Did you know that you can prophesy without realizing it?
When one of Lauren’s aunts gave us a figurine called “The Merry Wanderer” as a wedding present, it seemed a bit strange. Lauren has never collected figurines. But with each geographical move God has told us to make, we’ve looked at the figurine and marvelled at how He speaks to us.
By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left, he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith, he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents…Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations—the City designed and built by God.
Hebrews 11:8-10 MSG
Jews call Abraham “the wanderer.” He and Sarah left home and family to pursue God’s promises: a land of their own and an uncountable family (Genesis 13:16; 17:5). More than 2000 years later Paul told us that we are that family (Galatians 3:29), one that John described as an endless ocean of people from every ethnic group on the earth gathered around Jesus’ throne (Revelation 7:9).
The little figurine reminds Lauren and me that God specifically assigned us to be global “wanderers,” ones who teach His people about their mission and train them to engage in it effectively. Are the travels easy? Not always. Are the major geographical moves financially and emotionally costly? Always.
But we’ve been captivated by John’s vision of Jesus surrounded by the nations for whom He died, and so our eyes are firmly locked on the City!
Since 2018, the Lord has been quietly preparing Lauren and me to take on a bigger role in catalyzing the Church for His worldwide harvest. There are about 44 million evangelical French speakers in the world. Most of them aren’t engaged in reaching their own neighbours and coworkers, let alone the 7000 ethnic groups who have little or no access to the Gospel.
After a lot of prayer and counsel, we’ve taken on the role of national coordinators for Simply Mobilizing France to both grow it and start mission training ministries in Belgium, Switzerland, and other countries for whom French is a main or second language. Being based in France would also position us to support our ACOP Global Workers in the Middle East as well as help install new ones in Africa. We plan to move to France this summer so we can train thousands of believers to pray for unreached people
groups, to send more workers into the most neglected fields, and to engage in the Harvest all around them.
Bruce just returned from the Dominican Republic where he was facilitating a second Kairos Course in French for 27 Haitian pastors, Bible students, and interested believers. Like the first course in November of 2022, it was complicated!
Several participants only spoke Creole or Spanish, but how do you turn away spiritually hungry people who’ve paid (a considerable fee for them) and who have traveled hours by bus to be there? Four people facilitated the November course—a pastor couple from the Christian & Missionary Alliance, a children’s pastor whose family emigrated to Quebec from Haiti when she was 12, and Bruce.
The same pastor couple coordinated this February course, but the team now included Bruce, a young Quebecoise woman, two Haitian immigrants from a church in Quebec City, and 5 dynamic new young Haitian facilitators who took the course last fall. Several participants from this course already want to become facilitators! May the Lord use them to ignite a mission movement in Haitian churches, both the “exile” churches in the Dominican Republic and those serving faithfully in the chaos of Haiti. Now that’s exponential multiplication of people who are hungry to reach the world!
