This is the tenth testimony in our ongoing series of posts regarding how saints have participated in the Lord’s move to Europe through praying, giving, and going. Our hope is that many will be encouraged by these testimonies and that the Lord will gain our cooperation to be one with Him in His move in Europe!
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It is difficult to migrate to Europe and not have a subconscious thought of doing a great work – saving and gaining many locals for the church life, raising up churches, doing something grand for the Lord. Even though we know this is not how it works, the thought and expectation remains. Our experience, however, has been the exact opposite of this. We have been in Europe nearly nine years and our testimony is that we are just living a normal life, trying to find grace and receive the divine dispensing in our ordinary days.
We came to Europe as Master’s students, and then continued as PhD students in order to stay. For one of us, the PhD led to a job (the other is still working on the PhD). We have had two children while living here.
One of the difficulties in Europe is breaking into the local community. Particularly in large cities, there is typically a large immigrant community and it is difficult to make contact with natives of the country. Once contact is made, it often takes time to establish a relationship and be able to share the Lord with them. In our current locality of about 40 saints, there is only one native solidly established in the church life. Our ongoing burden is for the Lord to gain the natives of the country.
We have no glorious reports to give of numbers of contacts gained or home meetings or churches raised up. Yet our testimony is that it is glorious to be here because our Lord is glorious and His church is glorious. It is a privilege untold to follow the Lord to Europe. We would not want to be anywhere else. – Couple in Brussels, Belgium
Click here to read last week’s testimony.