Light in the Darkness

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

The Power of Gratitude and Connection

Dear Friends,

Happy Thanksgiving week! Yes, for us Thanksgiving is such a big deal that we tend to make a whole week out of it! Preparations began some time ago for Joanna as she hunted down difficult-to-find cranberries for chutney and special ordered four turkeys from one of the few butchers willing to source whole birds. This week we’ll move some of our furniture to the basement and set up long banquet style tables in our living room as we prepare to welcome 60+ guests over two Thanksgiving meals (one Thursday night and one on Sunday). Why such a big deal?

Thanksgiving 2019

We loved Thanksgiving in the States. It’s always so great to be with extended family and close friends – and we miss you! Yet, here in France we find this holiday to be even more meaningful. We are so grateful for the welcome and care we have received living as strangers in a foreign land. Moreover, Thanksgiving is an event for us that exemplifies an important part of our reason for being here: to create welcoming spaces in which believers and not-yet believers can connect. We’ve seen God at work in these sorts of events both as we intentionally speak about Gratitude to Jesus with the whole group, and even more in the conversations around the tables. This year, as in past years, we have about an even mix of our church friends and our not-yet believing friends. Will you pray with us for God to move in the conversations and relationships that begin or build in our home this week? We’ll be inviting those who come to further church services over the Christmas season, please pray for some to find community with us. Even more, please pray that those who do not walk with God would take this opportunity to respond in some way to His invitation into perfect love.

Life in Caen

It is an exciting time here in Caen. It feels like since the summer we’ve seen an increase in our ministry opportunities and an acceleration in the work here. This has looked like having more people in our home, more and deeper conversations with refugees about Jesus, growing enthusiasm and sense of direction in our church planting work, and new opportunities to lead and serve. Joanna has been elected to be on the leadership group for the parent teacher association at the kid’s school. Tom has been elected to serve as the Vice President of the Nashville Caen twinning association. Joanna has responded to a need for deeper discipleship in our church by starting a small group Bible study for young women. Joanna also finally is able to access our local church which is a block away (pictured above). A process that began with the local “résponsable d’église” just before Covid hit and has finally come to pass! We prayed in our local church together as a family for the first time last week. We are thankful for new relationships and chances to serve our community.

Gratitude

In all of this, we are so grateful for you. It is not an exaggeration to say that we could not be doing what we are doing, seeking to join in God’s work here in France, without you.

We’ve been here in Caen for more than 3 years now, and we’ll have been in France for 5 years this coming April. We’re more convinced now than ever of the incredible opportunity and need among these wonderful people. God continues to grow our love for French people and our heart to see them walking in relationship with Him. Thank you so much for your support for us. We need your prayer, and we appreciate it so much! We are also so very grateful those of you who are able to support us in financial giving, which is essential to sustaining our work here.

It's amazing the way the Lord has been providing so well for us through your giving these several years. Right now, we do have a financial need. Our monthly support is currently about 5% below our monthly needs. We are praying for an increase in monthly partnership and for some one time gifts to help make up this difference. Would you join us in praying for the Lord’s continued provision? If you have any questions about financial partnership, please connect with us by responding to this email. If you do feel lead to give – thank you! – here’s a place to do so:

GEM France Field Retreat

Speaking of being thankful, we asked you about a month ago to pray for our GEM France retreat. Thank you! We had a very good time gathering as a team who works across a large area in diverse ministries. We had two main goals for the retreat: 1. To rest and receive from the Lord together. 2. To establish a new framework for connecting in small “peer-groups” on a monthly basis for encouragement, support and sharpening in our work. Both of these goals were met and the feedback after the event was overwhelming encouraging. For Tom, the experience of planning and leading this event with two other field leaders was rewarding and exhausting!

Prayer Points

Here are few other points for prayer if you’ve made it this far (you can probably tell that this is one of those newsletters Tom is writing as it is not marked by brevity).

• Our kids are doing well in their new school. Please pray for friendships for them and for French language for Elodie in particular.

• In all this opportunity and with Tom’s still fairly new leadership role with GEM, we are tired and feeling stretched thin. Please pray for wisdom in our pace and rhythms.

• Please pray for our refugee friends as the weather turns much colder and many of them are camping.

• Please pray for our church plant as we are beginning to search for a place to rent on Sundays that will better accommodate families and enable us to grow.

So very thankful for each of you,

Love,

The Appels

Christmas Cards

PS - We are preparing the elves to send out christmas cards, if you have moved or have not received a card from us in the past and would like to, please send us your mailing address!

