5 ans après

5 years ago this week, I went on mission.

It was my first overseas cross-cultural experience, in a country where English is, at most, a second or third language.

I joined a team of like-minded Christians from a range of cultural and linguistic backgrounds,
- such as Armenia, the DR Congo, England, France, Guadeloupe, the Netherlands, Poland and South Korea.

For most of our week together, we spent about 2 hours each day hanging around outside university campus entrances. In those two hours, we approached as many students as had the time to stop and talk to us (not many stopped) and made efforts (sometimes quite feeble, garbled efforts) to engage them in conversations about the person & work of the Lord Jesus Christ as revealed throughout the Bible (most were not interested in talking for long; some openly mocked or sneered at us). Occasionally we were able to give away the odd Bible or an evangelistic tract (e.g. "Two Ways to Live", or Chappo's "What is a Christian?" - but not often). We also invited the university students we met to our evangelistic events and Bible studies that we ran during our mission week (interest and/or positive response were rare though)...

What really struck me about the local unbelievers (principally uni.-aged students) in the places where we did mission was how unwilling they were even to discuss religion at all. In Australia we still experience a fair bit of openness to discuss different belief systems, and there seems to be (in general) a tolerance of people who hold different religious views to others (though that's starting to change for the worse). Yet in this country where I was on mission, there seemed to be much more intolerance of anyone who expressed religious beliefs. A keep-it-to-yourself, faith-has-no-place-in-public, what-an-uneducated-idiot-you-are-to-be-so-deluded attitude.

Our team's outreach language was the official language of the country:
French.

The city in which we were operating:
Paris. Yes, the one in FRANCE.
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Most people see this nation as a holiday destination
- but even many believers don't see it as a nation under condemnation because of its refusal to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved.

They see French people as Catholic
- but excuse me, since when did the Roman Catholic version of the gospel give anyone total assurance of salvation?

They might even think most of the French are Christians - but the reality is, more than 25% of France's young people (ages 18-25) declare themselves to be atheists; most Catholics are only nominal and non-churchgoing; and the Protestants are few in number and generally poorly taught the Bible in their churches (unlike numerous Christians I know in Sydney churches).

Which is why I'm committed to God's mission in France.
Having been there; having seen what it's like to be young and Christian in France; knowing what a tough gig it is to reach people on the university campuses or to serve long-term in ministry there (whether among uni. students, in churches, or elsewhere); having met and made friends with ministry apprentices and poorly/not-fully-funded staff workers
- I want to keep being a part of this work.
Praying for it, caring for those involved in it (or trying, anyway), giving out of my relative poverty to it - and even going over to help my friends out with it, if God might open the door.

France is one of the major reasons why, 5 years after my first visit there to see and join in with the French GBU ministry to students, I accepted the offer to begin studies in theology at Moore College in 2014.

Because I want to be better trained for ministry - just in case...

L/T.
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