Letters from the Harris Family
Dear praying friend:
You prayed and God answered! The Christmas program for us is always a great opportunity to share Christ with the French people. They do get out at Christmas. Our attendance on Sunday at the program was well over one hundred, say 120.
Of course, we had membres from our mother church at Franconville present to help us with the Christmas play and choir, maybe 50-60 Christians from the Franconville church. Our Living Water Church people numbered 30-40, so we must of had some 20-30 invited guests. Some church members had invited friends and family. We had placed and annoncement on the city electronic panel and put a few pasters in strategic places in town.
Besides a few minor problems with the sound system, the Christmas program was a smashing success! As we mingled around chatting with the guests around the beautiful refreshment table, we heard nothing but raving reviews. Several of the guests even said that they would like to visit the church. Could you pray for the following guests: Guy and Yveline, a jewish French family who talked and talked with us afterward. Catherine, a lady who is little bit of a social outcast, who appreciated so much the warmth of our group Genevieve, the housekeep of one of our members, who loved everything about the evening!
Dominique, the neighbor of this same member, who is very very needy and was touched deeply by God on Sunday, A English man, who lost his wife a year ago and is very loney right now, loved the program An English lady, who i personally invited, was very touched Martine, a music professor, with all kinds of family problems, Martin, a single man who loved our play and choirs songs Erick and Edite, long-time friends, who stopped coming to the church, but I think God is still working in their hearts Frederic, the friend of Carlos and Annie's who still comes, and listens There are many others. PRAY! Pray that this week as words from the play and the songs still echo in their minds, that the Holy Spirit would speak to their hearts and that THIS Christmas would be different because they met the Christ of Christmas. Keep praying for the Eaubonne church. They were all very encouraged by the Christmas program too, but there are individuals in church who are still struggling in their attitutes toward other members of the church. may God touch our church with His Grace, every single member!
Thank you so much for your prayers! There are times when we really feel a great need for prayer. There's a lot of good things happening right now, but this is a time when I am feeling a great need of prayer. There's a lot of business and "busy-ness" right now and I want to our family to enjoy a meaningful Christmas too! This week, we will be praying that you and your family have a very meaningful, peaceful Chistmas: meaningful times with family, peaceful moments with the Prince of Peace!
Our love and prayers are with you!
Freddie (for all of us)
Earlier letters from the Harris family
FRANCE - "i will lift up my eyes to the
mountains; from whence shall ny help come?
My help comes from the Lord . . .He who keeps you will not slumber." Psalm
121:1-3
Dear Prayer friend,
Doesn't it amaze you how much we as finite creatures need our rest and yet God
Himself does not need a wink of sleep neither does He dream about taking
vacations? God is full of Energy at all time! God is at work all year around!
It is summer and I am not only thankful for the beauty of this God-created
season, but very grateful for North American Christians who are willing to give
up their summer vacation (and sacrifice some sleep too, i think) to work in this
very needy country of France. We again have between 15 and 20 North Americans
with us this summer. We have some French people working with us too, of course,
as well as, let's see, 3 other young men, an Irish, a Swiss, and an Autralian.
What a mix, but, hey, we have Jesus in common and the desire to preach the good
news!
We are focusing only on 2 French cities (young church plants) this time. We just
finished in the first city: Magny-en-Vexin. We wanted to do more contact-making
events and friendship evangelism this year. We (with a French Christian from the
would-be new church) approached the city authorities with the idea of doing
Kid's Clubs and English Clubs, we found oursleves in good favor with the city
authorities. They gave us the meeting rooms we needed and even sent kids and
youth our way!!! So many warm friendships were founded and many people heard the
good, good news of Jesus-Christ. I did the puppet training again this year. Pray
for all these people who heard the gospel, that they may listen to the Holy
Spirit too!
The summer team have a few days off, then we will move the campaign activity to
our second target: Ecouen. Please pray we will attempt the same strategy there.
We also have a contemporary Christian music band this summer doing concerts in
several town. Pray for fruit from this.
At the very end of our summer campaign, we are sponsoring a concert with the
French Continentals in Eaubonne. Pray that it is a fruitful grand finale to our
summer evangelistic activities!
Prayer Requests
1) Fruit from the summer evangelism, fruit that lasts.
2) Organizational challenges in relation to the above, for example, we will need
to house the 30 members of the Continentals.
3) The Harris's, as they have quite a bit of extra American guests.
4) Freddie, as the Zumacks are now on Home Ministry Assignment and he has more
responsabilities than usual.
