The Courier Spring 2008

Volume 15 Number 2

WHAT HAPPENS TO

A WATCHED POT?

Viroflay— Everyone knows that old proverb about watched pots— they just never boil! Why is it, then, that most of us insist on watching the pot anyway? Oh, we might pretend we’ re not watching it; we hover in the near vicinity, busying ourselves with some other small task. But out of the corner of our eye, we keep sneaking peeks to see if the steam is rising. Perhaps it is an inherent quality in the pot— it needs to be watched. More likely it is an inherent quality in us— impatience for something, anything, to happen! Tom & Bev Hawkins, C&MA missionaries in France, confess to doing a lot of pot-watching this year. “In September we truly believed that God was going to do some amazing work in EPEV, our little church in Viroflay,”explains Bev. “But every time we checked the pot, peeking discreetly under the cover, it seemed, if anything, to be getting colder.” It was a several-month period where God knocked out one human prop after another. The First Bubbles Through the first weeks of 2008, Tom & Bev received several inquiries and registrations for the spring Marriage Course, and a restaurant evening planned for “graduate couples” was a rousing success. By the start of the course in March, the maximum of eight couples were registered and several couples from previous courses signed up to help. “We were encouraged by this surge of interest,”says Bev. Sometime in early March, God brought, Nathalie, a new convert, to EPEV. Though raised in an

evangelical church, she had never accepted Christ as her Savior until last October when the Spirit reached into her depression-ridden life and “graced” (her words!) and healed her. “Her overflowing joy and enthusiasm encouraged us,”reports Bev, “and her insatiable hunger for God challenges us all!” A Rolling Boil Easter Sunday kicked off a time of great celebration at EPEV. Luis showed up with a friend, Dany, who was deeply touched by the service and asked lots of questions. The following Sunday was Luis’ baptism (see page 2 for more). His oldest daughter came, along with three friends. Dany returned with her “companion”, Michel. Guerda, a widowed cashier at a local discount market, was also present with two of her three children. Many of these people have returned and are being followed-up by church members. More recently, a couple who had been “missing-in-action” for several months returned. Last Sunday, another couple visited as a direct result of our ongoing mailbox distribution. “This was the first result we’ ve seen from thousands of cards distributed,” explains Tom, “and it was nice to finally see some fruit from this effort.” As God continues to send in needy people, EPEV’ s prayer meeting has taken off! “We have understood from the outset that we not only need to minister to these people in practical ways, but also by carrying on an intense spiritual combat on their behalf,” says Bev. “How precious to see our people responding by going to their knees!”

Important Items for

P*R*A*Y*E*R June 1, EPEV’s 15th Birthday Party: EPEV is organizing a BBQ and concert in a local park. Pray for the organization of this special day, for lots of visitors, and for good weather. June 15, Baptismal Service: Nathalie will be taking this step of faith. Pray for the many people she wants to invite, many of them unbelievers. The Marriage Course: Pray for these eight couples, some of whom need some deep healing in their lives and relationships. Impossible Prayers: A building for EPEV and a French couple to give the seven Marriage Course talks. Impossible, but God can do it! “We finally get it,” laughs Tom. “All that time we were watching the pot, we should have just had our eyes on Jesus! I hope we’ ll remember that lesson for a long time!” Amen! The pot is finally boiling, to God be ALL the glory!

The Big Splash -Baptisms at EPEV FRANCE FACTS: Vital Statistics, Part 2 The Spiralling USD

French Friees for Small Fries: A-MAZE-ing Taylor!

The Courier, Spring 2008, page 2

The Big Splash Viroflay— On Sunday, March 30, the Resurrection Celebration that had begun at EPEV the week before continued as Luis took what he likes to call “the big splash”. Tom states, “It was an enormous joy for us to see Luis, our former Alpha participant, take this step of faith.” The service was punctuated with skits and songs themed around “new life in Christ.” One skit in particular, presented by Luis and the SS children, was the highlight of the afternoon. One child climbed to the top of a tall ladder. He looked around and beckoned another child to join him, then another and another until the ladder was nearly full of children. At that point, Luis stood up in the congregation and

asked, “Is there any room for me?” The boy at the top responded, “There’ s always room for you in God’ s heart!”and Luis went to take his place on the bottom rung. Luis’testimony was stirring, given in the simple language of a new believer. He told others of changes Christ had already made in his life, affirming his desire to follow Him. His only requested song (and an EPEV favorite this year) raised the rafters— Wonderful Grace of Jesus! Unfortunately, Luis will soon leave EPEV to retire to the south of France. Bev laughs, “We hope our next baptismal candidate (Nathalie, June 15) will stick around a little longer than that!”

