 20% committed of our monthly funds! We have been meeting frequently with people over the past few months via Skype or Facetime and it has been great to reconnect and see your faces! We were blessed by the opportunity to lead worship and speak briefly about what God is doing in France to our church in Texas, Vineyard of Grace, a couple weeks ago. When we move to Nashville, we are going to be engaging a great deal with The Gate Community Church, with whom we have a long standing relationship. Additionally we have a widespread network of friends and churches in the middle Tennessee area. We are looking forward to engaging in person in this part of the US over the coming months as we work towards our goal to be fully funded by the end of 2016.

Bar Du Centre, Angers

Prayer is Urgent

• In the city of Angers, where we will be located, there are currently only seven protestant churches for a population of 500,000. Less than one quarter of one percent of the population is an active member in one of the seven churches, that is one for every 1,250 people! Pray that God’s light would shine through these people who are currently living for Jesus in this city!
• Tom is approaching the halfway point in his final semester of seminary and it is a very heavy course load. Pray for endurance and peace for him as he continues his studies.
• We are moving in two days! (March 10 and 11) and getting settled in our new home the week following. Please pray for our family, for safety in our travels and moments of rest in the midst of a big transition.

We are so grateful for you and want thank you for all your support! We look forward to seeing all the amazing things God is going to do over the next few months. 

Love and Grace and Peace to you all,

The Appels

Life In Between

Bonjour Friends! We are trying to get healthy again down here in Texas after being hit with a brutal cold virus! Thank you for praying for us! Tom has started his final semester in seminary to complete his Masters of Divinity and he spent the first two weeks of the year in Indiana studying Interfaith Dialogue. He will be traveling back there periodically over the next few months. We are full swing into our fund raising for the field and are excited to share what God is doing!

God at Work Now

We are grateful in this time of living in-between the call and the country, that God is moving in our lives and in the lives of those around us. We have had the privilege to lead worship a few times at Vineyard of Grace church here in Keller, the boys have memorized the Lord’s Prayer and Joanna was given the opportunity to lead a co-worker at Starbucks to Christ just before Christmas!
 
We were reading through our journals from our vision trip to France and were struck with the way God was breaking our hearts for the people while we were there in person. Life and ministry can seem simply hypothetical when we are so distant from the mission field. We are thousands of miles away from French soil and months away from being there ourselves, but we don’t want that to diminish the sense of urgency we feel for the people of France to hear about the love of Jesus. The front page of our website says, “The hope for this nation is Jesus”. France is in such dire need of hope and we are eager to move there to be lights in a dark place!

La Rochelle, France (West Coast)

The Road to France

To that end, we began to invite financial partnership in earnest in mid-December and we are excited to report that we have reached 15% of our needed monthly support already! Thank you to those of you have already begun to partner with us financially, we are blessed by you! Our method for fundraising is to meet with people, either face-to-face or computer-screen-to-computer-screen, to see if God is stirring individuals to become partners in God’s ministry to France through our family. We are blessed to have a long list of friends that we get to contact, making phone calls and setting up dates during nap times and after the boys go to bed. It has been wonderful to connect with everyone so far and we are looking forward to speaking to more of you in the coming weeks and months.

If God is stirring your heart to support us financially NOW, then please contact us right away! No seriously, click the button below right now! We will set up a time as soon as possible to share with you what God is doing in France and how you can join us!

Prayer Points

-Tom, in full-FULL time seminary this semester (taking 7 classes!)

-Our family, as we live in this time of transition

-Our upcoming move to Nashville, more to come on this - we are so excited to be back in our “home town” and to engage with our long time church family at The Gate Community Church

-GEM France Team, as they engage with new believers and the lost across France and for the GEM Refuge project that focuses on serving those in the middle of the refugee crisis in Europe.

Love and Grace and Peace to you all,

The Appels

Entering a New Year

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.” - Minnie Louise Haskins

These lines of poetry were read by King George VI during his 1939 Christmas broadcast to the British empire. We know them because our Vicar, Gavin, would offer them as a point of reflection at a service around New Year's Eve each year. While I’ve always found these words powerful, they seem especially poignant as we look ahead towards 2016. Our focus this year, is to move towards our call to be missionaries in France. We will be actively working to build a team of people to partner with us in prayer and financially to move us towards this goal. This work can be challenging, especially because the path ahead (the way towards France) isn’t very well lit. What a wonderful blessing to need to trust in God! 

