Dear friends,
After long open roads and flying high in the skies on itineration travel, speaking in or visiting 30+ churches & student groups, sleeping in 20+ different beds, and clocking in 7,000+ miles (ground or air) all squeezed into four and half months, we are VERY happy to be back home in Belgium. Before we share with you about upcoming activity in the next few months, let us first give you a quick photo recap:
Preaching on Losing Ourselves for Jesus and Missions from Mark 8:35 at a church in Baton Rouge (above) and a Chi Alpha university group in Lafayette (below)
So grateful for a chance to see Roger & Lilly Myers who invited us to work with them in Belgium so many years ago. Lilly cooked for us, which was an extra special treat. 🙂
Christmas in Nashville was a blast as we were able to have lots of family time.
We also had an opportunity to see our daughter and her family, whom we missed in Nashville, at a prayer conference right after Christmas.
Once we returned to Belgium, we didn’t actually unpack everything right away because just a few days later we flew to Tirana, Albania to join our SFC family for the annual leaders Prayer Weekend. It’s always an encouraging time to pray together for our personal and ministry needs. It’s especially encouraging to hear reports of what the Lord is doing in the lives of students around Europe, and how prayers prayed for new groups last year have been answered.
On the steps of one of the university buildings at Mother Theresa Square
What a joy to be hosted by our Albanian colleagues, Henri & Ledi, in their new Free Students Center. Some of you helped us finance the launch of this abandoned and dilapidated bar that is now turned into a training center and newly planted church. Thank you!
Blair shared about Connect at Free Students Church on Sunday afternoon.
These next few months of February, March, and April will be just as full. Please pray for the following events:
“Étincelle”
Blair will travel to Strasbourg, France for the second Étincelle (“Spark”) student meeting. This particular weekend will be a collaborative effort between our Students for Christ colleagues serving in Grenoble and Nice as well as a few student ministry leaders from SFC-Belgium and Reunion Island to promote the planting of an SFC university ministry chapter in this Alsatian city.
New Student Ministry Development Efforts
A few days after Étincelle, we will be flying south to meet with the pastors and key leaders of an international church on another continent who have a burden to reach students in their city. This will be the first of hopefully many meetings with young leaders and international students to be trained and equipped in reaching fellow students they meet on their campuses. We’re praying for a good foundation to be established here so that it may spread to to other cities in this ‘sensitive’ country and beyond.
Annual PEF Conference
This year’s meeting of the Pentecostal European Fellowship in March will be held close by in the city of Lille, France. Blair has had many fruitful conversations at these events, as quite a few of our most recent guest speakers at Connect, our summer training conference, have come out of his time at PEF events. We’re praying for continued divine appointments with new collaborators God may send our way.
Canada Revisited
In April, we will return to Montreal where a Chi Alpha team from Lafayette, LA, led by Pastor Eric Treuil will join us. This is an exciting next step in exploring how we can make an impact on university campuses in French-speaking Canada. We will also meet up with Alain, a Canadian francophone who senses a call to possibly start a group on the French-speaking campus where he studied.
A few weeks later, we will return to the Maritimes in easternmost Canada for a meeting with our AGWM (USA) colleagues assigned to Canada, as well as the General Conference of the PAOC (Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada) congress in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Our trip will include revisiting a local church in New Brunswick for which we helped find a new pastor last year. Blair will be ministering at this church, Centre Nouvelle Vie in the town of Shediac.
Please pray again for divine encounters, wisdom from on high and discernment for the future.
A final word on our budget
Our connection times with new and current partners were refreshingly encouraging! Unfortunately, we are still short on the budget which our mission establishes for us due to cost-of-living and insurance increases. We are not deterred, however, and trust that the Lord will bring in what we need when we need it. We have figured out that if everyone who currently partners with us could increase their support by as little as $10 per month, we would be fully funded. Your prayerful consideration of this need is appreciated.
It was a joy to see so many of you on during our time in the States! We wish we could include all the photos we took together because they represent great memories of our friends and family that we treasure while living far away. We did create a photo gallery with most of these photos that you can browse here. You might just see some very familiar faces…
Thank you for your support in encouragement, prayer and finances. We couldn’t do it without you joining in with us. Geaux team!
Tout pour Jésus! (All for Jesus)!
~Blair & Dina