Happy (belated) Canadian Thanksgiving!!
Since our last email so much has been happening, and we certainly have had a lot to be thankful for. Although we weren’t able to celebrate thanksgiving on October 12th with the rest of you, we didn’t skip out all together. On the contrary… albeit delayed 2 weeks… we actually hosted 2 full thanksgiving dinners with neighbours on both Saturday and Sunday this past weekend!
With that said, we wanted to celebrate with you just a few of the many things that we have to be thankful for:
Our Neighbours
We continue to be amazed by the meaningful ways we have been able to develop relationships with those around us. Despite being told so many times that relationships would be hard, slow and take a llloooonnnnggg time to develop, we are seeing God open our neighbours’ hearts to our family in surprisingly deep ways, and after less than 2 years living in our neighbourhood!
Our Kids
After 2.5 years now living in France, our kids are thriving, and we couldn’t be more thankful. They go to an excellent school, have made great friends, and still enjoy spending time with us as a family! But beyond all of this, they have both grown deeper in relationship with Jesus.
This school year, because each of theIr class schedules are not the same, we have been able to take advantage of the different pick up times to spend weekly, intentional, one-on-one discipleship time with each of our kids. Noëlle and I are currently reading through Crazy Love by Francis Chan and Brennan & Joel are studying through the book of Proverbs. These are such precious moments we are so thankful for.
Opportunities for Discipleship
If you have been following our journey for very long then you know that discipleship is the very heart of our call from God to be here in France. And beyond the opportunity to disciple our own kids, we have been very blessed to see other intentional discipleship relationships beginning to take shape. In fact, in the coming weeks Joel will share with you a couple of the recent discipleship opportunities we would love you to join us in prayer for.
Beyond that, our church has also recently begun a discipleship training seminar aimed to equip those within the church to make disciples. We are so thankful that the leadership within the church has been inspired to move in this direction, and Joel is eager to participate and serve this vision through sharing his own experiences in discipleship and making disciples.
Our GEM France Family
Last week we spent 5 days in the mountains gathering together with all of the GEM missionaries working in France. It was a meaningful time to share stories, encourage one another, and build our relationships. Despite being the only GEM missionaries in Aix-les-Bains, it was so good for us to come together and be reminded that we are a part of something so much larger than our little family!
Our Faithful Team of Support
Since returning from Canada, we have been so blessed by all of those who have continued to cheer us on, lift us up in prayer, rally behind God’s vision for the Savoie, and of course, back us financially. What a gift you all are. We are so thankful for you!
So with Thanksgiving only a couple of weeks behind us… what are you thankful for? We would love to hear from you!
In joy & with gratitude,
Becky for the Kennedy Family