5) Pray for a new young man in the Eaubonne church, Antony, who is "on his
way" to accepting Jesus as His Savior.
6) Michel Buisson, a long-time friend of the Eaubonne, is dying (could be any
day). Pray for his salvation and for his wife, Monique and his son Pierre.
Praise
1) A couple in the Eaubonne church are getting in the end of August: Carlos and
Annie. Freddie is doing the pre-marital counselling.
2) Extra family times in the summer months.
3) Again we praise God for the house He gave us. On Sunday after church, we have
a spontaneous potluck/picnic at our house. Good fellowship!
4) We praise God because He is ALWAYS AT WORK, even in the summer! Amen? Amen!
Thank you so much for your prayers. If you know know of anybody else who would
enjoy praying for the Harrises in France, please put me in contact with them.
love and prayers,
Freddie
*Please excuse my grammatical error in the subject title. Did it on
purpose. :O)
Jesus said, "I will build my church,"
and the Living Water Evangelical Church is making progress, though most veteran
missionaries agree that the measuring stick for
determining progress in France seems to have very very fine markings, and the
very slightest progress is celebrated! But there is sure progress!
1) Alain and Jean-Pierre were baptised on May 9.
2) Carlos and Gisele, as well as my son Remy, will be baptized this Sunday (June
20)! Carlos was invited by Jean-Pierre almost two years ago and has been very
faithful. Gisele is a Christian from the Ivory Coast, who has been with us for
several months now. It will so touching for me to baptize my son Remy this
Sunday as it is Father's Day.
3) After the Exposition on the Edict of Nantes that we did during a week in May,
we had several encouraging results.
a) great contacts with the city officials.
b) Gerard came to the Exposition and ended up inviting me (and some visiting
American friends) over to his house. Gerard is independantly rich, but he said
he was in a spiral descent, suicidal, when he met us. God organizes it
perfectly. I prayed with him and as we left he said, maybe you were the right
man for the right time. I met with him a again this week, gave him a Bible and
he wants to start studying the Bible regularly with me.
c) Philippe came to our Expo and he was very glad he did. He is an artist and
decorator, but very much aware of his need for God. He came to church and he
also wants to do Bible studies with me.
d) Thierry was one of the thousands to recieve a tract and invitation in his
mail box for the Expo. On the tract is a coupon that can be sent in for a free
New Testament and for information on the church and for a visit from the pastor.
Thierry wanted all three. Please pray for him.
4) We have some new people coming.
a) Pray for Antony, who is 26 single, seems very sincerely interested in the
Lord, he thinks he is saved but we will do evangelistic bible study with him and
see. He has a degree in Sociology and is working on his masters.
b) Pray for a couple, Nabil and Delphine with a baby, Nathan, Nabil is Tunisien,
raised in France, Delphine is French. They are not married, a little bit of the
poverty
mentality, Nabil accepted the Lord 10 years ago elsewhere and after 2 years,
fell into sin and backslid. He's coming back but you know that the way back from
a backslide is a difficult uphill climb.
c) Rosalie, is a friend of Francile's (who is one of our regular members).
Rosalie, is not a believer, but enjoys coming to church and is interested in
God.
5) With the very effective new ministry of our newest GEM couple, Amy and
Charles Cross, our ministry to youth and young couples has dramatically
improved.
a) Our youth group has grown from around 7 to 15, more than doubled, who come to
Friday night Youth Group, our new Sunday School class every 2 weeks and our new
Youth Worship service once a week!
b) they are also training French people to work with them.
c) they have made lots and lots of new contacts in the future church plant of St
Gratien, where they live.
d) Pray for the summer ministry which starts on June 26, where we will target
for half the time the city of St Gratien
e) Pray for the Crosses as their first baby is due any time now!!!
6) On a sad note and definately a prayer subject: Laurent Maquaire, you have
been praying for him. He's a man that we have been discipling (a Christian for
only 3 years). He has decided to leave the church at this time. Him and his wife
have had lots of setbacks (a still birth, Laurents back problems, a serious
pre-mature birth) Laurent suffered a depression and has become mad at different
people in the church. He is confused and for the moment, feels that a
charismatic church is what he really needs. Pray for him. His wife does not want
to leave AT ALL, but is respectfully following her husband.
Pray for the baptism this Sunday. It will be an open-air baptismal service in
our yard. I will speak on Exodus 15:22-27, where god presents himself as
Jehovah-Rophi, the God who heals. In this insightful passage, God shows Moses
and the People of Israel the He can turn bitterness into sweetness. I think the
typical bitter French person needs this good news so much! Anyone who has a
bitter heart can come to Jesus for a change of heart, who drank the bitter cup
of the cross, in order to transform our bitterness into gladness.
