Category: Ministry

Some meetings can take an interesting turn

Last night’s prayer meeting took an interesting turn. It is summer, and the meetings is usually little attended. So, I opened the building and waited for a while. At 8.10, I was still on my own, but was determined to stay anyway and pray. After a few minutes, a sister arrived.

We got started, sang and read a passage in 2 Kings. After that, we prayed for a while, thanking God for his goodness. About halfway we stopped to share some prayer matters. At that point, three Gypsy ladies turned up to join us. One of them has been coming to us for the last 3-4 weeks. It was great to see them.

We had a chat and prayed together. At the end of the meeting, we talked a bit more about baptism and some of the differences between our churches. They call us “les sedentaires” (roughly: the sedentaries, or settled). It is not meant to be negative. It is just a way to distinguish between people who live in houses as opposed to the travelling community (who often live in houses part of the year, but still see themselves as Gypsies). Their church meet in another part of town.

I was thrilled to get to know them. I had recently prayed that there would be some contacts with some of the Gypsy christians in Guingamp.

Sermons

I am grateful for the regular opportunities I have to preach in the church in Guingamp. If you understand French, we put the sermons online regularly (find them here). If you are more specifically interested in listening ay of those I preached recently, have a look here.

Brittany summer team, day 10

We finished distributing through letterboxes in the morning. After lunch, some team members led the last children club. Jean-Baptiste and Maxime were joined by two girls from the outside. Myself and the rest of the team went to town to do some evangelism. We had some literature to hand over, and the goal was to try to enter into conversations with people. A good number of people took leaflets, some refused. Alice and myself had a conversation with a man and were able to share the gospel with him. The other group also had a few conversations. It was good. I usually feel very uncomfortable about stopping people in the street, but somehow it seemed a bit easier today.

Today was our last day of work. The team will now have two days off before flying back on Saturday. We’ll meet one last time tomorrow night for a meal in the church.

Ufm brittany mission team, day 9

Day 9 was a bit different. In the morning, the team prepared more leaflets for a final distribution while the Durand family stayed at home. In the afternoon, we moved furniture around in the church to change the Sunday school room and the coffee room. Later, Claude Broux came along to share with us a bit of his testimony and the origins of France mission.

We had our second and final conference in the evening. No one came from the outside, but a number of folks from the church were there, as well as Luc and Béatrice, a missionary couple which is supported by the church. It was a good evening. I’ll put the conference on the church website later if anyone wants to listen to it.