Repas Agape, 2010
Special Music weekend
Grandparents' visit
We had the privilege of hosting Ruth’s parents (Rick and Judie Pahnke) and her grandmother (Maggie Bell Pahnke) for a week over the New Year. It was a slower week on the ministry end which made it nice for visiting and enjoying baby Zacharie.
However, we did have our Watchnight Service to bring in the new year, in which they jumped right in and participated. We didn’t make any long trips because of the newborn, but we got to take them into Bordeaux to see the city, out to the beautiful village of St. Emilion (on a very cold and windy New Year’s Day), and of course, shopping. We even had a snow day to enjoy together!
"Me-Ma," "Papa," and "Oma" Pahnke were the first relatives Zacharie has met beyond his parents and siblings. I think he enjoyed the fact that he was nearly always being held by someone.
We thank God for our family.
Watchnight Service at Eglise Baptiste de Pessac
Visiting with Papa, Me-Ma and Oma Pahnke
Christmas Sunday
Following the service we enjoyed a delicious Christmas dinner. After a salad entrée, we had pork roast with a peach and chestnut sauce.
Following the meal, we had a Christmas sing and the children performed a couple of Christmas songs for us. We then had a farewell service and party for Fernando, a student who had been in the church for six years. He just received his Ph.D. last week and flew back to his home country of Panama a few days later. We will really miss him.
Our Student Christmas Party
Orchestra Practice
Christmas Ladies' Meeting
Weekend visit
This weekend we enjoyed a visit with the Désilles family: Matthieu, Jeanine, their nearly 2-year-old son Jonathan and their 3-month-old daughter Esther. We remember the first time Matthieu came to this church. It was in December of 2000, less than a year after he was converted. Ruth and I were here in France at the time, and I was serving as replacement pastor for my father (much like we are now). Matthieu had heard about our church through a friend and came for the first time to a Friday night student meeting.
Soon Matthieu became a part of this church and then felt the call to pastor. He moved to Paris to train for the ministry. It was during a visit back to the Bordeaux region that he met Jeanine for the first time here at the church.
It was no coup de foudre (lit., lighting bolt; i.e., love at first sight). Jeanine wasn’t impressed and didn’t like his manners. But grace prevailed, as has been evidenced by the sweet family of four they have become today. They are presently seeking God’s desire for their future ministry as they consider two different churches that are in need of a pastor.
Matthieu and Jeanine are trophies of God’s grace and proof that God is at work in France. It is such an encouragement to see God raise up Frenchmen for the work of the ministry. Sadly, there are very few like them. Please pray for their tribe to increase.
Church Retreat 2009
Sunday School
Getting to know more people in France
We enjoyed two opportunities to host people in our home this week. Francois has just arrived from Taiwan to study here for a year. Tim picked him up at the airport on Wednesday, and then we enjoyed breakfast with him and Wilfried, one of our "regulars" at church who helped Francois to find an apartment and has really done a lot to help him get settled in. We have two other new students from Germany who have just arrived in Bordeaux to begin their programs, and who are already beginning to get involved in our church life, attending our church meetings and helping out with the distribution that is still underway. Please keep praying for visitors to come as a result of the church invitations/tracts that have been distributed in three more dormitory villages.Today we enjoyed lunch with Priscilla, who has been attending our church for more than a month, along with Dalice and her son Diego. Dalice and Diego arrived in France just at the end of the summer from Puerto Rico, and Diego is the other non-French child in Micaiah's class. Micaiah and Diego have a great deal of sympathy for one another in their new language setting, even though they also have different mother tongues. We enjoyed getting to know Dalice and Diego more and are looking forward to developing our relationship with them as the school year progresses. Priscilla, who is originally from Mexico, was able to fellowship with Dalice in Spanish.
The distribution has begun!
Invitations are folded
Evangilizing at Stalingrad
Stalingrad is the name of the square that is just over the bridge from the main part of Bordeaux. It serves as a transportation hub for the tram and buses headed east and north.
Tracts in hand
The Juan Alvarez family
El pollo was mucho fantastico!
The city of San Sebastian
The beautiful coastline of northern Spain
The tracts issue a general invitation to and explanation of the church. They are beautifully printed with the picture of our building on the front to help with visual recognition.
A visit to the end of the road
I got an intimate impression of that event when the eldest member of the church here in Pessac was called home by the Chief Shepherd on August 21, 2009. It was unexpected and sudden. His wife heard him fall, but by the time she got to him, he had died of a heart attack. René Rottier was 86, but in relatively good health. Another leader in the church, his wife (Lala and Ando) and I were there within an hour. René’s body was still lying in the hallway, since the family doctor who had come had been unable to move him by himself. We helped move him to the bed and a few minutes later Lala and I dressed him in his Sunday clothes. It was sobering to dress a warm but lifeless body whose head and arms yielded involuntarily to the pull of gravity. One thing was clear: René was no longer there.
While I was left alone with René's body, a thought hit me with unusual force: this is what it's all about. Yes, this cooling, stiffening corpse is what it is all about! This task is completed. This sheep has been returned to the Chief Shepherd and our ministry is no longer needed. And now to the others: "We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me." I pulled his hands together and folded them across the motionless chest. This is the goal: present every man complete in Christ. René finished strong. May there be many more. And may I be myself among their number.
Here Tim is lead the singing at the funeral (held on August 26). Later he preached on "Christ's Counsel for Troubled Hearts" from John 14:1-6.
The funeral home workers lower the casket into the tomb.
We were very grateful that Tim's dad was able to return to help minister to the family. Here you see him witnessing the lowering of the casket with René's widow, Marcelle, and son, Daniel.
The French have a tradition of tossing a dried flower onto the casket after it has been lowered into the tomb.
