David Pater: Year-End Update from France
We Have Many Reasons to be Thankful for 2019
Dear praying friends and family,
Thanksgiving in America!
We arrived back in America for a quick visit on November 21st. After several days in Chicago filled with deep-dish pizza and many encouraging meetings with good friends and members from David's Chicagoland church, we traveled to Atlanta to spend an entire week with family as well as with several supporters from this area. We had a wonderful time seeing many of you again, hearing about all that the Lord has been doing, and praying for God's continued grace in our lives. We especially appreciated being able to see our family for such an extended period of time, something we haven't been able to do for several years! Rebecca also got to experience her first American Thanksgiving and subsequently her first Black Friday. She enjoyed them thoroughly! For all of you who we were not able to see for one reason or another, we hope that our next visit to America can be a bit longer and thus allow us the joy of seeing you, too!
Signs of New Life in our Small Group
A point of particular encouragement for us in the last couple months has been inside of our small group. Starting in late October we were able to welcome two new members into our group, both of them men who had not clearly made a decision to follow Jesus. For one, the lack of a guarantee concerning the healing of a prolonged health problem stopped him. For the other, he just wasn't ready yet to give up on his earthly hope and dreams to follow Christ. Over the last several weeks we have seen some amazing things take place. The first man has made a profession of faith as he finally realized that the glories of the world to come are not worth comparing to our sufferings here and now. The second is still undecided, but he is seeing things more clearly than ever and is so close to following Christ. Please thank God with us for what He is doing in the lives of the these two men, and pray for them and for our small group as a whole, that the joy of seeing God grant new life would encourage us all to live for His glory even more faithfully!
Revelation and Evangelism Updates
Last Sunday marked the end of a three-month sermon series in Revelation. When we told many of your back in America that our church was preaching verse by verse through Revelation, we were met with looks of surprise and astonishment. 'Why would you do something crazy like that?!' That was basically our reaction a few months ago as well, but we have been blown away seeing our church grow numerically and even more so spiritually during this time. Several have come to faith through this series and many others are understanding profound truths about God, this world, and eternity. The Word of God really is able to do amazing things regardless of the passage (2 Timothy 3.15-17)! In other news, over the last 6 weeks our church has hosted several workshops on evangelism. We covered the topics of how to be intentionnel, wise, and ready to answer the tough questions people might ask us when we share Christ with them. All of these training events were very well attended and we are encouraged by the many new people coming to both of our gatherings every Sunday thanks to a simple invitation from someone in the church. We have some more cool ideas for how to keep sharing our faith creatively for 2020, and we will be letting you know all about them in our next newsletter!
Concerning our support levels for this year, God has richly provided for us in 2019, but if you would like to make a end of year gift to support the ministry in Toulouse, you can do so here. Please know we are eternally thankful for your prayers and generosity!
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas as you think of God's great love for us in Christ,
David and Rebecca
Praises
For a wonderful trip back to the States with lots of fun and encouraging times with friends and family.
For the man who gave his life to Christ in our small group. God is good and God saves!
For a particularly blessed sermon series in Revelation. May we never doubt the power of God's Word!
For our evangelism workshops that have reignited the zeal of many to see God glorified by all!
Prayer Requests
For the man who is still on the fence about submitting to Christ in our small group. Pray that God would open his eyes to see His glory!
For our next baptism service which will take place in a little over a month. We hope to baptize at least two new believers, but pray for even more!
For our Christmas services at church, that many new people would come and be able to hear the truth about Christ.
For David's visa-renewal meeting on January 6th. Pray that all would go well and that he might be able get a 5-year residency card.