Real Prayer Requests, Not a 'real' Update

Dear Friends,

This isn’t a real Appel’s update. Joanna will send something with her wonderful photos hopefully next month. For now, here’s a quick shooting from the hip update and request for prayer.

GEM France Retreat

We are about to head down to Camp des Cimes, an amazing camp/retreat center run by GEM in the Alps. This is first time our GEM France team has been able to gather in person since the pandemic and it is also the first time while Tom has served as part of the leadership team. We would highly value your prayers for us and for the GEM France team as we spend time together, pray for one another, and seek to sharpen each other in our mission here in France.

Hosting, New School, New Opportunities

These past few months for us have been different than we expected. At the start of 2021 we were planning to be in the US for the summer. Instead, we decided to stay put and the Lord has opened up such opportunity for connection and growth in relationships with our neighbors and friends here in France. I (Tom), have had more conversations about Jesus, and more opportunity to clearly proclaim the Good News in the past few months than I’ve had since arriving in France. Just this last week I began reading the Bible with one of our refugee friends!

We’ve hosted several church BBQs over the summer where our not yet believing friends outnumbered our church friends. We’ve had friends come over for dinner and express desire to connect with our church community. I’ve also been asked to serve as the Vice President of the Nashville Caen Twinning Association with a focus on music. This meant that last week was invited to participate in a meeting with the vice mayor of Caen and a few others who are focused on international relations for the region.

Joanna, in the meantime, has not only led our four kids into a good start at a new school, but she is also serving on the French equivalent of PTA leadership. She is started leading a small group of young women at our church in a Bible study. At the beginning of October, she flew to America with Elodie to attend her Nephew’s wedding and spend some time with her family. She’s also just had two paintings featured in a local art gallery for the first time where she sold an amazing painting called “Lion of Judah”. I love that some Joanna’s paintings (both the one she sold and several gifts she has given) are hanging in houses in our area constantly proclaiming God’s love. She is started leading a small group of young women at our church in a Bible study.

Prayer

Praise the Lord that we find ourselves in a time of real opportunity! Please do pray with us for:

• Wisdom to discern what is ours to do and for keeping healthy pace.

• Reuben, Eli, Silas and Elodie, as they continue to connect with new people and adjust to their new school.

• Tom in the various leadership roles he has right now, with GEM, with Bless, and with Caen/Nashville.

• Joanna as she juggles family, ministry, and community involvement.

• GEM France Retreat, travel to and from the camp and for the week to be a blessing to our team and family.

• Please pray that our neighbors and our refugee friends will experience God’s love in Christ Jesus and turn to Him.

We are so thankful that at all times, whether we see lots of opportunity and fruit or not, God is at work here in France. It is a gift to join in this work and we are grateful to be in it with you. Thank you for your prayers and all the ways you encourage and support us as we seek to follow Jesus.

Every Blessing,

Tom

Summertime with the Appels

Hello Friends,

We’re writing this email from a table next to our tents. For three of the past four weeks we’ve been living outside - two weeks of camping for our family holiday and now we are serving as camp pastors on a site, l’Orangerie de Beauregard, run by friends who are part of the Bless Network. Please pray for us as we pray for and encourage the staff team and seek to be a peaceful and hopeful presence among the 100s of Europeans camping all around us. It is a great reminder of the opportunity here in France - so many amazing people who do not yet know the transforming love of God in Christ Jesus.

4th of July Concert

As part of the Nashville-Caen Twinning association, we had the privilege of playing a concert at a Fourth of July event on the Lawn of City Hall, Abbaye aux Hommes, in the center of Caen this year. It was our biggest show yet! We were played to a crowd of about 150-200 in the open air, we played a little country and jazz, plus Amazing Grace and the Goodness of God. It was a privilege to play out over the city in such a significant place. God continues to give us new connections with people in the city through this partnership.

Summer BBQ Series

Summertime in France is a difficult time to gather as church as many people go on holiday or visit family. So for Caen church, we are getting together at different houses for a BBQ, games and fellowship. We hosted one night in June and had a great time this last Sunday hosting around 20 people for BBQ chicken and a corn hole tournament. We plan on having another gathering at our house in August.

Not Finished Yet, a Podcast series!

