Springtime on the Farm, Summer on the Road

Bonjour Nos Amis! We hope you are having a good start to the summer! It is hard to believe that we’ve been living at Béthanie for three months now! In some ways the time has flown by, as we’ve started to serve on the church planting team in Caen, at the same time, we can’t wait to move into the rental house God has provided in Bénouville on the outskirts of the city. We’ve been reflecting on the fact that this move will mark the first time in the past 3 years that we will be moving into a home without the set expectation that we will be moving again before a year is up. What an incredible way to learn about God’s faithfulness and watch the way He cares for us in community. We have been overwhelmed again and again at the support we’ve had in this journey, Thank you for being with us along the way and what a joy to be seeing God at work in France!

Falaise Chateau

Medieval Fair at St. Pierre sur Dives

Juno Beach

Caen

Preparing for Caen

Over the past few months, we have been getting to know Normandy better. House hunting helped the process! We have visited nearby towns, explored the beaches and stormed William the Conqueror’s castles. We are starting to familiarize ourselves with where we will be living come August 16th(!!!!!), our little village Bénouville! We are beyond excited to get into our rental home where we plan to stay put for a little while. We are even preparing to ship our belongings overseas after a year and a half in storage! Is it possible to breathe a sigh of relief and jump up and down with excitement?

We also had the opportunity to visit the local school in Bénouville and we had a wonderful experience with the head teacher. She spent an hour with us and all the kids, taking us on a thorough visit of the both the elementary school and preschool. We were very impressed and had a real peace about the kids attending school there. So much so that we have decided to send Silas there as well instead of the Montessori school in Caen. We do believe that he will do well in this new environment, with his brothers close by and walking distance from home! We are excited to get involved in our little community and start our weekly rhythms together in the fall.

Contributing to the Bless Team

It has been great to have this extra time at Béthanie to get to know the Bless Team and understand our role better. We are leading worship weekly at the church plant that meets in Caen and at Béthanie, and we are exploring ways on how to do this as a family. We have helped a bit with SOS Chai and serving the Refugee Boys, with the kids along with us. They love to play games with them, I literally had to drag Reuben away the other week! We are helping with groups and visitors who come to Béthanie with worship leading, building relationships, prayer, and prepping the site, cooking and cleaning. We love working with this small but dedicated group of people, we feel truly blessed to be a part of it all!

Though being at Béthanie has it’s obvious peaceful benefits (cows for neighbors, glowing sunsets, green grass and wildflowers), it has been a busy season of ministry, not to mention hanging out with the kiddos 24/7 and contributing to the upkeep and improvement of Béthanie. Since our arrival, we have helped to: refurbish the community kitchen, put a window in the prayer room, hang a gallery wall in the gathering space, repurpose a ruined building on the property into a patio/BBQ, water flowers, plant an herb garden, launder the linens from guests who come to visit, and do lots of weeding, cleaning and runs to the local déchetterie (trash dump). It is great to be able to a part of this community and be able to be on-site to help make a mark on this very special place in the Normandy country side.

Full Summer

July and August will be busy months for us as starting July 6th, we are traveling to the Black Forest in Germany for GEM’s First-termer’s Retreat. We will be there with other first-time missionaries who have recently (the past year or two) arrived to the field. We are looking forward to seeing friends from GEM who are in the same boat as us and also we are excited to have our children be with other MK’s and benefit from some child care!

We have friends The Halls (from The Gate Community Church in Nashville) here for a visit and they are leading worship for a Bless event called ‘Bootcamp'. When we return from Germany on the July 15th, we will spend a few days at Béthanie with them and then all of us are going down to Villedômer to the L’Orangerie de Beauregard campsite (part of the Bless Network) to meet up with the students from the Bootcamp. We are going to put on a little concert at the campsite for the locals and the guests with the Ryan and Karen Hall and lead worship together at church the next day.

We will be back at Béthanie for one week, then we fly to GEM’s Annual Conference in Slovenia from July 30th to August 5th. This is a gathering of all the missionaries and staff of GEM for training, sharing vision, and family fellowship. We are so excited to be going back to the same place last year and see friends from all over Europe and North America in the same place!

After having such a crazy summer last year with very little rest built in before school started, we made family holiday plans early this year and booked a week away in Brittany, from August 8th to the 15th. When we return from this time of needed rest, we will pick up a moving truck and move into our new rental home on August 16th!!! We will then have two weeks to unpack and sort out some furniture before school starts for the boys and then we are off to the races!

