Martin, tell us what your ministry is?
In OM France I am the leader for the ministry among the Turkish speaking people of France
How long have you been working with OM in France ?
My wife and I have been with OM for the past 30 years but we have ben involved with OM France for the pas 10 years.
Why do you care about Turkish-speaking churches?
Way back in 1993 I received a clear calling from the Lord to share Jesus with the Muslim people living in Turkey. I later joined OM and dedicated 14 years of my life to plant 4 churches in the South east of Turkey.
The Lord blessed me and Petro with 3 boys that we raised in Turkey. Unfortunately after 14 years of living in Turkey we were forced to leave the country and move back to South Africa, our home country. After several years in South Africa we received an invitation from the OM France director, Jan Coetzer, to come and start an outreach ministry among the one million Turkish speaking people living in France.After prayerfully considering this invitation we felt lead by the Lord to move to France, learn French and do church planting and discipleship among the Turkish speaking people in France.
Currently me and Petro are the only missionaries in France directly involved in church planting among Turkish speaking people in France. You can read more about this real life story in my book “The Edge of Paradise” this book is available for free on my website:www.martindelange.org
How many churches do you following in France ?
We are currently overseeing 17 Turkish speaking churches in France.
Cartes des églises turcophones en France avec OM
Can you tell an anecdote that shows what God is doing among Turkish speakers?
The Lord is at work among the churches in a powerful way. We have seen 42 people baptised in 2022. These are new believers from all over France. Last year during out annual family camp one of the Muslim background participants that came from the town of Nevers came to faith the Saturday night. She was a newlywed. Her husband was also attending the family camp on invitation from a friend. When he learned that his wife became a Christian he also decided to follow Jesus. They were so happy and filled with joy. The next week when they went back to their home town they shared this new found faith with their extended family and four more family members accepted Jesus. They are now part of the local Turkish speaking church in Nevers.
What happened in December in the Paris region?
of December we organized a seminar for the Turkish speaking leaders of the different churches. Leaders and their wives from all over France came for this one day seminar and we were a total of 35 participants. The Local Lutheran Church in Pontault-Combault allowed us to use their hall. With practical arts and crafts Petro presented a workshop to the ladies talking about their identity in Jesus Christ. I shared with them on the importance of making disciples and gave them practical tools to help them make disciples.
It was very encouraging to see how eager these leaders were to learn and also to use the tools that I gave them.
How can we pray ?
Please pray for the leaders of the different Turkish speaking churches in France. They are very simple people without a proper education and they are responsible for the spiritual wellbeing of many families in their churches . They are eager to serve the Lord but do not always know how.
Pray that they will be strengthened in their faith.Please pray for more workers to disciple and equip the believers. We travel a lot and try to encourage the different churches across France all the time. Due to the growth in the churches we are not able to visit all the churches regularly and now we are focusing on training and equipping the leaders of the different churches. Pray for fruit on this work, travel safety and our personal health .
Please pray with us that the Lord will start a church in the city of Lyon
What are the next important dates in your ministry?
We have another leadership training event in Lyon on the weekend of the 4th of March with around 35 leaders.
Then we have the annual family camp at Les Térébinthes just south of Le Mans on the long weekend of the 1st of May. We are expecting around 200 participant this year. Please pray for these important events.
Do you have anything else to add?
We have distributed around 5000 Turkish New Testaments last year. It has become more and more expensive to print these Bibles and we have seen that it still plays a very important role in reaching out to the Turkish speaking community in France. We therefore want to invite you to prayerfully consider giving towards this project and help us to share the good news of Jesus with the Turkish speaking people in France.
France: Martin et Petra Delange