During the pandemic, Tom worked on a podcast about identity with his friend Josh Summers. Josh and Tom were roommates in college and since then they’ve each lived mostly outside of the US (Josh in Asia). This podcast, called Not Finished Yet, is a series of conversations about who we are and what is shaping us, from a Christian perspective. It’s been a lot of fun to record and along the way we’ve realized just how much we’ve learned about ourselves by living in foreign cultures. I hope you’ll give it a listen. Click here to listen…

Camping and GEM AC

This week we are serving as camp pastors for the l’Orangerie de Beauregard in Villedômer and attending Greater Europe Mission’s Annual Conference online. We are excited to have a week being Family on Mission, where we will lead prayers every morning, lead worship and preach at the church plant on Sunday. We are also playing a concert for the campers during the week and looking for opportunities to speak about the hope we have in Jesus. There are also online sessions during the week we will be participating in with our missions agency. Tom will be leading one of the meetings in his role on the France Field council.

Answered Prayers & Family News

Health

Elodie had her tonsillectomy at the end of June and she did brilliantly. She was so brave, the doctor was so impressed that she didn’t cry and was very cooperative before the operation. She has been sleeping quietly through the night and she is hitting a growth spurt! We are so grateful. Tom’s dental situation was resolved after several visits to the new dentist. We had “corona monday” this week where he received his second vaccination and he got his permanent crown on his tooth. Everyone else seems to be in relatively good health and as of this week, both of us are fully vaccinated which is coming just at the right time when, as of August 1, France is requiring people to have a health pass (meaning fully vaccinated or a negative PCR test within the last two days) to go shopping and to restaurants, museums etc. As we all know, the situation is evolving daily!

Family Vacation

We had a good wind down to school for the kids at the beginning of July. There were some tears on the last day from some of their friends knowing that they were transfering to a new school but we are hoping to remain connected with them since we are staying in the same village. We had a nice camping holiday in Brittany and at the L’Orangerie. Brittany was cold and rainy, we had car trouble but God blessed us with some amazing coastal walks and we brought a space heater so it was a cozy camping time. The second week at l’Orangerie was very hot and we spent most days in the pool and exploring the area. We also took a long awaited trip to the Zoo, Parc de Beauval, which was the twins’ birthday present from May when we were still in lockdown.

Preparing for the Rentrée

The kids start their new school, Cours Notre Dame, on September 2nd (Elodie’s 5th birthday). This school is a 15 minute drive from our village and all of the kids will be making the change. We are hoping that they will find more academic engagement and support at this school, as well as more freedom to speak about their faith, as it is a catholic school. Here is a little video that introduces the school, it gives a good feel for those of you who are interested!

Thanks

We are grateful for you, our partners in friendship, prayer and in financial support. We are privileged to be partnered in the Gospel with you and we hope and pray that you feel the blessing of the Lord on you today.

With love,

The Appels

Signs of Life Returning

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.

We pray God’s peace and blessing on you all.

Sending you our love,

The Appels

Embracing the New

Dear Friends and Family,

I’m writing to you from my desk at home where I have spent much more of my time in the past year than I had imagined I would. Anyone else feeling a little tired for some reason? Here in France we are still under a curfew which means we need to be home before 6pm and places like restaurants and museums are still closed. We tend to vacillate between moments of hope and even enthusiasm about what we see God working in limitation, and times when we are just about fed up with the challenges. We wonder how you are doing. We think about you and pray for you often.

These first couple of months of 2021 have brought some big changes for us in ministry and family life…

A New Leadership Position

In early February, I accepted a new leadership position within our missions agency (Greater Europe Mission) which is a big change for us. The job is ‘Community Director’ and it means I will be leading GEM France on a team with two other directors. This represents a shift in my focus for a significant part of my working hours towards serving the GEM team of missionaries and families who live and work here in France. There is a lot that excites me about this role. Some of the key goals for me are around fostering healthy community/team, moving towards a culture of deeper trust, and supporting missionaries in their efforts to connect with their local community. I’ll be overseeing our France team communications and helping appointees (those who are on their way to serve with our team in France) throughout their journey of preparation, transition and settling.

I’m also excited about this leadership model. This is the first GEM France Leadership Council, in which a team shares the responsibilities of field leadership. I love teams and I’m thrilled to be serving in this important work with Doug Irwin, who is the Ministry Director, and Jenn Williamson, the Partnership Director. Since the responsibilities of the field leader are shared, it allows each of us to remain rooted in local missionary work. I am so thankful to be able to step into a leadership role that feels like the direction the Lord is leading me, while being able to maintain the relationships and amazing work I am privileged to do with our local partner, the Bless Network. Additionally, this leadership position is for a four year term. I love the idea of working to establish a new leadership model and then working to successfully pass the baton of leadership after this season.

