Dear Friends and Family,
Thank you so much for your encouraging responses to our update about the art expo in February. We so appreciate you being with us in this work. In case you missed that newsletter : Art Expo Newsletter
This month we have another big outreach planned and would greatly value your prayers with us. We have a team of 10 people coming to Caen, mostly from Fairview Church in Lebanon, TN to serve with us from this Saturday for one week! Our church plant, Bon Berger is excited about the opportunity to have some extra help with evangelism and being a blessing in our community. We have planned several days of prayer and outreach including events that feature live music, face painting, balloon animals, and blessing bags filled with fresh baked cookies and invites to church(shown below)!
The neighborhood we have planned to focus in is called “Grâce de Dieu” (Grace of God) and is a place where we are already seeing God at work. There are several women who have joined our church from this neighborhood in the past year, one of whom was baptized over the summer and another who is hoping to be baptized soon. Teams from our church have been praying there regularly.
Grâce de Dieu neighborhood has a lot of recently settled refuges and immigrants. On Saturday we are planning to go and pray and worship in the square that is the heart of this neighborhood. On Tuesday, we are planning to go and put on a big outreach event to run in tandem with the local market. We need prayer cover over all of it, but we especially want to ask for prayer for wisdom about potential tension in the neighborhood given the current conflict in the Middle East. Our method of evangelism is not at all confrontational, but simply having a group of Americans gently confessing our faith in this neighborhood could stir up difficulty. There are other places and groups of people we have been praying for in the city (such as university students), and we can pivot our outreaches as needed. Yet this neighborhood has felt increasingly important in our prayer times as a church.
Please pray with us for clarity and safety as we go into this week. We know and believe that God is already at work, please pray for the people we will encounter and our conversations and prayers with them.
Please pray for the team coming that they would have safe and smooth travels (they are traveling as we send this!), and that the Lord would impact their hearts during their time here.
Pray for our family, for protection and health during a busy week of hosting.
Thank you for praying with us!
Every Blessing,
The Appels