A Fun Video!

Each year during Advent, we teach our sons a new Bible verse by using some fun actions—the promise of advent chocolate doesn’t hurt the learning process either! Isaiah 9:2 is a key verse in our vision for the people of France who do not know the love of God in Christ. Even as we are constantly in need of God’s light for our path, we pray that the people walking in darkness in France would see the great light of Jesus. Here’s a fun video of our boys sharing their Advent verse:  

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, for those living in the land of deep shadows — Light! Sunbursts of Light!”  - Isaiah 9:2

Vision Trip: Answered Prayer

Happy Thanksgiving, friends! We are grateful for you and especially thankful for your willingness to pray and journey with us in this exciting season! We have arrived safely back in Texas after spending two weeks with Joanna’s parents in Arkansas. This was a joyful time for us to be back together as our little family unit after our long separation during the vision trip. The trip also gave us some much needed time to reflect and pray about all that God was working in us while we were in France.

Clarity

In our last post, we shared some moments with you in which we saw glimpses of what our future ministry might look like. Please have a read here if you were unable to do so before. We didn’t mean to leave you with a cliff-hanger, but we did also mention how thrilled we are that the Lord brought us to a such a strong place of clarity about some significant plans for how we are to join in His work in France:

We are GEM

Greater Europe Mission has an incredible team in France! We felt strong confirmation that they are the right fit for a missions team and sending agency for us. We were able to meet almost all of the the GEM France team at their annual retreat (silly face pictured above) and it was impressive to see such a strong group of leaders moving with one vision, but with a variety of styles and approaches to ministry. GEM values the unique design of each missionary and also puts a high priority on missionary families thriving on the field. We loved the sense of family that has been cultivated with GEM France, and it seemed like a wonderful group for our boys to fit in with too.

We are going to Angers

While we are holding our plans about where we will land and what sort of ministry we will be leading with open hands, it looks our long term role with GEM will be as city leaders in Angers, France. This is a city we love dearly and the part of France that has been on our hearts since we started pursuing this call.
 

Language School

When we move to France, the first thing we will do is attend language school. Our conversations with French people highlighted the need to work hard at language and increased our passion to learn.
 

Intentional Partnership

We felt such confirmation about GEM as our team, but we also felt a strong sense of confirmation for us to partner intentionally with Bless and Messenger Fellowship. The exact nature of what these relationships will look like is developing still, but our meetings and connections confirmed that God is doing something there.

Summary

We asked you to pray with us that God would give us clarity about where and with whom we would be focused in ministry, and God answered our prayers! It is so exciting to not only have confirmation about going with GEM in Angers as city leaders, but also to have strong relationships growing with the amazing folks at Bless and Messenger. This is more than we could have imagined, and truly a call and vision that sets our hearts on fire!  

Next Steps

Next up for us is a season of inviting partnership. We will be praying and actively seeking people and churches to invest prayer and finances with us towards this Kingdom work in France. We would love for you to pray about how God is calling you to participate in reaching the French people with the message of Jesus. More to come on this soon!

Again we want to thank you so much for praying for us and our children while we were away. We are grateful for you and how you are already partners with us in what God is calling us to do. Have a grateful day!

Blessings,
The Appels

France through Story

22 Days and over 9,000 miles by plane, train, car and ferry boat, we have arrived safely home from our Vision trip to France.  Thank you so much for praying with us and for us this past month. It has been an amazing time and we are so thankful to be back with our sons.

