Dear Friends,
We wanted to send out an update and tell you about how things are going here. It’s been strange to hear the news of Russia attacking Ukraine. We’ve been in constant contact with fellow missionaries over there. One of our elder’s is Ukrainian and thankfully he was able to evacuate his mother from Kyiv but his wife’s family is still in a neighboring village in the heart of the country. It’s a heartbreaking moment and although we don’t know the details of our future involvement will be, we are preparing for how the Lord would have us be involved.
In the meantime we can talk about the things we do know more about and that’s what the Lord is currently doing at CC Paris. We wanted to thank you for your prayers, Mike was able to go the Pastor’s conference in Austria. He came back refreshed and bearing chocolate!
In our last newsletter we spoke about the new direction the church is taking and our vision for this season which can be summarized as “connaître Dieu et le faire connaître” or “knowing God and making Him known”. We’ve continued our “pre-glows” and finished with a week of all-church prayer during which the the Conflict in Ukraine began. It was such a help for our church body to be able to gather together daily and pray in the middle of the day - to “cast all our cares on Him, for He cares for us” in this hour of uncertainty and need.
We met twice last month as a church and solidified our Easter evangelism project. Here is the basic plan: we will have a Good Friday service mainly for the members of our church, then a special Easter service where we invite all the neighborhood, special welcoming team and evangelistic message. Then after the service we plan to hit the streets with a choir that we are preparing and a bunch of invitations with chocolate. Please pray for us. We have about six weeks to pull it all together. We will also rebuild our Social media presence and replace our live stream (which has been silent for awhile) with a podcast style that will aimed more at connecting with visitors. These ideas are from the church themselves and so we are excited about working with people to see the Lord use them in this new way. Please keep us in your prayers. It has been great to see different groups of people rise up for each project with the goal of reaching Paris with the gospel.
Another high point this month is to see how the Worship ministry is taking shape. We have co-leaders now: one person concentrated on music and another on organization. This is a great step in the right direction for us as we prepare for the Easter outreach and puts us in good shape for future endeavors. Once this gets well underway, we will need to begin to concentrate on the Children and Youth ministry. This will need prayer coverage as it’s a sensitive subject that needs work. Thankfully, Abby and Kris have a huge heart for the youth and some pretty great ideas too. They are thinking about summer projects with the kids as well, like possibly going to the CreationFest in the UK this summer. As these projects are far off, we realize that now is the time to plan and so we wanted to share with you.
Lastly, we wanted to share some other prayer requests. We have a few weddings this summer in California we hope to attend, including Mike’s brother’s. Please pray the Lord would open the doors for us to attend. Also, Becky has been studying at CCU in the Biblical Counselling department but has felt it may be time for a change. She is taking a break to see if Western Seminary might not be a better fit. Please pray the Lord would lead us and provide all that’s needed.
Thank you so much for your prayers and support.
In Jesus
Mike and Becky Dente
