Prayer Letter

Home Assignment

Our travels in the UK over the summer, on Home Assignment, took us from Perthshire to Buckinghamshire and to a whole range of places in between.

With some visits, it was our very first time meeting the church. With others, we were returning to congregations who had been faithfully supporting us for decades. Each one provided us with a warm and generous welcome. Thank you! We enjoyed catching up on everyone else's news too, as well as sharing about what God was doing in France.

We asked for prayer for safe travels and are glad to report that things went smoothly and that there were no breakdowns, this year. Well, no mechanical breakdowns, anyway… 😉

With only a few days to go before the end, Philip tore a muscle in his calf. It was a surreal experience to hear his leg emit an audible 'pop'! The timing was not ideal, with the journey back to France still ahead of us, but we managed and the calf muscle recovered progressively over the following weeks.

Mentoring

You will probably remember that we invited a student-pastor (Lula) to work with us when we began in our last location (Gif-sur-Yvette). Well, arriving in Massy, we are pleased that there is an accredited ministerial student in the congregation: Jason.

Some of you will have heard Rosemary speak about how encouraged she was to see a number of “her” former young people - from the youth group that she used to lead in Massy – become or be on their way to becoming Baptist pastors. Jason is one of that number.

Philip and Jason are already working together on their first joint preaching and worship-leading venture. It promises to be the first of many such collaborations.

A new beginning in Massy

The month of August was intended to be a 'soft' start for us in the Massy church, knowing that September would surely go off with more of a bang, as we navigated our first rentrée or re-entry with the new congregation.

These past weeks have provided opportunities for such things as reading up about the church's recent past, making plans for the year ahead, and meeting with some of the leadership team. But there has also been a funeral and a wedding, drawing us into the heart of church life straight away.

Family News

Travelling around the UK in the summer created opportunities, in between church engagements, for us to visit some family members, friends and retired BMS colleagues. We are always grateful for those times of sharing and catching up.

Since returning to France, we have been experiencing temperatures around 10° higher than those in the UK and have been drawing on past experience in the Middle East and North Africa to navigate them as best we can. It makes us wonder about what the future may look like.

Prayer Points

- Give thanks for safe travel and encouraging encounters during our recent Home Assignment.

- Pray for Jason and the other French Baptist ministerial students.

- Ask for God's blessing on this next chapter of our ministry, in Massy.

- Pray too for the Massy congregation, as they continue to live in uncertainty with regard to their buildings.

With our warm good wishes and our thanks for your ongoing support,

Philip & Rosemary.