This is a big change. If you have any questions about this new role, please contact me! I would value your prayers as I get started with it. Please pray for the adjustment in schedule, for wisdom in knowing what is mine to do and what is not, and for family/work life balance.

New School for the Kids

All four of our amazing children have been attending our local French school since we moved to Benouville. Going to school less than a mile from our front door has been wonderfully convenient and has been a place for us to connect with friends and neighbors. So why a change? We have decided to make a shift to a catholic run school about 10 minutes away because it has greater flexibility in meeting the unique educational needs of our kids. We also have some friends from church who also go to this school who have recommended it to us. After visiting the school and getting to know the principal, the kids are looking forward to the change. We will be making this transition at the beginning of the next school year. Please pray with us as we seek to leave our current school well. Please pray for the kids as they prepare to make a new start next school year.

Delayed Visit to the USA

Some of you know that we were planning to spend a few months in the US this coming summer, traveling around, connecting with friends and family, and sharing in person all that the Lord has been working in and through us here in France. With the continued uncertainty around travel and around our ability to share at public gatherings, we’ve decided to push this time back one year. We’re hoping to be in the US in the summer of 2022.

We are finding ways to celebrate in the midst of this disappointment - we had snow for the first time since moving to Normandy, the kids dressed up for Carnivale, we had a Valentine’s Day party, and the boys’ first sleepover with friends to kick off the February school break.

Financial Update

Some of you have asked about how our financial support is holding up with the economic impact of COVID. We are so thankful to report that while we have had some regular partners need to pause or stop giving as a result of economic challenges, the Lord has provided each month to meet our needs. Also, some have asked if Tom’s new job means a decrease in our need for financial support. No, this role is an increase in responsibility and a great opportunity to serve in a way that fits Tom’s gifts, but it is still a missionary, support-funded role. I suppose you might say it is a promotion without a pay raise!

Additional Prayer Needs

Thank you for praying with us in these strange times. Please let us know how we can pray with you too! A few more requests to add to the above:

Passport Renewal - Our upcoming trip to Paris to renew all four kids’ passports at the embassy. That all would go safely and smoothly.

Mental Health - It is felt strongly here that there is a spirit of depression taking root in France even more in the midst of the pandemic. Please pray for us to cling to the light of Christ and to continue to be light bearers to our friends and neighbors.

Physical Health - Since the beginning of January, 5 out of 6 of us have been battling with a virus (not covid btw!) that has hung on. Silas has continued problems with ear pain and has missed several days of school. Please pray that we can find health in this next season.

Church Planting in Caen - We have started meeting regularly in Caen and broadcasting our services on facebook. We have been working to renovate our meeting space, busting down walls and putting in a new kitchen. Please pray that our church can reach those who need connection during this very isolating time, and that we can bring new people into our church community to know Jesus!

Preparing for Bless Church in Caen

Personal Connection

We would love to connect with you, please let us know if you are interested in a video chat! We know that many of you are experiencing some kind of disruption to normal community and we would love to catch up ‘face to face’. Please let us know if you are interested!

We are so thankful for you! Be blessed in the name of Jesus!

Love, The Appels

Pursuing the Presence

“The Cloud of His Presence”, acrylic on canvas by Joanna Appel

Dear Friends and Family,

Happy New Year! or Bonne Année! as we like to say here. We hope that you have had a peaceful and healthy holiday season and that the entry into the New Year has given you hope and encouragement.

Painting in the New Year

Last year, I did a prophetic painting at the beginning of the year. One session of prayer and a canvas. I paint words onto the canvas which get covered up, but they are prayers, hopes, and even burdens that I bring into the year. I ended up with a painting which I call, “Staring at the Miracle”, an interpretation of the parting of the Red Sea. I thought about what the Israelites must have felt, staring at the parted waters, what was happening in the Spirit as the waters parted. It must have been puzzling, terrifying, and mystifying all at once. But they could not stay on the shore, they had to trust in God and walk through the walls of water or face death at the hand of the Egyptians. In light of all that has occured in 2020, I find this painting to be quite a good reminder about putting my full trust in the Lord, even in the midst of chaos, fear, suffering, confusion, or whatever word comes quickest to mind when you think of 2020.

Staring at the Miracle, acrylic on canvas by Joanna Appel

This year, I wanted to spend a similar painting and prayer time at the beginning of 2021. I felt the weight of world’s desire for this year to be fresh, new, and all around better than last year. Staring at my blank canvas, I was struck by the reality that a new year is not a blank canvas, in which we can erase all that we have been through and become new people or have a completely new life simply because the clock ticks from one second to the next.

