Van Veen family,
Living and working in Nantes, France, with OM
Where?
2010 is the year when we celebrate 10 years of ministry in France with OM. In between time our little family has grown to a big family with 4 kids who are trying to find their identity with a mother with British and American nationality and a Dutch father. You might wonder why this multicultural/ multilingual family needs to do ministry in a rich comfortable western country like France!! On this page we would like to give you some inside on where/ to whom/ why and how!
Why France?
Our desire to serve God in France started during our time as students at a Bible School in Lamorlaye, France, where we met and got married in 1996. We can say that our initial motivation for ministry in France was a ‘statistic calling'. It was an eye opener of how Godless the country of France has become after a rich history so rooted in Catholic Christianity.
As students we were able to visit numerous small churches that were often struggling to survive. Youth groups and get-togethers for Christian young people and teenagers were very hard to find.
Why Nantes?
There are very few Christian believers in France and especially the Nantes region is one of the regions of Europe that has been affected the least by the gospel and
Christian witness in the past 100 years. With two other families we form the longterm OM Team in Nantes. All other collegues are based in and around our OM france main office in Paris.
To settle as Christians in a place where there are no or hardly any Christians, is a very effective way of witnessing. Most people in our neighbourhood know we are protestant believers, which we notice in their reactions/questions and remarks. And that is not because we are missionaries but because this is the role for all Christians. It is amazing how God spread the gospel through the work of the Holy Spirit and the dispersion of the early Christians just after Pentecost.
Who?
Many young Christians spend most time in places like school/ work where Christians are very thinly spread. Living out their Christian faith and values is a big challenge! When you believe in something the majority of people around you don't believe in or even ridicule, it is not always easy to be a Christian.
France is a very secular country (for over 200 years), which means that no religious activity or influence is allowed in ‘government -run -places' like public schools. The only Christian presence/ influence we can have in these places is Christians. That's why we want Christian youth to live in continual connection with God and others there where they spend most of their time and that's why we work first of all a lot with the youth from the existing local churches.
We have seen many young people give their lives to the Lord as well as some of them giving up their faith. Young Christians need a regular input in their lives from their
older adult brothers and sisters (besides their parents). Therefore we invest in young adults and encourage them to minister to teens.
"Our vision is to help young people live in connection
with God and others."
How?
We first of all have personal relationships with teens/ young adults, we try to mentor and stay in touch with them and keep up with a new generation. We do realise that the older we get, the harder we have to work on staying in touch with the ever so fast changing young generation. Being in touch with teens through email/ text
message/ social network/ phone is vital for our ministry and to understand ‘their world'.
Locally in Nantes we organise 5/6 times a year a youth event called LinkUp. We have around 70-80 young adults and teens coming together to be reflecting on a relevant theme through Worship/ games/ small groups/ prayer/ arts/ sports/ hanging out etc.. We see teens bringing along friend and really wanting to share their faith with their peers
Nationally, we lead the TeenStreet ministry. TeenStreet is a once a year international Teens congress, taking place in Germany with around 3500 participants from all over Europe and beyond. We have around 200 French participants every year including staff, teens and young adults. This is a very inspiring week and we see every year that many teens make a first choice for God or recommit themselves to Him.
Internationally, we are involved in ‘the general OM youth ministry think tank' to figure out together how best to minister to new generations. As a part of this, we co-lead a yearly camp for OM Teens, whose parents are working for OM somewhere in the world. One week every summer we have the privilege to co-lead alongside the founders of TeenStreet and live in community with around 100 teens from different parts of the world in very different circumstances. Growing up in a missionary family doesn't mean automatically that we follow in the parents footsteps and sometimes it is even the very opposite. Again ‘we help young people to live in connection with God and others'.
OM France.
Although youth is our main focus, we are also involved in the different ministries that OM France is involved in. Our main focus is to mobilise churches for evangelism and missions, which we try to achieve by sending and receiving Christians for a short or long-term outreach in France, OM Ships or any other country on the globe.
Part of this is training young people that are coming from different countries for a year of 2 to work alongside us in the different areas of our ministry. In 2010 we'll have a team of 6 young students from the USA working with us in Nantes. We'll be involved in their adaptation/ language learning/ training/ mentoring and fulfilling their goals as part of their ‘intercultural studies' by giving them as many ‘missionary' experiences as possible in the French culture.
Our local Church and the ‘outcasts' in India
Besides our ‘regular work' we are also involved in a local church. It is a church that is sponsoring a school in India for the ‘untouchables' (Dalits). We are trying to be the link between this project and the church by organising fundraising and mobilising people to realise the injustice in the world and the difference we can make.
We believe that even a small church should be involved in missions and people in greater need than ourselves. In 2009 we gave a presentation in a local primary school in the town we live in. The 250 children that were listening were touched by the injustice and through a fundraising project; they came up with 600 euros for the school.
This is a new open door for us to show people that we as believers care about the needy, because God cares about the needy.
Thanks for praying with us for the French people, so that they may realise that without God and His grace, they are Needy for Him!!
For more info/ contact: vanveen @ grace4needy.nl To avoid spam the email is divided by space , no space is needed.