Available Where Planted

     Avant Missionaries, Willy and Sue Tops, have been sharing the hope of the gospel in Belgium for many years. Ministry has looked different over the years, but the message has stayed the same: to be a light and available where they are planted. God has used them to bring hope and healing to a nation that desperately needs it. Currently, ministry takes place in a trailer park, where they live and open their doors to all that stop by. They have Bible studies, grow together and recently witnessed a baptism of a lady they had been studying the Bible with for many months! Read the following story, written by their Belgian Mission- VIANOVA, that shares more about what ministry looks like in the trailer park. Praise the Lord with us for all He is doing in Belgium!

    When someone talks to me about a trailer park, I imagine vacations spent in a bungalow or in a mobile home. But then, you have Willy and Sue who live there all year long. Their chalet, which was intended to be a cozy retirement home in the middle of the woods, has become the point of departure of a new community.
     One could compare the 100 permanent residents to a ‘tribe’, identified by a common interest: unwind in the great outdoors. Friendships are formed without effort, while out for a walk or from the exchange of a few words between neighbors. Let us count 200 extra people during the weekends, a number that could increase to 600 at the height of the vacation season. Do you see it, the opportunity?
     By choosing to stay faithful to their convictions, to do good around them and to live with the refusal by many to address the things of faith, Willy and Sue have seen some surprises. For example, this lady who did not want to hear anything about faith and then, one day, knocked on their door to learn more about Jesus. After several months of Bible studies every two weeks, she accepted Christ as her Savior and was baptized in their inflatable pool! A baptism that had positive repercussions on other residents from the park.
     The traditional “welcome to our place” offered to new visitors to a meeting has been replaced by “welcome to YOUR place”.
     On another note, Willy and Sue offer their friendship and their time to current and former prison inmates they met when Willy was a prison chaplain. People who often have difficulty reintegrating into society and who find in our friends a point of reference for their new life. Some start to study the Bible, sometimes accompanied by their family, they meet the Lord and get baptized. Several desire to move near the chalet to continue to live life together.
     Even if it looks like little has changed in their ministry, Willy and Sue have evolved in their manner of approaching people. The traditional “welcome to our place” offered to new visitors to a meeting has been replaced by “welcome to your place” ever since they have fully integrated the two “tribes”. The result? An expanding group of participants and a growing interest to meet other Christians. The church is there, IT lives. If by some wild imagination it were to go public, that would be by a divine plan.

• Pray that the Lord would continue to draw many to Himself and grow the church in Belgium.
• Pray for effective and fruitful discipleship relationships in the trailer park.