Dear Friends and Family,
It is a heartwarming feeling to think of each of you now – many of you preparing for Thanksgiving gatherings this week. Whatever the different tasks or calling God has given each of us, surely the invitation into loving relationship with Him and with one another is preeminent. Although we live a fair distance from most of you, we are so thankful for the sense of community we feel with you. Thank you for praying with us as we navigate trials. Thank you for partnering with us in prayer and giving to do this work in France. Thank you for celebrating God’s victory in our lives and ministry with us.
Thanksgiving Update
We have much to celebrate! This past Sunday we hosted our Thanksgiving dinner. This gathering embodies so many of our values for mission here in Normandie. Everytime we host in our home, we seek to welcome and honor our guests. This year, like every year, we unpacked Joanna’s mother’s china and prepared our home to be festive and welcoming. The kids helped with cleaning and prepared special name tags which we prayerfully position at our tables. The kitchen work starts several days before our event as Joanna makes pumpkin purée for the pies and cranberry chutney from scratch along with several turkeys and all the trimmings. We invite our guests to participate in the cooking as well by sending them traditional recipes (someone always wants to try making sweet potatoes with marshmallows – an entirely bizarre combination for the French). During our gathering, we are intentional in giving testimony to God’s work in our lives – which is a natural expression of thanksgiving! After a wonderfully French extended time of apéro (nibbles and drinks), we welcome our guests to the table and begin with a song of blessing.
Then the generous portions of good food are brought out and it is a veritable feast! Tom leads a thanksgiving quiz before dessert and Joanna will often speak about our experience of being welcomed into a new culture as part of sharing some of the first thanksgiving story. Over pie, we take time for each person to share something for which they are grateful. Typically, we do this at table groups as we’ve often had too big a group to listen to each person’s expression of gratitude. However, this year we were a smaller crowd of 20, so we listened as one by one, we voiced our thanksgiving. While this might sound a bit “American” or cheesy, it was a profoundly holy moment as this group of people with considerably different ideas about life and God united in expressing gratitude. It was touching to notice how meaningful it was for folks to be given time to think about and then speak out thanksgiving. People were thankful for different things, but all of them spoke about relationships. Our French guests often mention the unusual warmth and welcome they experience around our table. This is where we see relationships begin and grow. We see our friends and neighbors drawing closer to God.
Thanks-
Throughout the year we have the privilege of hosting many gatherings at our home. It is one of the best ways we can be family on mission and culturally, it tends to mean we get a lot of invites to go and visit at our neighbor’s homes. Last year, we asked for your help to “set the table” by partnering financially and/or in prayer with us to support this ministry of hospitality. One year on from this invitation, we want to say thank you for your partnership. Although we have faced some unexpected challenges this autumn that has meant our capacity to host has been limited to smaller groups, it has been amazing to see God at work in gatherings of all sizes. Thank you for being united with us in mission and thank you for your care for us as a family.
-Giving
This year, we would like to ask you to consider giving a year end gift to help us continue this ministry of hospitality, but also to help defray some unexpected costs related to our children’s health and education. Please know that God is providing for our needs, and we are not in a desperate state. However, we do want to communicate this unexpected cost and invite your help to meet it. Details for how to partner with us financially can be found here. Please feel free to reach out to me by replying to this email if you have any questions or would like more details about this.
Reuben Health Update
We are so grateful for your prayers with us as we navigated, and continue to navigate, health challenges with our kids. Reuben’s health is improving slowly. This looks like him having some stretches of “good days” where he experiences less pain. He is still experiencing regular “bad days” when his pain level is significant. Thank you for continuing to pray with us for his complete healing and that he will be able to get back into school this year. He has begun online school this past week. This has been a blessing for his daily rhythm and has helped ease the pressure of feeling as though he was falling behind in the school year.
Hometown Tennessee Album out now!
Finally, we are thrilled to share with you “Les Racines” (Roots) the short album we recorded with Tom’s sister and brother-in-law in Nashville earlier this year. This project comes out of many years of seeing God use music and art to move conversations from the realm of intellect into the heart. We’ve been playing shows as “Hometown Tennessee” and more and more folks were asking us for a recording. We’re thankful for a financial grant from the European Bible Institute fund which made it possible for us to record and distribute this music. The album is available on almost all the streaming services - here is a direct link to iTunes, and Spotify, and YouTube music. Our prayer is that these recordings will help our French neighbors draw closer to God and we hope you enjoy them too.
Truly thankful for you.
Happy Thanksgiving!
The Appels
PS - Another call for addresses for Christmas cards, please let us know if your details have changed! Thanks.
