Transformed Lives

Coucou - hello there!

This past week has been another full, busy week with many events, coffee dates, meetings, and to-do lists. God continues to provide for us physically, emotionally, and relationally as we work with Him to the praise of His glory and the expansion of His Kingdom here in France. Our Lord is in the business of radical transformation, and He continues to be hard at work. I would love to share just a few stories with you that I have heard this last week or so.

Last Thursday I met with my discipler Lindsey at a cozy little café called Kalysthé that I had visited once or twice before. Lindsey, a missionary with Pioneers, shared with me how she had come to know the café's owners Nanou and Jean-Louis. After she moved in across the street, she brought them some cupcakes as a neighborly housewarming-type gift. She got to know them better over the course of the following months, and invited both owners and the whole staff to the outreach Thanksgiving dinner her and her team were putting together. Jean-Louis was the only one who came, but he was very touched by the hospitality and kindness he experienced at the dinner. He was also exposed to the truth of the Gospel, which God used to draw him to Himself. He accepted Christ shortly afterwards and started going to a Bible study for new Christians with his non-believing wife. Nanou talked to Lindsey and asked if they could meet up every other week or so because she had so many questions she wanted to ask Lindsey. She kept going to Bible study and meeting with Lindsey for several months, and finally in February called Lindsey up to tell her that they didn't need to meet up anymore - all her questions had been answered by the Holy Spirit coming into her heart and her life! Both Nanou and Jean-Louis are now members at our church, and Nanou has been taking classes through the church to learn more about the Bible. Their staff and many of their regulars have remarked on the change they have seen in both of them since they committed their lives to Christ. 

This past Friday, I was working Chez Théo (the lovely not-for-profit café run by a partnership of four Protestant churches and Agapé) when a lovely young woman named Anisa came in. Anisa was meeting with Richard, a pastor at La Clé (one of the partnership churches), about getting baptized. Before they went upstairs to talk, Richard asked her if she'd like to share her story with us. I'll just share the highlights here. Anisa comes from a family of North African immigrants, and grew up Muslim. After starting her studies in Montpellier, God brought Christians into her life and orchestrated encounters as only He can. She was able to meet other women with Muslim families and pasts who have come to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, and through their prayers and witness she started going to church with them. God broke down the walls around her heart and brought her to a knowledge of the truth in Christ Jesus. After her conversion, God gave her a burden for her other family members who are still Muslim. She told us that she would spread their photos out on her bed and spend hours in prayer, interceding for them. When she first told her mom that she had become a Christian, she was outraged and felt betrayed. Anisa kept praying for her, and introduced her to some of the formerly Islamic Christians she had met. Now her mom is coming to see the truth found only in Jesus, and is close to making a decision to follow Him herself. She will also be coming to Anisa's baptism.

Nanou and Jean-Louis' story gives me such hope, and is a great reminder that God can (and does!) save older, set-in-their-ways, atheistic French people. Anisa's story helps me to persevere in prayer and hope for our Muslim friends. God can break through darkness and lies with His truth. He is mighty to save - no one is impossible or too far gone! There are so many more stories of God's power transforming lives, but I just don't have space for all of them. Instead, I'll leave you with these verses that I hope encourage you. Thank you for your continued prayers for me and my team! Please pray that our lives would become brighter and more beautiful as we become like God, and that the Lord would remove the veil of blindness stopping our non-believing friends from truly seeing Him.

Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him. (2 Corinthians 3:16-18 MSG)