What's happening in France?...God is working!!

This is one of the recent newsletters that we received from our friends, David and Kathryn, who are serving as missionaries in France.  It is very encouraging to see how God is working there.  We can't wait to be a part of what He is doing!...


                        
                                   My friend, Lambert in Ault, France 2004

"Thank you for praying these past 9 years for Lambert.  He passed away last Friday morning.  He just celebrated his 89th birthday in May.  I miss him already.  I went to see Lambert almost once a week since we arrived in Méru so many years ago now.  And all those years I preached the Gospel to this man, and you, along with many hundreds more from around the world, prayed for his salvation.  On my Outlook calendar, at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday the 30th of March, and marked in bright purple to emphasize a very extra/ordinary event, are these words: “Lambert, reconciled to God!”  I didn’t really feel like visiting Lambert in his assisted living facility that day, but there I was, once again, leaning in close, pleading with my dying friend to open his heart to the love of God and to receive His free gift of life in Christ before it was too late.
Why that day? Why not in 2004? I don’t know, and I guess it doesn’t really matter.  What matters most is that on that eventful day, 2 months before his death, Lambert understood something that he had never understood before.  His lifelong efforts to be moral, kind and good would not impress God nor would it earn him the right to eternal life with the Father in heaven.  I offered to pray a prayer to God on his behalf and suggested, if he was sincere, that he repeat the prayer after me, out loud, to God.  He said he would, and he did! It was a simple prayer of faith, an invitation for Christ to come into his life and to save him from sin’s awful salary: eternal death and separation from God.  He stared at me intently as we prayed together.  He had tears in his eyes; I had tears of gratitude
running down my face.  Three different times he said to me, as I guided his wheel chair to his table in the dining room, “maintenant je suis heureux, je suis heureux maintenant”. “Now I’m happy, I’m
happy now.”  I call it an extra/ordinary event because it involves God’s “extra” and my “ordinary”.  You and I are just the messengers, faithfully doing what God has commissioned us and enabled us to do – ordinary!  Only the Word of God, empowered by the Spirit of God, can break down the barriers in a man’s heart,
save him and restore him to fellowship with the Father – extra!
Do you ever wonder if it’s really worth persevering in prayer? Is it worth the astronomical expense of sending missionaries to another part of the globe to tell people that through Christ they can be
reconciled to God?  Do you ever wonder if you’re making any difference for the Kingdom of God on this planet, or how you “measure” success when it comes to planting churches in a foreign land?  I have, and I do!  But… it’s on days like this, when my friend Lambert dies and steps into the joy of his salvation, that I sense the power of Christ on me, that my faith in God and in the saving power of the Gospel is renewed, that I’m grateful for each one of you who has sacrificed financially to keep us here in such
trying times as these, that I encounter, first hand, the victory of persevering prayer!  A very heart-felt thanks for your partnership in bringing Lambert to faith in Christ!  I’m sure he’ll want to thank you personally one day! 

Changing the landscape of eternity one person at a time,
David (4Kathryn2)"