No, the reality is we bring our hurts, anxieties, our successes and joys with us. So at this point, I began to put some colors on the canvas, thick in some places and thin in others, bright colors and dark, covering almost all of it, leaving a few white spaces. We do have some space to make a change, to do something bright and different, but this canvas felt like a much better starting place for 2021. While all of it was still wet, I began to paint in my prayer words adding white and water along the way. I felt the Lord saying, “It’s my presence. It’s my presence that can heal all wounds, it’s my presence that can give you perspective, it’s my presence that can rise above the storm. Pursue my presence.” I ended up with this vibrant painting of the cloud of His presence (image at the beginning of the post).

Moses often spoke to God, face to face as a friend. And when he did a pillar of cloud would come upon the tent of meeting and the people would worship.

Exodus 33:12-18

12 Moses said to the Lord, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’ 13 If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.”

14 The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

15 Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. 16 How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”

17 And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”

18 Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”

Let us be people of His presence. That we can find rest in Him, that we can boldly go before Him and say “Show me your glory.” For how else will the world know, we are His?

Ministry in Caen

Our ministry work has had to adjust several times in keeping with the changing social distancing regulations and lock-downs/curfews here in France. Thankfully, we are pretty used to this sort of dynamic as cross-cultural church planting requires a high level of comfort with change. Some of these shifts have been challenging, most significantly affecting our ability to meet with people. We can’t go grab a cup of coffee with those we are discipling. We can’t have people over for house church or group gatherings. Tom can’t go meet new people by spending time at Keys & Co. and our associations (clubs) are all on hold. I’m guessing some of these frustrations are ones that you can relate with in your context too.

Despite the challenges, we are grateful for new and different ways of connecting and for the silver linings we’ve found in this season. Our refugee work has been allowed to continue by special permission from the Prefecture. However, we’ve had to make adjustments to the way we connect with our refugee friends, particularly in aiming for smaller numbers at our gatherings. The blessing of these smaller gatherings has meant a chance to go deeper in relationship, to be able to offer more durable skills training like language and cooking, and to have more opportunity to speak about Jesus. In December, we had a carol service in Caen and four refugee lads decided to join us. It meant our service had even more languages than usual!

It was great to gather in Caen for Christmas and the next weekend, we were able to have a chilly carol service to celebrate Christmas with our Bless family out at Bethanie. We were mostly outdoors for some bonfire fun with mulled wine and hot turkey sandwiches. We came inside for some masked carol singing and the kids did a lovely bilingual re-enactment of the Christmas story. It was strange but wonderful to be together to celebrate the birth of Jesus, and offer encouragement to a few in our scattered community. We are thankful that in France we are allowed to gather as church so long as we follow certain guidelines.

Another silver lining from lockdown has been the development of regular virtual gatherings. While we are thankful at the moment to be able to gather in person, we have begun a monthly prayer gathering via zoom. This has given the ability to be connected regularly with people who are praying for our work here in Caen but who live in other countries.

Discipleship Multiplication Engage Training

In early January, Tom had the chance to help host a group of five GEM missionaries for an evangelism training. It was wonderful to connect with others who are facing similar challenges across France and the trainers (who zoomed in from Romania and the Czech Republic) were fantastic. This was a great time getting to know each other better and Tom especially liked the chance to prayer walk in the city with this team.

Elan Graduation

On December 16, we attended a virtual graduation ceremony to celebrate Joanna’s completion of a three-year program called Elan. A fellow GEM missionary created Elan as a way to help new missionaries to France transition well into their new ministries with the help of French nationals involved in various ministries across the country. Year one was focused on spiritual formation which was accompanied by a lot of reading, an online forum with weekly discussions with a cohort, and monthly spiritual direction. Year two was focused on cultural acquisition with a French mentor along with reading and discussion, and year three was focused on ministry with monthly meetings with a coach. We also had a four day spiritual retreat together each year during the program. With the help of these mentors and coaches, we were able to develop a personal rule of life, a personal mission statement and set suitable and attainable ministry goals. The graduation was such a time of blessing where each of the people who walked alongside Joanna for the past 3 years spoke about how they have seen her grow and develop where God has placed her in France.

Family Update

We had a lovely Christmas in the USA! We surprised the kids with a secret three week trip to America to see both sets of grandparents for Christmas. It was a tentative trip right up to the end, but we decided to go for it. We told the kids we were going to get a special Christmas tree, we left at four in the morning from our house and only revealed when we were parked outside of Charles de Gaulle Airport that the Christmas tree was in America and we were about to get on a plane!

