FM Trustees Annie & Mike Nixon report on a recent visit to central France
During a recent stay at our house in France, we had the joy of visiting three Perspectives churches in central France. The first one was in Châteauroux, led by Elcio & Sueli Rocha. This church is growing, baptising new believers, and welcoming young people and families. “We try to live what we preach” shares pastor Elcio. “Every person here is encouraged to fully engage and take some responsibility for sharing the gospel in the area in which we live”. For Elcio and Sueli, getting to know and understand the local Berry culture has been an important part of the journey. At this church we were given a wonderfully warm welcome – the French habit of everyone greeting everyone as they arrive really helps here! We had a non-French speaker with us, but he also felt very welcome and could follow the service. The church would appreciate prayer for their ongoing development in habits of prayer, Bible study, and mission during the week, not just on Sundays.
Our next visit was to the Berry-Sud church in Argenton-sur-Creuse. They meet in a small countryside village. We were made very welcome, enjoyed worship and a Bible discussion with them, and were invited to stay for a shared lunch after the service. Pastors Elise and Michaël Duchemann recently moved to plant a church in Fougères in Brittany and remain as pasteurs accompagnateurs to this small but faithful church group 4 hours’ drive from Fougères. The church are very close to completing work on a building in the town centre, where they hope it will be easier to attract new arrivals. Luc Bonin-Bouchillega, who currently leads the services locally, admits that it is a challenge developing the church and getting the building work finished. He shares that Christian growth can be very slow in the Indre region, which is historically hostile to the evangelical church, a centre of New Age religion and known as “the cradle of witchcraft”. This church would appreciate prayer and financial support to get their building finished.
For our third visit we went to the beautiful town of Loches. This church has been established for 15 years in a good location. It’s been through a quieter period recently but now appears to be ripe for growth again,with a definite focus on attracting local residents. New initiatives are starting such as young people’s groups and men’s group breakfasts. With a pasteur accompagnateur, Marc Van Eijden, based in Tours, the church is organised locally by Naomi Berthonneau in any time she can spare from running her beautiful B&B. She asks for prayer for growth and raising awareness of their ministry among locals, for volunteers to start up the new initiatives, for a better understanding locally of Catholicism and evangelicalism, and for unity within the church. She says that their evangelism is all about building relationships with people and that this process can take a very long time in France before someone is likely to step into an evangelical church. American missionaries Bethany and Joe with their three school-age girls have recently joined the team and would appreciate prayer for settling in, for developing their language skills quickly and for the girls settling at school. We were given a very warm welcome here, enjoyed the service and were invited back to dinner afterwards.
When asked what France Mission supporters can best do to encourage them, as well as giving financially, two things were said by all three church leaders:
1. Please pray: “Your prayers for us pastors, for the church. and for France make all the difference.”
2. Please visit: “When people from other parts of the world are interested enough to come and support us and pray with us, it’s so encouraging!”
If you visit a French church, you may find that you start a life-long friendship of prayer and encouragement.
