Divine Voyagers

Welcome to everyone who put their name down on the mailing list! This is our monthly blog, thank you for joining us for the ride!

Prayer points: 

1. That people would decide to pray for us and partner with us long term. We had a huge turn out, and hopefully people had the chance to catch our vision. 
2. Prior to the fundraising night, at the end of February, we had hit 1%! Without meeting up intentionally or having had an event, this was incredibly exciting. Praise God! (Update on fundraising post-event to come in April’s post).

On Saturday, the 22nd of March, we had our first big mission event. 

We had the joy of sharing where we’re going, what we’re planning on doing and why with a group of over a hundred people who gathered together at our sending church, Narwee Baptist. We also played a bit of music with good friends and family before sharing a French supper. It was such an honour to see everyone who turned up to support us, including people who have already partnered with us, and to really feel like we were getting our journey off the ground – getting this vision out of our heads for the first time properly, and sharing it with so many people. 

One moment which stuck out to me was singing ‘Forever’ by Kari Jobe, in French (or my best attempt). I put the lyrics in English up on the screen, and sang a song which I think encapsulates not only the gospel, but our response – “we sing hallelujah” (nous chantons alleluia).

While I was looking for a song, I realised that there is so little French worship music – there are old hymns, some corny sounding music recorded by well-meaning churches, and bands who are big enough to translate and record their own music, like Hillsong, at least on Spotify. There was no recording for ‘Forever’, although I found some lyrics. Many of the songs I wanted to sing had no recordings or translations at all.

So many songs we sing on a Sunday don’t exist in French, let alone Basque. It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy – if there is no demand, it doesn’t get recorded, but if there are no recordings, no one can listen to it. It made me think of our friends at Mission Compassion who run a radio station – what praise and worship songs can they play, for someone to stumble upon and enjoy enough to listen and hear the gospel? (Perhaps that’s a resource we could create in the future.)
So as I sang, I sang for the millions of French and thousands of French Basque who have never had the chance to sit in a church and join their brothers and sisters in song, be moved by song, pray through song, as I have taken for granted so many times.

Our friend Dan came all the way from Gunnedah (regional NSW) to give a talk on giving to missionaries. I asked him to speak after he and his wife had a chat with us about our attitude towards asking for financial partnership – he challenged us, and hopefully others, that giving is something that is expected biblically and helps mission overseas work.

We were also glad to have our old mobiliser, Ray, come and talk about Pioneers, and for our friend Nick to pray over us and the Basque after we gave our presentation. Thank you to everyone who performed and to our parents for preparing supper, and thank you to Sam for the incredible photos from the night.

Finally, thank you to everyone who came along, including people we didn’t know, who were invited, or who saw the ad in the church newsletter. We look forward to catching up with people and chatting partnership, developing personal relationships with people as we continue to prepare for the field.
If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch (you can also do that through the ‘contact’ tab on this website). If you’re keen to support us, you can do that at https://pioneers.org.au/give/donate/.