Because we wanted to be careful with our Covid exposure, we spent our whole trip relatively confined with immediate family in Tennessee and Arkansas. It was a real morale boost for us all and we were grateful to be able to spend some time with both sets of parents. Tom and I were tested frequently for Covid (FUN!) and always had negative results. We celebrated New Years Eve at 30,000 feet over the Atlantic traveling back to France. We are all back into the swing of things here with school for the children and jumping into 2021 with hope.

A little long-awaited kitten arrived at our home a week before we went to the USA. Pax came all the way from the south of france from a friend of a friend and has already become a delight in our family. She is very playful, a little clumsy, and purrs loudly and often.

Prayer

Please pray for the church plant in Caen, as we plan to start meeting regularly on Sunday afternoons as a church and having prayer room sessions on thursdays.

Please pray for our scattered community in France who are feeling isolated, scared, and tired of the condition of the world.

Please pray for healing for the sick, we ask especially for ‘C’, a member of our church who has been in and out of hospital since May. And we ask for prayer for our kids have had a virus that has been keeping them down for a few weeks now. And for Joanna who is still recovering from her shoulder surgery in October.

We pray that each of you would feel the love and peace of Jesus in your lives today and that you will rest in the knowledge that His presence is with you as you go out into the world, or stay within your home. We thank you that you are with us and we hope you know that we are with you in this time as well.

With all our love,

The Appels

Gratitude is our Anthem

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Open Hands, acrylic on canvas by Joanna Appel

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

- Philippians 4:6-7

Dear Friends and Family,

Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers, particularly in response to our request for prayer about Joanna’s shoulder surgery last month. As it turns out, recovery from shoulder surgery is fairly challenging :). Joanna has been an absolute star through what has been a really difficult time for her physically. I (Tom) have become even more aware of just how much Joanna does to keep our family going. This is perhaps best illustrated by the moment just a few nights ago around the dinner table when Eli noted with surprise - “Dad, I think you have learned to cook a little bit.”

To add to the challenge of surgery recovery, France has entered confinement #2. This time around, we are not as confined, since the kids are still going to school, albeit with masks. But, it does mean we need to fill out a form every time we leave the house and there are very limited, permitted reasons for going out. Though she has been unable to do all that she normally does, Joanna has been leading us through confinement 2 with incredible positivity and trust in the Lord. While we are disappointed to be unable to host Thanksgiving this year, Joanna has declared November a month of gratitude for our family. This has been fun to walk out with simple practices like sharing thankfulness around the dinner table and learning a verse together from Philippians (4:6-7). This posture of gratitude is spreading and has become the theme for our network of churches here in France which has gone back to meeting weekly on zoom for this season.

Over the past few weeks, Eli has been collecting fall leaves from the school yard every day and bringing them home. He started to make some Thanksgiving cards for all the people we would have invited to our thanksgiving meal, decorating them with the leaves. Taking on his inspiration, we are making little Thanksgiving packets with some (decorative leaves, a recipe, a scavenger hunt, and a card) that we are going to send to our scattered church through the post to bring our community a little closer even though we can’t celebrate together in person.

In the wake of the US election media craze, you may or may not have heard that there were two targeted terrorist attacks in France where three people were murdered. We continue to feel the need and urgency to share the love of Jesus with the people of France, and in light of what has been happening, we are going to be a little less public with our communications about the work we do here. We will re-engage the private Facebook prayer group and we ask that you do not share or forward the emails we send out without permission. This is for our safety and for the safety of the people with whom we work.

Please pray with us about…

Joanna’s recovery - She is going to physical therapy 5 times a week right now and it is a demanding recovery.

Church leadership - Tom is enjoying the leadership role he is playing with the Bless network; but, especially during lock-down, it is quite a lot to juggle. Please pray for wisdom in priorities and for rest.

Relationships with neighbors - Please continue to pray for connections with our French neighbors, especially when we don’t have as many chance meetings these days.

France - We sense a strong spirit of depression taking hold of the country during this second lockdown. Pray that the light of Christ would shine in the darkness and that people would be brought closer to Jesus in this uncertain time.

Celebration - We are approaching two years since eli broke his leg. We truly celebrate his healing, everytime we see him jump, run, and dance!