Pray for Us

• Pray for stamina and safety as we travel all over Europe this summer.
• Pray for the ministry opportunities that we have through Bless and GEM, particularly the church plants in Villedômer, Béthanie, and Caen.
• Pray for Reuben, Eli, Silas, and Elodie as we spend the summer on the road, and prepare for the Rentrée (start of classes) after the long summer.

Bon Courage!

Thank you friends and family for being with us as we get settled and minister in France. We love you and so appreciate your support and prayers for our family. We pray that you all have peaceful, restful, fun and fantastic summer. 

Love,

The Appels

Normandie Appels

Hello Friends!

Our first month or so here in Normandie has been an incredible blessing! We are working with a small team to plant a church and serving a large population of refugees who are living homeless in the city. It has been amazing already to see what God is doing here and we are having a blast experiencing ministry as a family. Thank your for praying with us especially about our transition. In our last emails, we asked for prayer especially because renting a house was seeming nigh on impossible but...

We found a home!

After a couple months of disappointment in our house search, we have found a beautiful home to rent starting mid-August! The house is in a small village called Bénouville, between Caen and Ouistreham. It is about 15 minutes to Keys & Co, and 10 minutes to the beach on the English Channel or La Manche as it is called here! The village is famous for Pegasus Bridge, any World War II buffs will know the significance, but it is the first place to be liberated in France, just before the D-Day invasion. The house is amazing and perfect for our family (and guests!). We move in August 16th, so that means three more months out at Béthanie, but that also means we get to be a part of all the summer groups that are coming (more on that later!).

Thank you so much for your prayers for us to find a home. We really felt that after we asked for prayer on our last email and on facebook, that the doors were flung open to us! Your prayers are powerful! After three years of living in transition, a home for our family will be such a blessing and we couldn't have made it without you! We will post plenty of pictures when we move in a few months, so stay tuned and start planning your visits!

 

Wellness

We just want to praise the Lord that our kids have not been sick, but once, since we have moved to Normandie. This is a significant change for us and we could not be more grateful to have kids that are thriving! It could be the countryside, it could be the fact that the kids aren't in school, perhaps a combination of the two, but it has been a relief for us as a family. So thank you again for your prayers for our family's health!

Worship

Our move to Normandie has meant that we are starting to engage in our new church environment and that means we are leading worship regularly in French and English! It has been wonderful for us to worship together as a family and with the Bless Network. The kids are learning to participate during the sung worship times, sometimes singing, playing drums, taking pictures (like the one above!) or dancing. 

Along with our church gatherings on Sundays, we have recently led worship for Blesstival, which was a four-day, international gathering at the brand new campsite L'Orangerie de Beauregard near Tours, France. We were so blessed to be able to participate in the grand opening of this campsite that has been three years in the making! Over 120 French neighbors, including the Mayor and a regional representative were at the opening ceremony. This endeavor is a part of creating spaces where people can encounter God and meet devoted believers, who are working to bless the community around them. Check out the campsite here: www.orangeriedebeauregard.com

Some of you may remember the story we told about singing in churches in the Loire Valley on a holiday 10 years ago, before we knew what God was really doing to bring us to France as missionaries. And now, to lead worship at a gathering in the Loire Valley after a decade of praying, working, traveling, and growing, was really quite special for us. We are so grateful for what God is doing and how he has brought us to this point where we are doing the very thing he put in our hearts all those years ago.

This Summer

We are keeping busy this summer with several groups coming through Bethanie, (including some of our friends from the Gate Community Church in Nashville!). We will be leading worship and helping host these groups while we live out in Livarot. We are also traveling to Germany in July for a first-term missionary retreat with GEM and to Slovenia in August for GEM's Annual Conference. We will continue to lead worship at the weekly church gatherings in Caen and at Béthanie, and help out with SOS Chai when we can!

The kids have not been in school since we left Massy. We are seeing these months as an opportunity to spend good time with them before the twins start first grade in the autumn. Silas will be attending a bi-lingual Montessori kindergarten next year, which we are hoping will help him enjoy school and speaking french (which would be a contrast to when we were in Massy where he dreaded school). It means our days are full, looking after all four of our littles and trying to get a few things done as we go along. 

