Should We Send Workers to France?

Last night we signed up for 2 years of the journal EMQ, a trade journal for those who work in cross-cultural ministry and coordinated in the Billy Graham Center of Wheaton College. I used to have a subscription to this, but it expired many years ago. I ordered a 2 year subscription for 8 issues, as well as access to its Internet site. My wife likes hard copies of journals, so she'll enjoy that. The researcher in me wants the access to the archives of Internet articles. Unfortunately, unlike with some other journals, you can't access EMQ's archives without a subscription.

The January 2005 issue has an article titled Should We Send Missionaries to France? It is by an anonymous author who with her husband has been serving in France for 16 years. She writes:

"Is it cost effective to have missionaries in France? No way. This is a money pit. It's foolishness--but that reminds me of what Paul told the Corinthians: "the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom" (1 Cor. 1:25). What about American churches that want to support local ministries instead? I think churches can mobilize locally without neglecting God's call to reach the world. What about switching support to nationals? From what I've read and seen, this could be a harmful strategy, creating dependency on foreign funds that can hinder national church growth and indigenous church planting movements."

"Is it good to send missionaries to France? We've been investing our lives here for almost sixteen years by God's grace, in obedience to his call, according to his working. France is spiritually needy--less than one percent evangelical--and strategic. Yes, I think that we should continue to send missionaries to France while we have the opportunity."

When I look back at my life, I smile and sometimes laugh at the steps that God used to first get me to France in 1988 and then to have me live and serve in ministry here for 12 1/2 years now. It took an initial assignment in the French-speaking West African country Côte d'Ivoire to get me to Albertville, France for language study. That first year led to a second year at a French Bible school in Nogent-sur-Marne just outside of Paris. These 2 years of learning and observing led to a love of France, as well as a call to minister here.

Why did God call me to serve here for the long-term and not in Côte d'Ivoire, Colombia, Canada, Kazakstan, or China? I don't really know. But I know that His ways are good and perfect and His call is the best one to follow. Through being here, He has led me into some innovative and stimulating ministries and into friendships with a diversified group of faces from different places around the globe. While here, He has also thrown in the perks of a wife (of 8 years now), 2 children born in Paris, and another one on the way for late January.

I'm glad and honored to have been sent to Paris by 12+ churches, as well as dozens of individuals and families. We sow in France in their place and as their representants. We're pleased that the number of senders through prayer and financial generosity continues to grow as our spiritual and financial needs grow. It is the same God who called me to France who stimulates some people and churches to be part of our senders.