Glimpses of Future Ministry

God was so gracious in answering our prayers.  We are coming home with much greater clarity about what we will do and with whom we will work in France. If we were to put all the things into a single newsletter, we might break your inbox so in this email we want to highlight a few things that God was showing us. Here are some moments that stirred our hearts profoundly for what our lives and work in France may be like someday:  

Speaking to French People about Jesus

Christian and Christine, were our hosts at an AirBnB where we spent a couple of nights in Angers, France. They were a very gracious, older french couple and we had the opportunity to sit and talk with them a couple of times each day.  Our second night there, our conversation turned towards religion. They expressed a belief that theology was different than the church, because the church was about rules and theology was about one’s personal opinion about God. We were able to talk about Jesus and share some verses with them to show that Jesus is not about rules or heavy burdens. We ended up talking about grace and how it isn’t heavy at all.  Later when we shared this experience with some of the missionaries we met, they were amazed that this couple was so open to the conversation. French people are rarely so quick to open up in spiritual dialogue. We see this conversation, in part, as a gift from God—a glimpse of what is to come for us in France.

Leading Worship in French

That’s right, our first Sunday in France we were asked to help lead sung worship for the Bless Sunday service at Bethanie with songs in French and English. It was an amazing experience and stirred us up to learn more songs in French and someday to be writing some of these songs, not only for worship but also as part of a vision to use the arts as a starting point to help not yet believing French people come to Jesus.

Family Ministry

It may simply be that since we have three amazing little boys we are more aware of families with kids, but wherever we were in France it seemed that we were seeing parents and kids. We believe that God has called our family together to France and God was stirring up something in us about the way we can live our witness to His love and goodness as a family in France.

Intercession for France

It began as we went up to the outside observation deck of the ferry that was taking us across from Portsmouth, UK to Caen in Normandy. It isn’t that we haven’t prayed for France before, but as we saw the land we were broken in a fresh way for the people who are living in darkness and we were brought to tears. As we continued to pray for the French people on this trip, God has been filling our hearts with love towards them. One morning, we went with a GEM missionary in Grenoble to a rougher part of the city.  As we walked he showed us the places where the drug dealers sell their products and told us how their first attempts at running a soccer day for the youth in the neighborhood was met by people throwing rocks at them. As we walked in this neighborhood and saw the refugee camps nearby, as we walked in the streets and sat in the cafes, we began to see the deep brokenness of the French people and the hunger for something more. This trip has driven us to our knees even more for this country.

Next Steps

In these moments on our trip and with a better sense of the details moving forward, God has overwhelmingly confirmed our call to France. We have more clarity on details like, where we are going and what we will be doing which we are excited to share with you in our next—and coming soon—newsletter.

In our next season in the States, Tom is running to the finish line of his Mdiv and Jo is still blogging and working at Starbucks. We will be praying for and working to raise the resources we need to follow this call to France. We would love for you to pray about how God is calling you to participate in reaching the French people with the message of Jesus.

Again we want to thank you so much for praying for us and our children while we were away. We are grateful for you and your partnership with us in what God is calling us to do. Many blessings on you and yours this season! 

Blessings,
The Appels

Paris Attacks

My Dear Friends, 
We have watched and been broken by the reckless acts of hatred and terror that have transpired in France over the past 24 hours. Our prayers are with the wounded, the families of those who have lost loved ones, and with the people of France who have been terrorized by these horrible acts of violence. 

We have been preparing to send you an encouraging report about all that God did in us when we were in France on our vision trip a few weeks ago. Those newsletters will be coming your way in the next few days but, we felt we had to respond now to what the enemy is trying to do in the country we love so much. 

The best thing we can do right now is to pray together for France.Our most important work is on our knees before the Lord interceding for the French people. For those who mourn personal losses today. For their leaders, their government, the pastors and priests, the lost and broken, the poor and needy, the immigrants and refugees, for those living in darkness. Let us pray for healing in this nation that is bleeding. 

Please join us in praying for France: 

God who knows our suffering, 
You are our light in darkness even when it feels
that darkness has won the day.
Comfort your people in France and be close to those who have lost loved ones.  
Let us not succumb to fear or hate but would follow your example
of love for our enemies, especially when it hurts.
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord who bore the weight of all our sin.  

Amen.
 

Thank you for praying for us while we were away. Please continue in prayer for France over these next few days, weeks and months.

James 5:16 "The effective prayer of a righteous person has great power."

Love and Blessings,
The Appels