PRAYER

Please join us in prayer for the church plant in Caen, for the refugee ministry, and for our families travel and settling this summer. Here are a couple of specific points for prayer: 

- Please pray for wisdom as we plan and pray over the summer for church growth, we are currently meeting 2x a month at a wonderful coffeeshop called Keys and Co. We'd like to expand to meeting weekly and we may soon need an additional or larger venue. 

- The numbers fluctuate but there are between 40 and 120 refugees who are served a hot meal by SOS Chai 2x a week. Even more importantly the team is demonstrating God's love and setting up a loving community space in a rather dire environment.  A specific prayer for this area is for wisdom to know where to begin in ministering to a large number of women who are trafficked right by where we serve the refugees. 

-  Please pray in advance for our new neighborhood in Bénouville, we know that God prepares work to join Him in, in advance. We would love to begin having a group including not yet believers meeting in our home in the coming year. 

Merci Beaucoup! We are so grateful for you continued prayers and support! We are full of praise and thanksgiving to our God who is good and gracious beyond measure!

Sending love from Normandie,

The Appels

Between Massy and Caen

Dear Family and Friends,

Greetings from sometimes-sunny Normandie. It is startlingly beautiful here. Apple trees are in blossom and everything is so green, quite a contrast from life on the outskirts of Paris. We are currently living at Béthanie the missions base of Bless network/retreat and training center that also has an amazing prayer room and is home to Gerard and Chrissie Kelly, our gracious hosts.  Béthanie used to be a cider farm and still has some prodigious apple trees. The nearest town is Livarot, which is famous for a somewhat pungent and rather tasty cheese. It is about a 40 min drive to Caen from here. The Bless team here at Béthanie and in Caen have welcomed us warmly, which is just as well since finding a house to rent near Caen is proving quite the task. More on that in a moment.

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Visa Renewal

We arrived in Normandy the Thursday before Easter. Good Friday morning, Joanna and I left Béthanie well before sunrise to wait in line at the prefecture in Caen to submit our dossier for our visa renewal. This was not something we were looking forward to as we’d heard horror stories from friends about long delays and hours of waiting in line only to be told to come back for an appointment in 3 months. Amazingly we were able to get in on that day and get our visa dossier submitted! Thank you for praying with us about this!

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday we had the privilege of leading worship as a family at Bless Church Caen, which meets in a wonderful coffee shop called Keys and Co. All of our sons helped us lead worship either by playing drums, dancing and singing or helping with the words on the screen and Elodie was happy to be held and get to know several of our new church friends.

Finding a Home

Back to house hunting – we’ve had a few disappointments here in Normandy as we’ve tried to find a house to rent. The major challenge is that we are foreigners. We’ve had a couple of landlords reject our applications because we are foreign. Another challenge is that there are not a lot of houses for rent that are big enough to fit our family. Please pray with us as we continue to look for the right spot. We have one application in process and one other house to see this week. We know that God has gone before us and know exactly where we will be, please pray for our patience as we continue to search and wait! 

Ministry with the Bless Network

As we've been out with the team at Béthanie, our role with Bless has become clearer and we'd like to let you know a little more! We’ve come to Caen to join in the work that God is doing through the Bless Network and others, with the prayer that we might see individuals, neighborhoods, and the city transformed by God’s love. The work that Bless Network is engaged in at the moment in Caen happens in roughly three ways:

Keys and Co.

The vision for this coffee shop was developed in the prayer room. Mylene, Thierry, and their daughter Stephanie launched Keys and Co 2 years ago after pushing through some major obstacles. They want this café to be a place of peace and space where people encounter God. They also run the place with excellence and have been recognized as one of the top cafés in the region.

Refugee Connections and Hot Meals with SOS Chai

Now on its second retro-fitted ambulance, SOS Chai began as a team of people from Bless taking tea and kindness to the massive number of refugees in the camp known as “The Jungle” near Calais. Now the team goes twice a week to bless groups of refugees who live on the streets or in abandoned warehouses in the Presqu’il neighborhood of Caen.  They bring a hot meal and set up tables with games like Jenga and often have groups of more than 100 young refugees.

Bless Church in Caen

Currently this church plant meets twice a month at Keys and Co. on Sunday evenings. It is already clear that there is a desire in Caen for a community, as even at this early stage we’ve had people coming to visit who have never been to any sort of Christian church before. Also we are already bursting at the seams at Keys and Co. The church is praying about purchasing one of the warehouses on the Presqu’il to serve as a church building, center for serving refugees, and a music and arts venue.

