Alive In France

How God called us to France

You know that feeling when you’re given an option to stay in the familiar or to step into the unknown, and you know that to stay would be the lesser choice. It’s the feeling of our shepherd’s voice calling us to follow him. We may be enjoying the pastures he has led us to roam in for the last while but as soon as we hear that whistle and lift up our heads, we recognize the beckoning. The uncertainty of what lies ahead is unsettling, but we know the Shepherd and so we trust his guidance. And since we are his, nothing in us can resist his call.

Just over two years ago, Andrew, myself and our baby, moved from cool hipster City Bowl into deep suburbia (over Wynberg hill, if you know what I mean). It was a move that past-me would have harshly judged as ‘selling out’ our faith for the comforts of a suburban life. But we were just barely coming out of Covid, I was recovering from post-natal depression and spiritual burnout, and we felt that our family needed to be in such a space for a while. Since God had dealt with all my self-righteousness and “judgyness” through the wonderful joys of new-parenting and depression, I no longer resisted the pull to a quieter lifestyle.

I had a dream of the house that we would come to find and purchase two weeks later, and we settled in what would become the most beautiful, sweet, and restful space. ‘Sweet Valley’ is the name of our suburb and it has been a gift from God. God had reassured me multiple times that I was “exactly where he wanted me to be”, but a few weeks after arriving, I had a dream and in it a friend said:

“I want to see you before you guys move to Europe.” I looked at her puzzled: “but we just got here”, I said.

That dream lingered with me for months, and so I started praying. After another prophetic dream, many hours of praying, and a strong sense that God would be moving us to Europe sooner than I thought, I started to talk about it with Andrew. We entertained the idea and decided to take three months in 2022 to travel Europe all whilst prayerfully considering if and where we would live. Having had our ‘rose-tinted glasses’ removed and a good reality check, we came back with two things: If we move, it would only be to France. And if we move, it’ll be really hard.

Now you’re thinking to yourself: “Hard!? Ha! What in the world could be so hard about living in a beautiful Mediterranean first-world land filled with good cheese, wine and honey?”

That’s right. There are many many perks to living in a first-world country, but at a closer look we discovered that a) the good food and wine is a facade to cover up how spiritually dry one feels there; b) we would be seriously down-grading our lifestyle because we are immensely privileged in South Africa; c) it would be a massive culture shock for Andrew who neither speaks the language nor gels with the people; and d) it would be social suicide because we would be giving up incredibly rich friendships and a vibrant spirit-filled community to move to a place where Christianity is very unpopular and quite anti-enlightenment.

So we thought: “Nah. Let’s stay in Sweet Valley and install a solar system to deal with the power cuts.”

So we did, but despite having electricity and living in a little “first-world bubble”, that feeling wouldn’t leave us… and God continued to speak. It got to a point where I said to God, “please stop speaking to me and speak to Andrew instead because I’m not the one that needs convincing anymore.” And He did. We decided that we would go back to Europe, this time spending more time in France. We met with pastors in different regions and prayed that God would speak clearly to Andrew. And He did.

We got back and Andrew made a digital white board of reasons to stay and reasons to move. The column for France was filled with words, impressions, and dreams from God, some going back to ten years ago!

It was clear as day. Our Shepherd was leading us away from the Sweet Valley towards the unknown mountain…

Prayer points:

*May our ears be open to whatever you call us to, whether it be a season of abundance or sacrifice.
*May you call your people to live a missional lifestyle, not living for their comfort but for the Kingdom.
*May you call people to France and Europe – a land that is spiritually barren and in need of missionaries.