We are thankful for so much right now. We are thankful that Joanna was able to have this surgery, squeezed in-between two lock-downs during which it would not have been possible. We are thankful that the surgery seems to have been a success, even though the recovery is still a long road ahead. We are thankful that our kids are able to continue going to school and for the opportunity this gives us to continue engaging with our neighbors. We are thankful that SOS Chai has been given permission from the Prefecture to continue serving our refugee friends in Caen. We are thankful for the emails, the prayers, the financial support, and all the wonderful ways you help us to know we are not on our own in this work.

We are grateful for you!

Love,

Tom, Joanna, Reuben, Eli, Silas, Elodie

P.S. Last newsletter, we shared our annual update video. In case you missed it, click here!

La Rentrée, Surgery, and a Video for YOU!

Dear Friends and Family,

You are often in our thoughts and prayers and we hope you are well and experiencing the peace of God that passes understanding, even in these uncertain times. God has given us some incredible moments of joy in these past couple of months and at the same time we are feeling the fatigue of slogging through an ever changing “normal”.

La Rentrée - Back to School and Life as “normal”

All four of our resilient children are back at our local school and doing amazingly well. There have been a lot of things we didn’t expect serving as missionaries in France, but we still feel our central call is to be family on mission. Over the summer we were meeting for Picnic Church at Bethanie, but as the weather has changed, we recently re-started small church gatherings in our home with other families and friends. Last Sunday Eli read our Psalm for the day in French with an absolutely spot on accent. Silas has recently become a bit of an evangelist - asking his badminton coach whether he has decided to become a Christian yet each week.

Bless Family Camping Week

Just before school started, we helped to lead a camping week for the Bless Network. As part of this week we had the joy of seeing four young adults profess their faith and be baptized. This was a special moment for Joanna and I as we’ve been privileged to watch two of these young adults start following Jesus since we arrived in Normandie. It was inspiring to see these young people, at the edge of their professional lives and facing a world filled with more uncertainty than any of us anticipated, putting their trust in Jesus and declaring that faith publicly.

Prayer Points

• Joanna dislocated her shoulder a few weeks ago. Many of you know that this isn’t the first time this has happened and each time has been progressively worse. She is scheduled for shoulder surgery on the 13th of October. Please pray for healing and for smooth recovery following surgery. Please pray for our family as Joanna pretty much keeps us together, and this task will be made more challenging with only one arm for a while.

• Please pray for several neighbors with whom we are growing in relationship. It is a trying time for many of our friends here and we are praying this is a moment when many would turn and find true peace and freedom in Jesus. One neighbor is very sick and they don’t know what is wrong with her. Please pray for an opening to speak about the hope of Jesus and for healing.

• Please pray for the refugees in Caen with whom we work. Many of them have recently been evicted from a squat where they were living and are sleeping on the streets. It is already getting cold here and this isn’t a good situation for them. There is a small group who have begun meeting for French and English language study with Tom at our church building in Caen. This has been an amazing way to grow in relationship and express the love of Christ.

• Finally, several of you have asked about how our financial support is going at this time. Thank you for praying with us about this. We have seen a dip in our monthly support due to people having lost income in the US. So far, that deficit has been covered by one-time gifts. Please pray with us that God would continue to provide for our financial needs here.

Video Update

We recently put together an update video for our sending church, the Gate Community Church. We wanted to share this with you too! Please note, we have been on zoom a lot during the past 6 months… ;)

A short video filling you in on what God has been doing in our family and in our ministry over the past year or so. Thank you for watching!

Thank you so much for your care for us, for praying with us and being part of all that God is working here in France. May you know the blessing of seeing His kingdom come and His will be done in your life.

Love,

The Appels

Way Maker...

…Miracle Worker, Promise Keeper, Light in the darkness, that is who You are…

Dear Friends and Family,

It still seems that we are living in the midst of very uncertain times. The world we are living in seems to be shifting daily. Perhaps this is revealing the truth of our lives that nothing is certain but the goodness of our God and our futures are secured when we put our trust in Him. We are praying for His peace and security to be with each of you and your families.

Reflecting on these past months of rather restricted living from which we are emerging here in France, it is clear to us that God has worked this situation for good for our family. For many of our friends and family it has been difficult, both in terms of health, change in job situations, and dealing with stress related to government restrictions and social distancing measures. Please know our prayers for you and please do reach out if we can be praying together about something specific. Click here to email us directly.