Gratitude!

We feel so blessed and privileged to be involved in all of this amazing work! At the moment, we are easing into things as we find our feet and focus on continued learning. We are tired but are feeling God's grace as we are able to rest during this chaotic time. Thank you so much for your prayer support during this transition time. Please continue to pray that we find a home before the busy summer begins!

Sending all our love from Livarot,

The Appels

Tom, Joanna, Reuben, Eli, Silas and Elodie

PS - The internet is a bit hit and miss out here so it has been more difficult to stay connected. Thanks for your patience with us!

Into a New Season

Bonjour Nos Amis! Spring is working hard to break through the grey, cold winter here in France. Small buds on the trees and bushes around us give us anticipation for the season to come and for us, that means we are moving to a new city! In just two months, we will be leaving Massy where we have been studying the French language and moving to Caen in Normandy. We are so excited and we want to let you know all about it!

Bless Network

For a few years now we have been talking about the Bless Network. We first met Gerard and Chrissy Kelly in Denver when we were beginning to explore our call to mission work in France. We visited Bethanie, the ministry base for Bless, on our vision trip two and a half years ago. We felt deeply connected with their vision and mission to live for others in France. Their prayerful approach, focus on worship, and the creative ways they were working to come alongside people resonated with us and makes us very excited to work with them in this next season.

What does the Bless Network do?

Bethanie Centre for Transformation

Keys & Co, Caen City Centre

L'Orangerie de Beauregard, Villedômer

S.O.S. Chai

Let us give you a little snapshot of what the Bless Network is engaged within the northern region of France.

• Church Planting — three churches meeting in Caen, Livarot and Villedômer (near Tours).
• Serving Sudanese refugees living in and around Caen — with SOS Chai which began as a converted tea truck and is now a warm meal provided weekly for sometimes over 100 lads living rough in the city. (to learn more and support this individual project, click here:)
• Keys & Co Cafe — a hip cafe started by a mother-daughter team driven by a dream from the Lord, now one of the most successful cafes in Normandy!
• Bethanie Centre for Transformation — an old cider farm converted into a ministry centre where there are prayer weekends, schools of ministry, missions training and more. This is the base of the Bless Network near Livarot.
• L’Orangerie de Beauregard in Villedômer, an old chateau converted into a modern campsite/meeting centre and an opportunity for bi-lingual training for all ages in French and English.

Our Role

Our visit to Keys and Co last summer

Our role is to be based in the city of Caen, working based in Keys & Co. to help with the church plant and facilitate worship for Bless Network events. Also, to simply do what we have felt led to do here in France, neighborhood-based outreach through the arts and music. We are considering this—as the French would say— “une stage” or a continued time of training (perhaps the next 3-5 years), where we are growing in our knowledge of the French culture, language, and getting to minister with a team and alongside others who have been here much longer than we have! We are excited about all that God is doing and all that he will do in the future!

Caen City Centre

The Move

We are going next week (Feb 28 to March 5) to Caen to search for a house or an apartment for our family. We believe that God has gone before us and knows the perfect place for our family to settle. We would appreciate your prayers as renting as a foreigner is not particularly easy and with our large family, finding the right place in the city may also be difficult. If you have any words, pictures or dreams that you would like share with us, we would love to hear from you! Thanks!

We plan to do a Facebook Live from Caen so you can join us and start to get to know our new city with us!

 

What About Angers?

Angers, as we have said in the past, is the city that God has put in our hearts to be. We are holding that up to the Lord for His timing. We believe that God is building a team to go with us to Angers, but we do not yet have them in place! We believe that this time in Caen will bring that team together and we hope to move there after our stage is complete.

Winter Sunset from our apartment in Massy, France

Thank You for Your Prayers and Support

We have hit a low point over the past few months and we greatly appreciate all you have done to support us and pray for us during this difficult time for our family. We could not have made it through without such a wonderful team (YOU!!!) praying for us and offering what help you can from a distance. We are so grateful and feel truly blessed to have you all with us here in France! As with the new signs spring, we know His mercies are new every morning and we have great hope for the days ahead!

The Boys enjoying the snow!

We love you all and miss seeing your faces! Please let us know how you are doing and how we can pray for you!

Much Love,

The Appels

Merry Christmas from the Appels!

Joyeux Noel!