Luis, with François and Tom, just before and during “the big splash”

The Shrinking

Dollar

Europe— The phenomenon is the same all over the old continent: expats everywhere nervously check the daily exchange rate, only to find it continuing its dismal downward slide. Tom moans, “The dollar hit a record low this week, reaching an exchange rate of 1.62.” For those who may not have the random habit of following world markets, that means that one dollar will buy 62 Euro cents. “To put that in perspective,” explains Bev, the C&MA France bookkeeper, “a year ago, one dollar would buy 75 Euros cents. Thirteen cents might not seem like very much, but what that means is that in one year, although our US salary has not changed, we have lost 17% of our income.” Please pray for missionaries who are experiencing financial losses in both personal and field budgets, while dealing with local inflation (see France Facts, this page). Pray that God’ s people would give sacrificially and that God would provide miraculously.

Here are a few more statistics from ADDRESSES INSEE, the French counting group, for We would love to hear from you! those readers who like numbers! Minimum wage: 8,44 Euros (or The Hawkins $13,50) an hour, compared to the US Bât D, 47 ter rue St. Charles federal hourly rate of $6.55. 78000 Versailles, France Unemployment: Overall, 8.8%; E-mail: hawkinsinparis@ slightly higher (9.6) for women; slightly free.fr lower (8.1) for men. The young suffer Web site: most: 15.8% for those aged 15-29. Crime: For the 4th straight year, http://tom.hawkins.free.fr crime rates are down. “Street crimes” 011.331.3021.9885 are down 24% since 2002. Prices: Overall food costs have risen All contributions, clearly marked for Tom by over 5% in the past year. (See Hawkins' Work or Outfit Special or the “Shrinking Dollar”, this page.) Great Commission Fund may be sent to:

Vital Statistics . . .

.

: (

. . .Part 2

FRANCE FACTS

The Christian and Missionary Alliance P.O. Box 35000 Colorado Springs, CO 80935-3500

The Courier, Spring 2008, page 3

French Fries for Small Fries KId

Updates

It’ s been a while since The Courier has given an update on the Hawkins kids, so let’ s see what they’ re up to. Jesse: She is finishing up her first year at Taylor and in just a couple weeks will be back in Europe, visiting family and catching up with her BFA friends. Josh: He is at the end of his junior year at BFA and has begun the agonizing process of thinking about what comes next! He’ s starting goalie for the varsity soccer team this year and already has some “battle scars”to brag about! Caleb: He will be glad to soon be an official high-schooler! He’ s participating in track this year, sprinting and jumping. He’ s happy to have finally hit a growth spurt!

Read Your Bible, Pray Every Day Did you learn that song in Sunday School, too? The whole thing goes like this: Read your Bible, pray every day Pray every day, pray every day Read your Bible, pray every day And you’ ll grow, grow, grow! You can be sure that little French kids are not learning that song! In fact, according to a study just published in Le Figaro (one of France’ s leading morning papers), neither are adults! The study shows that only 1 in 5 French people have read the Bible at all in the past year. The study also showed that less than 50% of French people even own a Bible, and 49% of them “never pray”. Americans scored much better on the survey: 75% have read their Bible in the past year and 87% pray often, 63% say they pray every day. Even though America might be far from the Christian roots of its founding fathers, there is still a base

of “religious thinking”that should not be underestimated when it comes to sharing the gospel with unbelievers. It’ s hard for Americans to imagine a culture like France that is so little permeated by religious thought or background, but it helps to understand why missionary work is so necessary there. “Many people ask us why a modern country like France needs missionaries,” says Bev Hawkins who has worked in France for 14 years. “Even though religion used to be important here and historical events took place here that were important to the church, so much of that is completely gone and France is now a culture that values what is ‘ secular’ and puts down anything ‘ religious’ . There is so much work to do here to reach the French people with God's good news!” So go to it – read your Bible and pray every day for missionaries in France and around the world!

The A-MAZE-ing Taylor University Maze

It’ s time to pay a visit to Jesse at TU, her new home! She’ ll be happy to show you around. Make sure to stop and admire the brand new Memorial Prayer Chapel, and have a bite to eat in the Hudson Dining Commons while you enjoy Taylor Lake out the large windows. After eating you might need to work off some extra pounds at Kessler Student Activity Center (or "The Well”). Stop by the Student Union where you’ ll no doubt meet a pile of Jesse’ s many friends and perhaps share a snack with them. After that, she’ ll be happy to give you a tour of the theatre where she works on set building – oh, look! There she is now, taking out the garbage and waving to you! Make sure she shows you her room in Swallow Robin Hall (hopefully it’ ll be clean!) and from there it’ s not too far to Ivanhoe’ s for an aMAZEing ice cream sundae or shake!