Before anything else, our prayers are that you are able to have a great Christmas, surrounded by family and friends. Second, pray for your missionaries, most of whom will spend this season separated from families and in places far from ‘home’.
summer vacation at Lake Tahoe
Back at Point Bible
We are preparing for our Christmas program and outreach this next weekend at Point Bible. The group has grown and become even more ‘international’ after a group of Romanian Gypsies, who are squatting in the vacant apartments of the building, have started sending their kids to our Sunday School!
Simon, Radia and their kids, Michèle & Serge
A note on our being back at Point Bible: Last summer, after talking with the leaders here, the decision was made for us to leave the church to Simon and Radia to enable them to ‘take possession’ of the church. We had proposed a ministry of training which would encompass the three churches here. Thus not abandoning any of them, but helping all of them. Since the proposal was initially well received, we began preparing for this and gathering materials.
Well...when we returned we learned that the best plans and intentions do not always work out. Several crises had developed, some members were even talking of leaving Point Bible. We were asked to help intervene to smooth things out. We continued researching the needs of a training program here and a number of people contacted us, looking forward to growing in their understanding of the Bible.
I had been asked to prepare a written proposal of our future ministry, but the day the proposal was submitted our future took a different path than anticipated.
We were informed that our proposal was not acceptable by the team here in Marseille. This led to several meetings, one with several from Point Bible, who told us that the church desperately needed us and several wanted Bible training. We were asked to come back to Point Bible and further train the leaders there.
Our classroom
And so now, based out of Point Bible, we have started CFB = Cours de Formation Biblique. The goal is practical studies: How to study the Bible, How to teach it, How to preach it, and Evangelism. The first three students are a Sicilian, a Frenchman (Serge) and a Gitane (Spanish Gypsy).
The first group of CFB
At present we have made a commitment to be at Point Bible until this next summer. The churches of Marseille are organizing a large evangelistic campaign and we have a basketball outreach planned as well. Afterwards we will need to reevaluate the situation of the church here and our place in it.
The next six months our emphasis is on training and preparing people to take over once we are gone. Rob will continue preaching, but also training Serge to be a part of the teaching team.
Vicki is again doing the music, but working with another lady to help her become the music leader. This lady has never led music before, but Vicki told her that she also had never led music before. They hope to train a worship team in the coming months.
Serge & Michèle continue to lead the efforts in evangelism at the church, and so Vicki and Michele are working together to see what activities can be organized to reach into the community.
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