Ho Ho Hellooo! We are feeling very Christ'Massy' around here and wanted to send you a little note for you to read over your eggnog and cookies! This season is often very busy for all of us so we are going to kick off with a short and to-the-point update!

Christmas Update Punch List:

• Tom and Joanna have completed end of year language exams and are progressing well in learning French.
• Reuben has a serious girlfriend who has learned how to say “kiss me” in English. Oh La La!
• Silas has excelled in his tennis class and has won trophies the last few weeks giving him a major boost in his confidence.
• Eli’s scooter was stolen recently, but thanks to generous partners we were able to replace it. (Our boys are notorious in our building “Les Garcons des Trottinettes")
• Elodie is starting to speak! She says Mama, Dada, Bubba, All Done, Je t’aime, bye bye, Hi, Au Revoir and a whole lot of babble.
• Joanna finished her second painting, Mont Saint Michel, with her art association.
• Tom has made some friends through his volleyball club and with some dads at Silas’ tennis class
• We are looking forward to finishing our time in Massy early next year and moving to Caen in Normandy to work with the Bless Network. (More to come on this in January!).
• We have enjoyed celebrating advent together this year and the boys have memorized some verses in French! (Jean 3 v16 et Esaie 9 v1)

Prayer Needs:

Rest:

This past season has been, in all honesty, too much for us. We are more than worn out and are needing some serious time to decompress. We will be making some much needed changes to our schedules next term. Please pray for wisdom and peace and we seek to rest in Him!

Health:

We are constantly battling sickness in this environment. We feel like a broken record asking for prayer for our health but there it is! Please pray that we can stay somewhat healthy in this next season.

Protection from Spiritual Attack:

We know that this battle is not against flesh and blood, and it is evident here to us that the enemy is not happy with our presence in this place. France is  dark country (and not just because we have less than 8 hours of daylight right now!) We pray on the armor everyday and do what we can to fight the daily battle. Please pray for protection and endurance for us and our children.

Pardonez-nous!

As we said above, things have been full on and we are a bit behind in preparing our Christmas cards, so whenever you receive them, please consider our correspondence: Happy New Year cards, Happy Valentine’s Day greetings, or simply know that we value you and love the idea that something we have made and written on is in your hands!

With all our love and affection, and warmest wishes from our family to all of you and yours!

Merry Happy Joyeux Noel!

Love,

The Appels

We've come so far, & we are Grateful to be here!

Dear Friends and Family,

At the end of October we traveled down to the Camp Des Cimes (Camp of the Peaks) for the annual gathering of all the missionaries who serve with Greater Europe Mission in France. You may remember seeing some pictures of Joanna and I at this beautiful camp 2 years ago. That’s right, it has been two years since we came to France on our vision trip! We had come then to meet potential teammates and to seek clarity and confirmation about our sense of call to join in what God is doing in France. We returned to the USA with ours hearts burning for this place, for these people. We began to share the vision that God is on the move in Europe, “rebuilding ancient ruins, and restoring places long devastated”, and that our family is called to join in. We invited partnership in prayer and support because we knew this is too big for us, and not something we are called to alone. Returning to retreat has filled us with gratitude for all that God has worked since our vision trip.

Many of you received our first official “Appels to France” email about two years ago and many more have joined us along the way. If you’ve read and prayed along with us you know it has been quite a couple of years, certainly not without challenge and opposition. However, the difficulties are far outweighed by the amazing provision and faithfulness of God. Not only that, but being here–seeing the need of our neighbors to experience the transforming love of Jesus and the opportunities we have to be ministers of reconciliation–some already coming even as we are learning the language and culture, and many more seeming to line up ahead of us, we are more certain than ever of our calling to France.

Last year at this time, we had set a timetable for our departure to France but we were taking each step in faith because we didn’t have all the funds we needed to go. We invited you to help us get there by joining in the Bisous Fund - a capital campaign with the audacious goal of raising $20K in just one month. By the grace of God (and perhaps this adorable video didn’t hurt) we saw this goal met - you are truly a generous bunch! I’m happy to report that our ongoing financial support is still strong! However, we have had a few financial partners need to stop giving due to life circumstances and looking into the coming year, we may begin to have a monthly deficit. Would you please pray about whether God might be calling you to begin partnering with us financially?

I hope we say it often, but thank you for being here with us. Thank you for praying, for giving, for sending us. Thank you for emailing us, sending us encouraging notes and cards, and helping us feel loved. We are, together, called to France and together we are seeing the promise of God’s work in this land.