After the baptismal service, we will have our annual church barbecue. Pray for
sunny weather! :O)
Thanks again for your faithful support, prayer, emails, letters, cards,
financial support. We need your support. We feel your support.
Jesus-Christ is working through this support to build His Church in France.
Well, in the third day of jetlag and seem to be adjusting well. We started the
Vacation Bible School this morning in my home church, we're doing a missionary
session for 3 different age groups. Yesterday after church at Grandview, a lady
came up to us and offered us a trailer to stay in, rentfree! The church is going
to try to furnish it and told us also that they wanted to do a grocery shower!
We have also been invited over to friends home with swimming pools to cool us
off in this over 100 degree summer weather! Splash! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
I have made a few changes to the itinerary that I sent out last week, after
receiving a few comments. Continue to be patient as we try to work out the
details. Also remember that this schedule is for Sunday mornings. Our Sunday
evenings and other weekdays are still available, so as a few others already have
done, you others. please do let me know where else we could show up and be a
part of your church!!!!
Look forward to seeing you!
Freddie
This week we're helping do a VBS this week in my home church in Grandview. We
didn't have a place to live, until after church on Sunday. A lady came up to us
and offered us a mobile home. We'll move in maybe on Thursday. The address is:
15402 N. Pioneer Road, Prosser, Washington, 99350. Phone number is 509-973-2013.
We appreciate your prayers for us as we get installed. Pray also for our entire
Home Ministry Assignment, for good planning, safe travel. We will be mainly in
the Pacific Northwest, with the exception of a trip to Colorado Springs for a
meeting at GEM headquarters and a trip to Oakland where we have our most recent
supporting church, Faith Bible Church of Oakland. So please contact us, and we
will try to plan our time at your church!
Love in Christ,
Freddie
The Living Water Evangelical Church in Eaubonne France has made some very
important steps of growth in this last year. About a year ago Laurent Maquaire
(photo 1) started taking an Evangelism Explosion class that we were offering.
Laurent and Valerie are relatively new Christians, but they are very desirous of
growing spiritually.
One of the first times that Laurent went out to practice his EE lessons, he ran
into Jean-Pierre, a young single, who was sitting in the park, reading a science
magazine. This paticular magazine addressed Darwinism and Creationism. Laurent
shared Christ with him and though he didn't accept the Lord that day started to
come to church and has not missed since. Jean-Pierre had a catholic background,
then was with the Jehovah Witnesses for four years. He quit the Jehovah
Witnesses because one of the leaders got mad at him and called him stupid.
A couple weeks later Jean-Pierre invited his single friend, Carlos, an
accountant of Portugese descent. Carlos has been faithful to church every since
also. Leroy Zumack, my colleague, and I have been doing evangelistic Bible
studies with both of them and they have been very involved in the church. Carlos
later started playing quitar during the worship service. (Photo 2) Then we asked
Carlos if he could help us with our church accounting and he accept with great
joy.
Laurent, having the heart of an evangelist, started a Bible stand in the
open-air market. On Thursday morning he will spend all morning at the stand in
Sannois, a town bordering Eaubonne. My colleague, Leroy, accompanies him on this
morning. On Friday morning he will man the stand at the Eaubonne market place. I
accompany him on this morning. (Photo 3) Through the Bible stand ministry we
touch hundreds every week. There was Martha and her brother who accepted the
Lord. Pray for them because they haven't come to church. Then Francile came to
the stand and started coming to church with her two children. She has touched
many of her neighbors, including Edwige and Kangou, among others. She and her
teenage daughter are committed Christians. Now two teenage cousins have come to
live with them. Pray for them.
At Christmas this last year we organized a major production, a musicale based on
the biblical story of the prodigal son. We did a representation in Franconville,
a nearby town, and in Eaubonne. Attendances to these two evangelistic events
were some of our biggest ever. One of the families, who saw our publicity on the
municipal electronic reader boards, was the Van Brabant family. They came to the
program, God touched them, and they have not missed a Sunday since. This is a
big family, with a very interesting background. We'll tell you more about them
at another date. Three people in this family will get baptised in October.
(Photo 4)
This summer we had our fourth HOPE 95 summer campaign. Our missions summer team
(Eurocorps) provides us with 20 to 25 North American Christians to help us more
seriously fulfill the Great Commission, to preach the gospel to EVERY creature.
