The front door of our house\church is constantly swinging so we thought we would share with you some of the bits of blessings that we have. We trust that this will help you to know and love our people here and thus pray for them, too. We are always happy to have your comments!
Tim and Ruth had a call last week from the French consulate in Atlanta saying that they were going to give them their visas. This is a real answer to prayer especially since the man said that he was doing it "under protest." He was not convinced that the papers we sent in could replace the invitation from the Protestant Federation. But "the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water; he turneth it withersoever He will." Pro. 21:1
So, if things go as planned, Tim and his family will arrive here on June 25! Please continue praying for them and us as we plan for the transition.
We often have lots of company, but this week we had some special guests that we would like to tell you about. On Monday, Kristi Colas came to visit us. She has been in France for a year as a missionary working in Rouen. She is especially interested in working with music so she came to burrow through the music that we have here. She is in the right hand corner picture with two of the three people that she was able to give piano lessons to while she was here.
On the left is the Bergman family, missionaries to Spain. They came up on Monday to spend the night here and then left Tuesday for their furlough. We are babysitting their van while they are gone :-)
The bottom right picture is of Charles and Babs Anderson. The Andersons were here in Bordeaux for many years and were back for a visit. Charles preached for us this morning. It was his burden to start the two daughter churches here in Bordeaux.
We enjoyed all of our visitors immensely and they were all a blessing to us.
Two weeks ago, we had our annual Baptist Mid French Field conference. This year it was held in a chateau in the eastern part of France. As always, we had a great week. One of the special things this year was that we were commemorating 60 years since the first BMM missionaries came to France. Our speaker was from Wealthy Park Baptist Church in Grand Rapids. Pastor Young and his wife were a blessing to all.
Last week we had the joy of participating in the Field conference of the German field. Bob was the speaker and shared insights from Colossians. We really enjoyed getting to know some fellow missionaries and learning about their works. We also got to see some of the beautiful German countryside. It was a wonderful week for us.
It was a beautiful day here today.Spring is in the air and the weather has warmed up noticeably.Our church family enjoyed being together.Most of our people were here before 10:30 this morning and quite a few didn’t leave until six this evening!Our Sundays are long but full of wonderful fellowship.
Next Sunday will be even fuller than normal.It is Easter and we are starting with breakfast together.Then we will have our regular service.Bob has been working hard with a choir and they will be singing “The Love of God” (in French, of course).Our regular meal will be replaced with a special one – by that I mean that the menu is planned and it is not a “potluck.”Following the meal we are going to have a special Easter service.The young people and children have been working hard on special music for this service.
That should tire us out, but we won’t be finished!!We need to leave immediately after the afternoon service and travel at least four or five hours on our way to Germany.Bob is bringing the messages for BMM’s German field conference.It begins the next evening.We are looking forward to getting to know better our fellow co-laborers north of the border.Please pray for Bob who will be bringing eight messages during the 4 days.
Since our French field conference is the following week in the eastern part of France, we will not come home in between.We plan to go to Switzerland to see some of our special kids – former students and younger brothers and sisters in Christ .You probably remember hearing about Nati who lived with us for almost a year, Gina who was saved here three years ago and Laetitia who is one of those extra special students who leaves a mark on everyone.We will go to church with her.At the present time, she is working at a Bible School in Geneva.
Please pray for our conference.Our field has suffered the loss of some godly missionaries to cancer in the last couple of years and we have others who are very ill.Pray that the time together will be encouraging for all.
Also continue to pray for our travels in the states.We have still many “holes” that need to be filled with meetings to report back to faithful supporters.If you would like us to visit your church during the months of August to December would you please contact us?Our email is still rbixbysr@aol.com.
We mentioned in our last letter a young lady who grew up in the church and then completely left and was living in the world.She has really changed since her salvation.What a joy!She is having regular Bible studies with Bob now and we hope to see her baptized before we leave in July.There are a couple of others that should be ready to take this step, too.Pray that we will be able to have a baptism service and for faithfulness in the lives of these young Christians.
Thank you so much for your prayer support and your financial support.We know that it is a difficult time for all. One final request—pray that Tim and Ruth will be granted their visas quickly so they can come in June as planned.
This week we had a short vacation. It was fun to get away and to see some of the beautiful sites here in France. It was sobering, however, to visit the "Desert Museum" which is a tribute to all of the French Huguenots who were martyred, imprisoned or deported during the time in history when France wanted "one king, one law and one religion." The price they paid for there faith is great, but the price that France paid for persecuting them is even greater. The left picture is the Tower of Constance where women were imprisoned. You can see scratched in the wall "Resistez"--resist! The top right is the entrance into the Desert Museum which is actually the home of one of the main Protestant leaders of the time. The bottom right is Les Baux, a city built on a limestone mountain, where the Huguenots resisted the king's soldiers until they starved and ran out of water. You can't help but wonder what France would be like today if she had not had this sad period in her history.
Sunday afternoon we did something a little different for our Bible classes. Two of our teachers were gone ministering in another church, so we kept the whole church family together. Bob has been urging everyone to get more "acquainted" with his Bible. So we had a "Sword Drill" and then learned the French song that has ALL the books of the Bible in it. A couple of young ladies who had learned the song as children helped out and then the kids chimed in. We divided the room in two and everyone participated in the Bible sword drill. We also spent some time singing some of the choruses that are in our hymnbook. It was a very enjoyable time for all-- and we hope that it sparked some interest in everyone to memorize the books of the Bible!
