Did you know France is the largest country in Western Europe?
Population: 63,952,580 (ref Joshua Project).
Evangelical Christians is just 1.03% (ref Joshua Project).
Operation World reports: Major spiritual strongholds which hinder acceptance of the gospel:
a) France’s religious history is stained with violence – the bloody wars of religion in the 16th Century which claimed 200,000 lives, the brutal persecutions of the Huguenots in the 17th Century and the French Revolution in 1789-1801. Starting with the Reformation and then Counter-Reformation, France moved through the Enlightenment to philosophically culminate in modern-day atheistic existentialism and a materialist view of life.
b) The widespread involvement with occult practices. There are more people earning a living in occult practices than there are registered doctors, and 10 times more than evangelical pastors and missionaries. The spiritual vacuum created by aggressive secularism has been filled with witchcraft and esotericism, since most French have no meaningful contact with dynamic Christian faith.
Two ministry leaders in France joined Love UnVeiled training this January to learn how God might use Love UnVeiled to help them reach and disciple women in France. This was one of the reports following their experience in January:
The content of the workshop was very creative and deeply rooted in God’s Word! I really enjoyed the fact that this material is relevant for spiritually “seeking” women, new believers, as well as women who have been walking with the Lord for a long time… like me! Though I had initially come to this conference to check what this material was about, God spoke to me, encouraged me and blessed me during the workshop! I am thankful for the way He uses each circumstances of our lives to bring us closer to Him! We are now going to set up a group of women to see how we could adapt and use this material in our French culture. We are hoping that it will bless many women in our country!
Using the transformation of the caterpillar to a butterfly, this workshop addresses a lot of concepts of the Christian life: the change in nature at conversion, the great diversity of butterflies – all of them being beautiful, the mission of the butterfly – spreading the pollen (the love and joy of God), the importance of spending time with God and resting in His presence (did you know that butterflies spend more time resting on flowers than gathering pollen?!), the unavoidable times in the “cocoon” harder periods of life when we can’t do anything else than fully surrendering to God… and as we trust Him, He transforms us, from glory to glory, to be wonderful creatures made in His image !
Last week one of our France butterflies wrote, “I shared a little about the butterfly story with my mentor, a few days after I came back. She suggested that I come speak to students in her city about the butterfly transformation! I am also exploring the possibility of starting a small discipleship group with students in our new city and will suggest that we go through the LOVE UNVEILED material together. I thought that could be a good way to see what is relevant (or not relevant) to French young women, before we “officially” translate it :).
Please partner with us to pray for our butterflies in France:
That God will raise up women to partner with our leaders to reach women in their country.
They will be bold to share God’s truth about their identity and purpose to women in the church, so that believers will be empowered to live with freedom, love and courage.
They will disciple these women to go to the needy women in France, the oppressed and broken hearted.
They will be empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring light and truth to women living in the bondage of New Age and Occult.
God will open doors to the students.
Pray for an anointed translator to translate LUV materials for French women.
Pray for Liz’s visit to France in June Lord willing, to support the vision to reach women there.
In His love,
Liz
Founder & Executive Director
Love UnVeiled