FOUR YEARS IN PROVENCE

by Mark Howe

God certainly has a sense of humour. How else does someone who gave up languages at school at the first opportunity and disliked travel end up living in the South of France and working all over Europe?

"Susan and I arrived in Lauris, a small village in Provence, about four years ago. Although we had made numerous visits to France over the previous three years, there were plenty of surprises in store.

"We soon discovered that we were the only English couple living in the village permanently. This certainly helped us to make friends, although I suspect our neighbours still wonder why we stay here all winter only to leave as soon as the summer arrives!

"Before moving to Provence we had developed an itinerant training ministry across France, working mainly with other missions on short-term outreaches, and this aspect of our work has continued. Last summer we took part in Love Grenoble for three weeks, Susan leading a children's team while I co-ordinated the city centre open-airs. The outreach was one of the best so far, with many good contacts.

"Our local ministry has been slower to develop, but we now have a stable open-air team in Marseille which goes out every Saturday morning. One encouragement has been to see Yves Méra, a student at the theological college in Aix, join this team. We first met Yves during Proclamation '92, one of our regular training weekends.

"Susan has helped two churches in the area to begin children's clubs. Most children in France receive little or no Christian education, even from the Catholic church, and we are always amazed by their readiness to listen to Gospel stories and learn Bible verses.

"A further aspect of our ministry has been the production and distribution of training materials and evangelistic booklets in France. One of our goals for 1994 is to have our manuals printed, so that we can spend a little less time slaving over a hot photocopier!

"For us, the most important event of 1993 was the arrival of Matthew and Sylvie Glock. Matt should complete his language study in May (Sylvie is from Auxerre, so her French is already quite good)! Working as an anglo-franco-american team means that life is never dull - we once almost came to blows over the pros and cons of the metric system! - but we recognise our complementary gifts and look forward to working together in the future.

We receive regular requests from Christians from France and elsewhere who wish to train with us for a few weeks or months. Recently we have been looking at setting up a training centre, and thanks to a large gift covering most of the purchase price we expect to sign a contract for a building in the near future.

"Another priority is to find someone to look after the ever-increasing administration that our work generates.

"Our vision for the next few years is to build a strong ministry in Provence, through which we can also train Christians who want to work in France or the rest of Europe. It is a big vision, but we trust that God will give us the people and the resources we need."