Enjoy your week of Thanksgiving, which we hope and pray is full of time with friends and family, yummy food and gratitude.

Much love and thankfulness,

The Appels

Tom, Joanna, Reuben, Eli, Silas, and Elodie

PS: We plan on sending out a more update-y, prayer point-y email next week. So watch your inboxes! But for this week, we wanted to rest in gratitude and rejoice in what God has done to bring us to France!

Because of You, We are Here!

The weather has shifted here in Massy to the autumn, with its cooler breezes and falling leaves. We are excited to be celebrating 6 Months in France (Woohoo!) and we are so grateful for all of you who, through your prayers, giving and support have gotten us to this place and helped us live and thrive here. We have made a short video with the whole family to show our thanks, give you a taste of our town, and talk about what is next for us. Please watch and share!

Points for Prayer:

Refugees in Caen:

Over the summer we visited Caen with our Bless Network friends and we spent some time with some south sudanese refugees who they have been serving. There were about 80 young men living in an abandoned warehouse which was burned down last week. This has displaced many of these men and made it difficult for our friends to find them and help them. Please pray for the refugees to find shelter, food and water. And for the Bless network as they work to help these guys who have lost the very little they were able to bring with them.

Language Acquisition:

We are all in school and things are going well! Our classes are keeping us busy and we are definitely improving in our French! The schedule is quite rigorous though, pray for strength and rest as we continue our season of learning.

Health:

We continue to struggle with health, too many days we find ourselves wondering whether someone is well enough to go to school. The trouble is when one kid is sick, Tom or Joanna have to stay home and miss school. I know many families struggle with wellness when their kids are in school, but we are asking for prayer all the same! Especially Eli seems to be sick a lot and since our experience in the hospital, we are reluctant to push him too hard when he is unwell. Prayers would be so appreciated!

We love and miss you all! Please be sure to watch our video! We are grateful for you!

Love,

The Appels

Tom, Joanna, Reuben, Eli, Silas, and Elodie

Month Five in France and La Rentrée

Hello Friends!

We cannot believe that we have completed five months of living in France! August has been a very. full. month. for us, which is kind of the opposite of the French way of taking off for four weeks and shutting down to relax! But, c’est la vie! We want to recap briefly the adventures God has had our family on since we last sent out a newsletter, with a load of photos to give you a sense of where we have been! Ready?!? Here we go!

Eli in the Hospital

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I hate to start with this one, but it was a big happening that I think we are still processing. Eli had been sick for a few days, but started to show some strange symptoms. We had a home visit from a doctor who encouraged us to take him to the hospital. There, they did a blood test that came back abnormal and then a spinal tap. It turned out that he did not have meningitis but he did have a bad virus. He stayed for about 36 hours and it took him a week to recover after he came home. Thank you all for praying for us during that difficult time!

GEM's Annual Conference

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In early August, we traveled to Slovenia to attend Greater Europe Mission’s Annual Conference. It was a time of connection with other missionaries, training and worship as an organization. Our little ones had their own classes and were able to be with other missionary kids (MKs) who spoke English and are going through similar experiences living abroad. We also managed a little time to swim in the Adriatic Sea and watch the sunset over Croatia. It was beautiful!

Bless Network and Caen

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Not long after we returned home from Annual Conference, we headed up to Bethanie, near Livarot in Normandie, to be with our friends from the Bless Network for a worship weekend. We went into the city of Caen and spent time with some of the Sudanese refugees there that Bless serves on a weekly basis. We played some music for them and the kids played games with the lads. It was really meaningful to experience family ministry in this context (see photos). We also led worship for the church that meets at Bethanie alongside the Halls, a family from the Gate Community Church in Nashville who came to visit us and minister with us during the month of August!

Messenger Fellowship and Potential

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After we returned from Normandie, Tom went to be a part of Potential, a youth camp (15-35 year olds are considered youth in France!). This conference is through our connection with Jonathan Manou, a French pastor who is with Messenger Fellowship. Tom taught, with a translator ;), helped lead worship, and prayed for young people there. It was a full time for him, a lot of French, and the Lord was moving powerfully in these young French people!

