Sharing the gospel with the people of France and North Africa is a heartfelt calling for Asa and Lydia Greear. In fact the former Southern Baptist international missionaries served overseas for 14 years, including five years in France.
While the Greears returned to full-time ministry in the United States more than two decades ago, their passion has never wavered for the people of Europe and Africa. In his current role as executive director of St. Johns River Baptist Association in Palatka, Florida, Greear has coordinated nearly 20 missions trips to France and other countries over the past several years.
Their latest missions project “has been on our hearts for a long time,” Greear emphasized. He said the association is working closely with a retired International Mission Board missionary couple in France “who have decided to land their lives there in retirement and to plant a church in an area that’s unreached.”
Associational leaders launched “a great journey with them about four years ago,” he said. “Taking a trip every year, we take people from our association churches to minister there — whether it’s to sing … or to do construction work on a building that our missionaries there have purchased for a new church start.”
Heart language makes impact
On their most recent trip, “I had the privilege of sharing the gospel in French with the people that were there,” Greear said. After 20-plus years back in the U.S., “God has given us the ability to hold the language — the French — and to be able to go and share personally with people in their heart language.”
“My French is OK. My wife’s French is great,” he added. “But amazingly enough, when I began to share that three minutes of the gospel, my French just went into overdrive and everybody understood as if the Spirit of God was just giving me the proper pronunciation of those words to say.”
During their years on the missions field, the Greears served as church planters, people group strategists and Bible correspondence school directors. They had the opportunity to help plant more than two dozen churches and lead several Muslims to faith in Christ through their ministry efforts.
“Over the years, we’ve been working with our IMB missionaries and seeing God do some marvelous things and building relationships because the people there have never really heard about Jesus and who He is,” Greear reflected.
Amid their recent missions trips, team members’ ministry projects have ranged from street ministry in downtown Paris and community outreach pancake meals to building a wheelchair ramp for a new church plant.
Greear also frequently uses the EvangeCube witnessing tool to share the gospel with children and their parents. He said children often are captivated by the EvangeCube presentation “and introduced to the gospel in a powerful way.”
Sowing gospel seeds
Working primarily on the outskirts of Paris, he said, “We are just sowing seeds in all these small communities … so that we can begin to draw from those communities to build this church for the glory of God.”
While many French people consider themselves religious, “inside they have nothing. They know nothing of the peace of God,” Greear acknowledged.
“As we make those relationships and they see us every year bringing joy in the church,” Greear said he was pleased to see “people coming out of the church going, ‘This is the most joy we’ve ever seen inside of a church in our lives.’”
Recounting one recent witnessing opportunity, Greear said, “I prayed, ‘Lord, just show me somebody I can share the gospel with.’ Sure enough, in front of the church, a young lady with two children was there.
“We began to talk with her and share with her, and I went through the plan of salvation with her,” he said. “She asked Jesus to come into her heart, and she was saved there — which was a great joy in my heart to see that happen.”
‘Big plans, big prayers’
But the Greears and other associational leaders aren’t content to rest on past successes.
“Next year, we have some big plans, big prayers,” he shared. “We hope to be in not only that one church, but we hope to be in four other churches” in nearby communities.
As they seek to recruit missions volunteers from across the association’s 55 churches, Greear said, “We’re just praying that the right team would be there, that the right timing would happen. But most of all, more than anything else, that the Holy Spirit would be able to break through the lives of the people that hear the music and hear the Word, and that they would truly have an encounter with the Lord Jesus.
“People here in our association know that we are missions focused and we want them to be missions focused,” Greear affirmed. “It’s an answer to prayer for them and an encouragement for them to be on mission.”
