In spite of the occasional remarks about our 'break', our 'holiday', it was definitely a work trip. As EMF field director, my main job is to provide pastoral care and support for all the EMF missionaries, including the retired ones (however we define 'being retired'), and also for our 22 Ukrainian 4:14 gospel workers. Roughly half of those dear brothers and sisters are women, which is one good reason why Vivienne and I do 'my' job together, as a team.  

Our plan worked! In those two weeks we managed to see all the EMF missionaries in France, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland. We also visited a former EMF missionary couple (Diego and María), a very dear long-term EMF (and Birch!) supporter, another good friend whom we first met in Ciudad Real (where we're living again now) way back in 1992, and a Ukrainian friend (from Ternopil) and the younger of his two sons.  

Let me give a very brief overview of the EMF people and situations that we visited.  

Richard and Barbara Davies have moved from the south of France, via Scotland(!), to Nantes, where they are settling and serving well in an encouraging, God-blessed Reformed Presbyterian church on the outskirts of that city of some 325,000 people.  

Romuald and Liz Lasnes (not forgetting baby Ruben) are in the early days of planting a God-honouring church in the characterful and spiritually needy 11^th Arrondissement ('District') of central Paris; they are part of a team being supported by the Connexion Church in the district next door.  

Michael and Ariëtte Robinson are serving in a Dutch-speaking church in De Panne, an attractive seaside resort in western Belgium.  

Tim and Deb Brooks run a Christian guesthouse, Haus Barnabas, in the Black Forest in the south-west of Germany.  

André and Marianne Rentmeister are active members of a church in Sion, in the canton of Valais in south-west Switzerland. For decades, their main ministry has been to use gospel literature to reach the (mainly Catholic) people of that part of Switzerland.  

Tony and Barbara Hynes went to France way back in 1967. The Lord blessed their ministry in Alsace, and then used them to establish a new church in Carcassonne, a congregation which today is experiencing encouraging progress.  

The above EMF missionaries are a great group of gospel workers. They love the Lord and his Word, the gospel and sound doctrine, the local church, and the people around them. They're all serving in majority Catholic situations. They all know what it's like to keep chipping away one 'slow news day' after another. They've all had their fair share of really hard situations. In many ways they represent what EMF is all about: humble, faithful instruments in the hands of an almighty God for the salvation of sinners and for the building of Christ's Church.

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