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In the book of Revelation, the apostle John describes an amazing scene: “After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb… They were shouting with a mighty shout, Salvation comes from our God on the throne and from the Lamb!” (Revelations 7:9).
“From every nation and tribe and people and language” – This is a fitting description of the ministry the Lord has brought us to serve.
Our journey to France to serve as church-planting missionaries came about through several different influences which impacted our decision to serve the Lord abroad in missionary service: 1) Robin was strongly impacted by the personal encouragement of the late missionary, Roni Bower. 2) My own Greek heritage, plus my interaction and business relationships with people from foreign lands, sensitized my heart toward missionary involvement. 3) Deep involvement with the Missions Commission in our local church in Chicago continued to keep the need for supporting such work in front of us. 4) The knowledge that roughly 90% of those trained for vocational ministry remain in the United States. The Lord used all these to direct our family to serve overseas. On December 2nd, 2004, we arrived in Montpellier, France to begin our mission ministry.
Our church ministry, The International Chapel of Montpellier, where I serve as the pastor, is uniquely situated as the only international church in Montpellier. The International Chapel is all about people with different nationalities, languages, backgrounds, and “stories”, coming together through the common language of English in view of the expectation, hope and life that God has promised through faith in Jesus Christ. A young South African couple put it this way: “We all speak with different accents but we all have the same Father.”
Our mission work is directed to the international English-speaking community who live in and around Montpellier. We have had the blessing of ministering to people from over a dozen different countries. We also serve the university student community, and the local French community, especially those who wish to improve their English. This church is able to provide a solid spiritual lifeline for temporary and long-term residents who are not in a place linguistically to bring their families to a French church; for students who need a community of faith and a place for Sunday worship; and for those in the French community who want to be a part of a diverse, multi-cultural, international church. The church is a steady conduit for the gospel serving both a transient and local population.
We are seeing adults and children responding to the Gospel. We are seeing believers growing in their faith. We are seeing others who are not yet believers becoming more open to spiritual ideas and input. While spiritual emptiness and darkness pervades France and much of Europe such that spiritual responses and progress come much more slowly here than in other places around the world, we are prayerfully committed to the proclamation of the Gospel as the only true hope for the people of Montpellier.
Thank you for being involved in the Lord’s work here in Montpellier as we together impact both the international community and French people with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus. We are grateful for all your prayer and financial support for our family and the ministry through The International Chapel. Please accept our humble thanks for all that you do on our behalf as we together look to the Lord to built his church in this part of the world.