Post from the Packers 📭 – Church In The Avenue

Update: March 2022

Hello from France, how are you and our dear friends at leckwith, we want to thank you all for your faithful prayers and gifts for us. It is a privilege to be cared for by the Lord’s people.
We’re well here and are glad that the reduction in Covid restrictions has opened up more possibilities.
I was delighted to be able to take part in a youth weekend in Brittany. The 90 15-30 year olds had a great weekend with teaching from Acts 17. There were beach games and workshops as well as worship times.
I had been invited to do one of the workshops and I chose to encourage the YP to consider Mission. Several came to talk to me afterwards. I was also there as “big sister” to talk to any who wanted a deeper chat about things they were going through. I thank the Lord for the few I am keeping in contact with.
Mike continues to be encouraged by the prison work. He also has an excellent contact with almost all the prison guards and the director. We pray for those prisoners who have made a profession of faith that they will spend time reading God’s word. This is difficult as most have very low literacy skills and even the specific tracts and pamphlets we have are not adapted. Mike has tried to write some material for them. They do have a calendar though which they can read ( a verse and short meditation/thought).

We have been able to travel a bit too and are enjoying our member care role with Echoes International where we are able to listen to, encourage and pray with Mission Partners who are often quite isolated, particularly since Covid struck.
We will be passing through Bath in April (20th) to attend the Echoes International 150th celebrations. Sadly we won’t be able to get to the Cardiff date at Bethesda, Rhiwbina. We are hoping to get back to the UK though in October this year; we will keep you informed as soon as possible.
So once again a big thank you to you all.
God bless,
Alison and Mike

JANUARY 2022 UPDATE:-

To all at the Church in the Avenue,
Firstly it is a very important tradition to send New Year greetings to friends and family so may Alison and I wish you all a 2022 in which we all may grow in our knowledge of and our love for the Lord Jesus Christ.
2021 has yet again been a challenging year for many, a year in which previous certainties have become far less certain and generally society has struggled to cope. How good it is to know in the words of

2 Cor 4 17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 18 while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
We spent Christmas with our immediate family, sons, daughter in law and grand children+++ and we were sad that we could not bring Mike’s Mum out to France to be with us and then celebrate her 90th birthday. Travel for tourists business to the UK was banned by the French government except for life threatening circumstances!

We still travel a long way to the new church plant we attend in rennes. We had thought that we would be more on the road to moving but at the moment it is very difficult to find anything. We are thankful for the way the local church has grown significantly and the need for premises is even more important now.
Our role in care of missionaries is encouraging and we are so thankful for the service of those we seek to support who often serve in complicated and difficult surroundings. Nearly 190 people is quite a lot to keep in touch with regularly but little by little we are forging friendships. The response of the church to take the gospel to all nations and the care of those they send is so relevant in 2022.
Despite no longer being able to visit prisoners in their cells because of covid restrictions it has been so humbling to see some of the men respond to the gospel and make professions of faith. Some are working through a bible study Words of freedom and Mike has just put out a flyer inviting other prisoners to start the bible study.
We are still working on a book to help believers open the bible with non believers and try to get past the attitude that you need to be an “expert” with all the answers to do it!!!
A lot of help has been given to different believers to distribute gospels / bibles all over France and recently while listening to an evangelist in Madagascar Mike was struck by the need for bibles in Madagascar with areas where many only have a few pages of the bible and elders/ leaders struggle to have a complete bible. Madagascar is extremely poor and many cannot afford to purchase a bible, so we are looking at ways to help finance and buy bibles.
Alison continues to be involved with the regional assemblies youth meetings which has obviously been quite sporadic over this past year with online offline , in hall out hall!!!!
We do so want to thank you for your fellowship with us, it is such an encouragement to us to know you think of us and pray for us regularly and also for your gifts that are forwarded to us. We too do not forget you and pray for you.
We send you all our love in Christ
Mike and Alison

OTHER LETTERS FROM FRANCE CAN BE SEEN BELOW:-

15th April 2020

Dear Chris,

Thanks for your mail. Thank you too for the link to the website.

It’s lovely to see the news and to be able to pray for you all too.

My cousin Vanessa was allowed home yesterday evening for which we thank the Lord. We pray that she will gather strength now but above all recognise the power of prayer behind her recovery. We heard last night that were locked down for at least another month.

Our Sebastien is now only working 50% which helps with childcare but it’s possibly concerning regarding the job and the future of the company.

We’ve just spoken to Benjamin who is a bit fed up because there is still no decision about his exams for becoming a teacher. He should have been taking them now. He continues daily grocery/meal deliveries on his bike and now at least has a mask. Earning some money for himself but also helping local businesses to function.

Matthias is officially on school holidays. Although the President said schools will be going back (possibly) from mid-May his exams will not happen and the logistics of having the pupils in class is going to be complicated.

He is still working though especially as he was due to go on a Christian camp to prepare exams which is now happening online.

Just spoken to Loic too in London who is also working from home and is fairly busy (he’s in debt analysis!)

Yesterday we had a Skype prayer meeting with a couple of our young adults. One is Iranian and it’s lovely hearing her pray in Farsi. We have a Skype Bible study on Friday and Mike has various zoom meetings this week with Glo and Bible bookshop.

With greetings in his name

Alison and Mike

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7th April 2020
Hi Chris and all at Leckwith,

A bit of news from us 🙂
We are now in our fourth week in lockdown. We are only allowed out for very specific and very limited things and big fines are in place if you Don’t have the official paperwork to leave your home etc! All but essential food shops and banks have been closed for that period as well.

Places of worships were closed down the week before the population lockdown. As you have done we also have had to adapt to a very new way of living Church fellowship, Skype /Zoom meetings, WhatsApp groups to encourage and support each other, but this has gone really well and if anything has had very positive effects on peoples’ commitment! The interactive bible studies on Skype have also been really encouraging once people have learnt the procedures for participating etc. We have very few people who are not on internet but for those that are not we keep in close contact as they are generally the elderly members and the most vulnerable. It’s a challenging time but also one of opportunity in a society profoundly affected by the covid19 crisis. We pray that we may make the most of this time when the very foundations of societal life are being shaken to present Christ as the one true foundation on which people can totally put their trust.

The Maison de la Bible bookshop Ministry faces serious challenges as all the bookshops have been closed and sales have plummeted by over 90%, we pray that the Lord would guide and provide but the reality is that if the situation continues for another month the survival of the Christian bookshops will be a real challenge.

The prison Ministry is also on hold, Laval was the first prison in France to stop any external people going into prison, so it is a month that Mike has had no contact with the prisoners. With other chaplains we have been able to offer a toll-free national number that prisoners can call. The director of the prison agreed to put up the number in the prison, also a bible meditation that I wrote for the prisoners.

Our immediate family are well although it seems very likely that Loïc, our third son who works in the centre of London, contracted the virus as he had cough, fever, aches and slight breathing problems. It was a bit of a worrying time as he has no doctor in London and couldn’t get through to the NHS number. He hasn’t got a spleen after a football injury when he was a teenager so is vulnerable to infection, however after 8 days he has recovered for which we are thankful. We just heard that Alison’s cousin Vanessa was taken into hospital yesterday after 8 days at home fighting the virus but she has now developed respiratory problems and has pneumonia.

We continue to pray for you and thank the Lord for your loving prayerful concern for us.

Mike & Alison.