Small Holiday and Birthdays

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We were able to squeeze in a 3 day break in Brittany at a campsite near St. Malo. We took the kids to the sea, swam in the pool (even though we had many chattering teeth since it was pretty wet and chilly!), and we visited the medieval walled city of St. Malo. We took a small day trip and saw the abbey at the top of Mont Saint Michel. We celebrated Silas’ 4th birthday when we were at Bethanie and Elodie’s 1st birthday when we were in St. Malo. Somehow, the kids’ first birthdays abroad feel very significant and important to make special, which we did with cake pops, balloons, signs, and singing! We got back the four days ago, the day before school started!

La Rentrée

This is the name for “back to school” in France, literally meaning “re-entry”. Monday marked the beginning of a new season for us where everyone in our family will be in school! Everyday, Reuben, Eli and Silas will be attending pre-school, called maternelle, much like last spring, only this year they will stay through lunchtime. They will have long days, 8:30am to 4pm, four days a week, with Wednesday being a half day. It was great to bring them back to a familiar place and have mostly the same teachers and students at the school. We had a great first day with them!

Tom and Joanna are BOTH going to language school now which is a big shift. Elodie will be in the nursery at Les Cèdres everyday while we attend classes. We are excited to focus on learning French as a family this Fall!

Prayers and Thanksgiving

Thank you all for your prayers and your continued support of us as we pursue this calling to minister in France. There is so much more we could say about all the things we have touched on in this email, but we wanted you to be able to read it and not sit down to a novel! Please contact us if you would like to know more specific details about anything we are up to - we’d love to Skype, Whatsapp, Facetime, email, call, or send letters...to communicate with you all that God is doing here in France. We would also love to know how to better pray with you!

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Prayer Points:

Protection against spiritual attack - we had a good first day at school, but the following days have been difficult with lots of crying, nosebleeds, and Silas threw up today and is running a fever. We have had so much, we are hoping and believing for a season of health for our family, but the enemy knows illness is the way to get us down!

School and new rhythms - we are doing something entirely new all being out of the house at school and it is a big shift with lots of growing pains. Pray for us to have grace and adjust quickly to this new season.

Rest and refreshing - we are coming into the year quite tired from the last five months, and our not-super-restful summer holiday. Also, five months is about when you hit the bottom point in the culture shock wave. Pray that we can set good boundaries for ourselves and the kids, not overwork ourselves and breathe a little!

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Merci mille fois! (thank you a thousand times over!) We love and miss you, our family, friends and partners. Be blessed!

Love, The Appels

Three Months in France!

We hope all our American friends and family enjoyed a happy Independence Day, and many thanks to our British friends for allowing our little experiment in democracy so many years ago :). We have officially been in France for three months now! Thank you so much for praying with us during this landing time! Our first three months have been tough in many ways, most particularly with sickness. But, little by little, we are starting to find our feet.

Last week we were able to purchase a car and that helps us feel more free to explore and makes basic tasks—like getting groceries—a lot easier! The language is coming along nicely for Tom. He’s surprised by how much he can understand already and is able to have simple conversations with French neighbors. This past week we’ve noticed our sons greeting their classmates and teachers in French and beginning to communicate. We were also surprised to see some little French girls running over to “faire les bises” (give a kiss) to Reuben...he took it in stride. 

Making New Friends

A highlight of the past month has been seeing the beginnings of relationships with French friends. Joanna has been meeting weekly to practice French with a friend from church. There are three young men that are interested in meeting and speaking with Tom here in Massy. It is a joy to see relationships beginning with our neighbors! We are also so grateful to have met 'M', a fellow Christian who has been incredibly helpful in getting us set up here in France. I (Tom) met M during the long and frustrating process of trying to open a French bank account.

After more than a month of being stonewalled at the bank where new language students typically open accounts, a friend and I decided to walk around to all the banks in town in search of someone who might be more willing to help. This was a long shot as new banking regulation has made it more onerous for French bankers to work with Americans and they are under no obligation to help. We prayed about where to go first and decided to try the BNP Paribas location in the centre ville. With the typical bit of anxiety that comes right before attempting a new conversation in a foreign language, I approached the reception desk and said: “Bonjour Monsieur, Est-ce qu’il ya une personne ici qui parle Anglais?”  “Oui”, replied the man behind the counter, “how can I help you?”.  Amazing we found an English speaker!

