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Between 22nd and 29th October a team of six of us from Carey Baptist Church in Preston went over to Orleans (60miles south of Paris) to help the Baptist Church there improve the appearance of some of the rooms in their buildings as well as to enjoy fellowship, French food, a bit of sight seeing and to take part in worship on Sunday 28th.
Pastor Jean Marc and his church all made us feel very welcome and a good time was had by all.
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Orleans itself is a small city (pop. 250,000) with a lot of history.
The gothic cathedral below dates from the 13th Century and was
inspired by Notre Dame in Paris. |
The city was also home to Joan of Arc, her statue (above) takes pride of place in Place du Martroi in the centre of town and you can also visit her house. Also of interest, the Reformer John Calvin studied at Orleans befoe moving on to the Sorbonne.
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Stacey Redpath and ECM. We first made contact with Orleans Baptist Church via ECM missionary and old Prestonian, Stacey Redpath.
Stacey wrote to churches in Preston asking for support prior to leaving the UK for France. We got in touch and have been in contact ever since. She helped us plan the trip, was always on hand to translate when necessary and, as you can see, joined in the work too.
If you would like to know more about Stacey you can check out her blog here.
You can find out more about the work of ECM here.
The ECM homepage talks a bit about why mission is needed in Europe - evangelical believers make up only about 2.4% of the continent's population. In France that figure falls to only about 0.6%. The culture is generally very secular and opposed to all forms of religious expression and Protestants are viewed as sect - this is clearly a country in real need of mission and prayer.
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The Work: Working together with our French friends under their Bricolage (DIY) expert Michel we decorated five rooms in four working days. (We travelled on Monday, Friday was sightseeing and Sunday was church - so we worked Tue, Wed, Thur and Sat).
We decorated the main entrance foyer to the church and four rooms upstairs. One of these will be the office of Jean Aimé a missionary with ACTES who seek to bring the Protestant churches of Orleans together to reach the younger generation. Jean Aimé's blog (in French) is here , and you can see a video in English explaining the work of ACTES here . Another of the upstairs rooms will be used for Bible studies and prayer meetings and the two remaining rooms were a small kitchen and a bathroom which serve the office and bible study room.
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The entrance hall - before we began.  |
Jean Aimé's office before the work. |
Working....
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working... |
still working... |
Taking a break |
Enjoying some French culture  |
working again... |
 Team Spirit: Although we worked really hard it was a lot of fun and we did all get on very well. This photo was taken at an evening meal (we had some of these together in the church others with the families we were staying with). Stacey had the tricolour face paint left over from the Rugby World Cup.
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Finished at last: Jean Aimé's office 
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The entrance hall |
 Bible Study room
In her blog Stacey said: Phew! It was a lot of work and we are 100% grateful to the team from Carey
Baptist in Preston who gave their time, energy and a lot of elbow grease to make
such a big difference in our church! Likewise, we, the team from Carey are 100% grateful to all at Orleans Baptist Church who made us so welcome and shared such a memorable week with us. |
 Sunday Morning: James preached, Miriam translated. Miriam works for Wycliffe translating books into French for use in North Africa. Claire and Emily led the congregation in the actions to "We want to see Jesus lifted high," and Ian brought greetings from Carey. We were all rewarded with bottles of local wine and the Orleans speciality vinegar.
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