This week we’ve had sun and temps in the high teens, but then on the 3.5hr drive up to Melun last night, there were times when the normally 130km/hr speed limit was reduced to 60km/hr for driving rain and even hail. Just like the weather, we’ve seen a little bit of everything in the spiritual realm this past week as well.

Elections

I’m not sure about other North American networks, but if you’ve watched CNN at all, you’ll know that the new French President is 39 year-old Emmanuel Macron, a centrist who beat out far-right wing Marine LePen.

Divisions ran as deep here as they did in the context of US elections last year… there was a TON of mud-slinging. Macron seems to me the better of the two options, and in that I’m aligned with the roughly 65% of France who elected him.

Regardless of political stripes though, I come back to the verse I shared last week from Romans… Leaders ultimately receive their authority from God, are accountable to them and our job is to pray for them (1 Timothy 2:1-2).

Home Bible Study in Tours

We spent the better part of election day in Tours, a sizeable city roughly 80km north of Châtellerault. Sis. Danielle has not been able to get to church for several months due to her health, so we “took church to her” so-to-speak.

Timo was quite sick so Liz stayed home with him while Soph & Dominic accompanied me.

It was so refreshing. When I contacted her Saturday to ask if it’d be OK to visit and what time would be best, her response – without hesitation – was “Pastor, it doesn’t matter what time…. the most important is that we can worship together.”

What hunger! We were ALL blessed that day!

A Day Out

Since we were already in Tours and don’t get there very often, we walked around a little bit in this city that was bustling with election-goers and tourist alike.

We took some fun pics together and treated ourselves to a subway (last time we had subway had been roughly a year previous). and…

drumroll please…..

We realized that the closest Starbucks was NOT in Paris as we’d previously thought but that there was one in Tours… Had us some SB Joe before hitting the road home.

Unsung HERO!

She rarely figures prominently on the blog (she much prefers to stay OUT of the limelight) but there is one person who is most definitely the glue holding the rest of us together… Liz! (she’s going to kill me for the picture)

Here you can see her working away on editing the French translation of Rev. Steve Willoughby’s book “Entering the Restricted Zone“.

She usually does this in the morning when the boys are at school and the house is relatively quiet. Between this, worship leading, managing the home, keeping the boys on top of schoolwork and keeping me sane…. she’s an incredible, incredible blessing to the mission field.

Lesson to the world:
“Don’t underestimate the quiet, unsung heroes”

Someday I’m going to pick her brain for a series of posts related to being a mom on the mission field. It’s definitely not for the faint at heart!

The Bad & The Ugly?

So if all this has been good to date then what about the title of today’s post?

We got a bit of a kick to the gut this week (figuratively speaking). One of the people that we’ve been working with almost since our arrival here has gone a bit off the deep end and is no longer wanting to follow the advice of any of the leaders in their life. No one is able to talk to them as they are getting orders “directly from Jesus.”

Ever encounter anyone like that?
It’s never pleasant.

They are behaving, in the community, in such a way as to do more damage to the cause of Christ, and the testimony of our church, than to advance it or present it in a positive light. We’re going to have to manage that and either way, it will be difficult. We always appreciate your prayers, but would especially covet them this week.

Finally…

We rejoice in what the Lord is doing… our confidence is in him.
Thanks for stopping by and may the Lord bless you richly today!!

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