We told him we wanted to open an account and he asked to see our documents (proof of residency, paying taxes, birth certificates for everyone, a detailed list of all the items in your kitchen…there is a lot of paperwork in France). He noticed the letter from our Christian language school and asked “Are you Christian boys?”—Oh great, we thought, on to the next bank—“Yes, we are”. “I am a Christian boy too, let’s make an appointment to set up your accounts”.  Since then we’ve learned that M is a member of a New Frontiers church in Paris. After helping us open an account, he took an evening to go car shopping with Tom and even helped with the negotiations in French. Praise God for putting people in our path to come alongside us in this journey!

Out and About in France

Angers

A little over a month ago, we went to visit Angers! It was wonderful to be in the city that we feel called to be in someday. We had a real sense of joy and anticipation when we arrived. We visited the center of town and the Saturday market. Pretty quickly though each one of us started to be hit by sickness made more complicated by the severe heat. Joanna and Reuben spent the whole first day in bed ill. The nights were miserable with Reuben throwing up, Elodie crying, and Silas having night terrors. The weekend ended with a trip to the hospital in Angers for Reuben, catching the train back to Massy, and then taking Silas to a hospital near us that same night. With the piling on, we knew that the enemy was at work in attacking our family. We are thankful for all of you who prayed prayers of intercession on our behalf! Even with all the sickness we did a small prayer walk as a family and prayed by the Chateau. Eli and Joanna were able to take a walk and pray in the cathedral.

Normandie: Caen 

Last weekend, we made our first little car trip to Normandie to join in some of the activities with the Bless Network Bootcamp. We spent a little time in the city of Caen, visiting the chateau, the cathedral, and Keys & Co, a coffee house cafe started by two christian ladies, mom and daughter, who are a part of the Bless Network. Keys & Co was just a dream on the horizon when we visited for our vision trip a year and a half ago, still waiting to obtaining a lease for the space. Now it has been voted one of the best places in Normandie! The boys have declared it is their favorite restaurant in France, probably because they serve American-style pancakes. We also took the kids to see the beach but it was so cold and windy we did not stay more than five minutes.

A little sample of the bi-lingual preaching at Bless from Elodie's perspective!

Bless Bootcamp

On Sunday, We were at Bethanie, an old cider farm turned ministry center and the base for the Bless Network located near the small town of Livarot. Tom and I were privileged to lead worship at the Bless church gathering and the opening service for their two week boot camp. It was the first time we have gotten to lead worship bi-lingually together! We loved it! We enjoyed great fellowship with the church and our kids had so much fun playing outside in the rural setting.

Prayer Points

Life has been pretty full on so we have missed our usual prayer letter rhythm, instead sending our requests for prayer mostly via our secret Facebook group (email us to join!) in the midst of all the sicknesses that have hit. We are thankful to have found a doctor whose office is across the street and a pharmacist who is two doors down from her. It is very easy to get the kids seen to when they are sick—what a blessing!

Please Pray for:

• Homelife - the kids have been adjusting to school well, but we are also seeing some influence from the culture on them, plus the adjustment to France is taking its toll. Attitudes have been fragile and difficult. We are hoping to have these next two months while the kids are at home to re-establish some peace and security in the Lord before they start into school again in September.
• Health - obviously, we have been struck with a number of illnesses which is adjustment to a new environment, but also attack from the enemy. Tom and I are very fatigued from all of it so please pray that we can be more healthy going forward and for less illnesses!

• French - we are improving our French, and it has its up and downs. Please pray that we continue to learn and have opportunities to practice with French people.
• August Events - we are traveling to GEM’s annual conference at the beginning of August, visiting Bless in Normandie in mid-august, and participating in a Messenger Fellowship conference for young people (aged 16-35) near Paris in late august. Pray as we prepare!

Thank you all for being with us! We love you and are praying for you! Please let us know if there is anything we can be praying for in YOUR life.

Much Love,

The Appels

Months of Transition: All the newsletters!

So much has happened in these months, and these four faces and ugly sofa sum it up perfectly!

Things were pretty crazy from November until now with a new baby, the Bisous Fund, Christmas, moving from Nashville, injury, training, nomadic living until we eventually arrived in France! We managed to put out newsletters, but not update the blog. For expediency, I have placed the links to our newsletters below if you would like to see what happened as we prepared for and made our overseas move. When I have time I will upload them as full beautiful blog posts, but that is for another day! Blessings all!

Appels IN France: Month One

We Made It to France!

Celebrate with Us: We leave in 3 Days!!

One Month and Counting...

Appels on the Move

We Are Nearly There!

Come on, Let's Celebrate!

Three Days Left of the Bisous Fund

Thanksgiving