These NA Christians join French Christians in 10 to 15 different evangelical
churches in our region, NW of Paris (a region populated with over 1.1 million
people) The Christians are divided and trained into 5 different ministry teams:
Music, Mime, Theatre, Puppets, and Sketchboard. Actually, some help with
administration too because it take quite a bit of administration to organize
this many people over a 6 week period. Everybody also helps in distribution of
gospels, tracts, and invitations. Everybody gets a chance to witness and give
their testimony pubicly. Since the World Cup was help in France this year, we
decided to have a sports emphasis. So we chose the theme, "What is the
Goal?", added two Christian soccer teams (Athletes In Action and Ultimate
Goal Ministry) to our already huge groups, organized 25 games, projected many of
the World Cup play games, handed out 500 some World Cup editions of the Jesus
video (with testimonies of Brazilien champions), 200 World Cup souvenir booklets
with plan of salvation included, 200 World Cup edition, New Testaments with
colored photos and and testimonies of Christian athletes, and thousands of
tracts with a sports theme. (Photo 5) Many people prayed to accept Christ,
thousands of seed were planted. And believe me France DID go crazy when the
French soccer team won the World Cup! VERY CRAZY! Keep praying for every one who
heard the gospel, received some form of gospel this summer, that God would bring
a great harvest!
Thanks so much for your prayers. Feel free to email and ask questions.
Freddie and Kandee Harris
"I thank God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I
always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first
day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you
will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."
Philippians 1:3-5
Dear Praying Friend,
Home Ministry Assignment is an adventure! An interesting life for a missionary!
Life in France is an adventure too, but HMA is horse of another color! We like
it because we can see family and friends, talk about what God is doing, but I
admit we do sometimes feel like a fish out of water. Because of the importance
of keeping things moving in France, we have chosen to do a shorter HMA instead
of a long one, five months instead of a year!
That gives us plenty of time to do what we need to do and gets us back to the
place where God has called us: France. Our time here is going great! We're
getting to our supporting churches one by one and have already seen many of our
individual supporters. If you are one of our individual supporters / prayer
warriors and you live within driving distance and we haven't seen you or
contacted you yet, PLEASE email me back and let's get something on the calendar,
OK!!?! OR even call us at 509-973-2013. This would help me.
We do want to thank all of those who have supported us financially - - many have
been on our support team from the very beginning. If most of these folks stay on
the team, we won't have a big amount of monthly support to raise this time.
Looks like we will need only an additional $300 per month. Within this amount is
a little extra that the mission allows us to raise to help us purchase home
school materials. Would you please pray that God provide all this monthly
support before we return on December 28th? We will also need one-time gifts
amounting to $6000, which includes the $4000 buffer which GEM requires (for
deficits which occur while on the field) and travel expenses while here in the
states. Thank you for bring these before the Lord.
We also have a couple other fund-raising projects:
$25,000 Still needed in Eaubonne Church building fund
$10,000 Pastoral Subsidy Fund for future Eaubonne
Church Pastor
$2,000 Church Plant 2000 (new church plant in the year 2000)
Most of you will remember that the building fund has been a project for awhile.
Some of you have already given to this fund. We have already recieved close to
$20,000 for this. All these funds are secure in our building fund account, and
once we find a building and have sufficient funds, we will use it to purchase
the Eaubonne church building. The French people are giving too! The more we can
have saved up, the less the church will be in debt and the easier it will be for
them to hire a pastor.
As you can guess, the $10,000 of the Pastoral Subsidy Fund will not go far in
France where, if we were to pay a pastor $1000 a month, the government requires
another $1000 in taxes. This makes a heavy financial load for the church. The
Pastoral Subsidy Fund is designed to help the church in the first few years
after hiring her first pastor. The $10,000 would be spread out over several
years.
It's been almost 6 years since we planted the Eaubonne by God's Grace. A nearby
town of 20,000 people, St Gratien, has no evangelical church. Would you join us
in prayer for this new church plant project?
We don't very often talk about money in these letters. But Home Assignment is a
time for discovering financial and prayer resources, so we're bringing these
needs to your attentions for your prayer consideration. If you know of any
person who doesn't get this letter, but may be interested in this type of
ministry, please free to forward this to him or print it up and post it
somewhere. And again, THANKS for your partnership in prayer in this wonderful
great commission adventure for God.
Yours in His Adventure,
Freddie
PS Pray also for safety in travel, for wisdom and strength from on High.
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