Day: February 24, 2012

St Marcellin Evangelical church, a correction.

I wrote yesterday that the small town of St Marcellin, near Grenoble didn’t have any more evangelical witness. For more details, read the post here. I was led to believe this through a report on teh website of the Union des Eglises Evangéliques libres which stated that the church had closed its doors(see the report here). This report, written for a recent synod of this denomination stated: “L’Eglise de Saint-Marcellin, au terme de plusieurs années de difficulté a progressivement cessé ses activités, jusqu’à s’éteindre complètement. Plusieurs de ses membres ont rejoint les Eglises de la région dont l’Eglise libre de Valence.” I am very sorry if my initial post misled some of you.

But I am glad to say that this is not the case. Following my post, I got in touch with the former pastor of that church, who was also a friend of my grand-father. He replied to my email today to say that there is still a group of believers meeting in St Marcellin. They are mainly elderly people, but there are a few younger ones. They had to sell their building a few years ago because of the running costs (it was a very old building in a former convent). After meeting in various places, they bought another building with the money of the sale of the other one.

He also told me that a man from a church in Grenoble is taking interest in St Marcellin and has been thinking bout establishing a work there. I pray that this man won’t start a new work but would rather work with the existing church.

It’s all worthwhile: a visit to the market in Guingamp

Our weekly market visit took us to Guingamp this morning. It was cloudy but fairly warm compared to last week. We set up in our usual space and stood in the cold. I was quietly praying that I would have at least one conversation with someone.

It wasn’t long before a young woman walked past me. She turned around and started talking to me about the pastor of the church. It took me a few seconds to realise she was in actual fact talking about the former pastor (and still elder with us), Claude Broux.

Here’s her story: Sandrine (that’s her name), is from Pabu, the village touching Guingamp (the village where we live). She went to high school in Guingamp town center. While she was in high school, she met Claude Broux who, at the time, had a stand on the market. He gave her the Bible and prayed for her. Later, while reading her Bible, she was converted. She’s remained in the catholic church but she was grateful for that day when she was given the Word of God and met Jesus as a result. She wants to thank Claude Broux and said she’d write to him. My suggestion to her was that she would come to one of  our services instead and thank him herself. I pray that this is what she will do.

Her encouragement to me was that the work we are doing is worth it. I was indeed excited and thank God for answering our prayers and giving me this conversation.