Even when I don’t see it, You’re working, even when I don’t feel it, you’re working, You never stop, you never stop working…

God Working in France

In our ministry here, this has been a fruitful season. France put in place pretty firm restrictions on meetings and leaving the house in early March. From that first week we started gathering online as church via Zoom. All three of the Bless churches that we work with in France gathered together for weekly bilingual services and a midweek prayer and bible study. We were joined by others in our network from several neighboring countries and we were also amazed that we had first time visitors connecting with our meetings. We met online twice a week for 10 weeks straight and have continued meeting every other week as restrictions have eased. God was working in many ways in these virtual gatherings. We saw new leaders step up and teach. Our times of reading the Bible together, prayer and celebrating communion were incredibly rich. One of our friends and a mentor in the Bless community said on Easter Sunday that she felt the Lord had treasure for our community to find specifically in this season and we truly experienced this as we gathered.

Emerging from restrictions, we have been able to gather twice now at Bethanie for what we are calling “Picnic Church”. This enables us to keep good distancing practices but also to sing our worship together and enjoy fellowship. SOS Chai (the Bless ministry with refugees) was able to continue in a limited way during the confinement due to the leadership of one young man, who was a refugee and is now a leader on the SOS Chai team. He lives near where many of the refugees have their squats and was able to identify needs and buy essentials for those who were in crisis. SOS has re-launched this past week, and it is exciting that we are beginning to have small groups of refugees coming to our church building in Caen for language classes and other training.

Jesus Calms the Storm

God Working in us

During this time, we have been growing in knowledge of our identities individually and as a family. It seems that God has used this time to mold our family and take us a few steps closer to his specific callings on our lives.

Tom: Leadership

For the past few months, Tom has stepped in to lead the Bless church and also helped to lead other elements of the Bless Network through the Covid crisis as our friends Gerard and Chrissie Kelly, who direct the Bless network, were in the UK with Gerard recovering from a major health issue. Thank you for praying with us for them, we are happy to report that they are back in France now and Gerard is doing much better.

For Tom, being thrust into a much bigger leadership role helped to remind him of God’s call in his life to lead. As we move into life together after COVID as church in France, Tom has been asked to continue in a leadership role with Bless alongside Gerard and Chrissie. We were surprised and honored when the church gave us a gift of a lemon tree and thanked us for our leadership through the crisis at our first in person gathering on Pentecost Sunday.

Joanna: Painting

Joanna has been spending more time painting to try to improve her skills and find her style. She has painted a few pieces for members of the church as gifts. She also took a course online that taught her how to paint colorful portraits. We are finding that her paintings are having an impact on people and feel that this is an important part of Joanna’s calling here in France.

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Family: Sabbath

In this season of being home with the kids all the time and working from home as well, we have found it easy to let our work time bleed into every day of the week and most hours of the day. We recently read a book called “the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” by John Mark Comer and it has really impacted our lives and the way we desire to walk with Jesus in our family. We are starting to keep a pretty guarded sabbath day on wednesdays each week, where we stop. We celebrate who God is, who we are in our family, and we rest together. We turn our phones off, we take naps, and we worship together. It has been sweet and it is molding us as people who work out of rest. Praise Jesus!

God Making a Way-Opportunities

Music

Tom and Joanna are playing a show with Nashville twinning committee July 3rd as part of an independence day celebration. Our friends Doug and Emilee Irwin are coming out to join us for this show which is going to be such fun. We love the opportunities we have here in Caen to be a blessing to the city and to sing songs of freedom in the city. This concert venue is particularly meaningful as it is taking place at the cafe inside the old city walls which William the Conqueror built about 1000 years ago. We often pray on these walls that overlook the city and it is a privilege to get to sing and play there.

Camping

One of our opportunities to camp will be for the Bless Family Camping Week at the end of August which Tom has been working hard to organize. This will be the big gathering for everyone connected with the Bless Network and it is hosted at a campsite run by our friends Tim and Jane Rocke, who lead a Bless church on site. It should be a great time to refresh and be equipped, and to celebrate all the God is working in this part of the world. We are going to be baptizing some of those who became Christians this past year!

Specific Prayer:

Praise for Lauren

Lauren, our nanny, is returning to the USA this week after being with us for a wonderful and strange 5 months! We are so grateful for all she has done to serve us and become a part of our family. Please pray for smooth travel and re-entry into the US, and blessings abundant!

Prayer for Healing for C

C is a member of our church who became a Christian two years ago. She has really come alive since walking with Jesus and is such a beautiful soul. She recently had a stroke and has been in a medically induced coma for a few weeks and is in an intensive care unit. As a church, we are praying for a miracle. Please join us in praying for her total and complete healing, that would impact her family and neighbors.

As always, thank you for your prayers and support. We would not be able to be here without you.

Love, The Appels