Stay at Bethanie, our missional training centre in France, and enter into our rhythm of daily prayer and shared meals. Explore new and old forms of prayer and learn how to create transformissional prayer spaces.

For more info or to make a booking contact gemma@blessnet.eu

STAY at Bethanie, our missional training centre in France, and enter into our rhythm of daily prayer and shared meals. HEAR stories of what God is doing throughout Europe and explore what faith-in-the-future of our continent might look like? How should we PRAY, and what can we do, to build faith in the new generations?

STAY at Bethanie, our missional training centre in France, and enter into our rhythm of daily PRAYer and shared meals. Explore what leadership for the emerging cultures of 21st Century Europe may look like? Encounter the God of mission and GROW in understanding of your place in the mission of God.

Go2bless broke new ground this summer; sending short-term mission teams to serve local churches in Bosnia, Croatia & France. Forty students from five nations gathered at Bethanie for four days team training before being sent out across Europe to Live for others.

This years summer mission to Croatia was quite different to previous years. In some ways it was quite a difficult year due to various challenges; we didn’t have a cook, we couldn’t find accommodation, an american team who we usually team up with to run basketball camps pulled out, we had to shut down ‘youthspace’ [the youth drop in centre we we usually run every evening] due to noise complaints, and the heat and mosquito’s were bordering on unbearable..

But it was precisely these challenges that led us to do new things like running our own sports camp for the first time – which was a success, staying with Darko and Gorona and their family [the Pastor and his wife] for the first time – which gave us the opportunity to really get to know them, and hanging out with the youth in the evenings in town rather than in the church – which we found to be massively fruitful as we recognised the significance of going out to meet the youth rather than expecting the youth to come to us.

Our daily prayer times were a key part of what were doing too. As a team we learnt to listen to and engage with God’s heart for Slavonski Brod, and so became increasingly aware of the importance of prayer as foundational to everything we do.

[Anna, team leader, Croatia]

English, Polish, Dutch, French and American nationalities ranging from 16 to 27 years old, made a dynamic team achieving the awesome task of changing a patch of rubble into an amazing beach cafe area to invite locals to come and meet the church and have fun at five different themed evenings. It was hard work, but everyone pulled their weight, and team bonding happened!

Our aim in the day was to visit the local estate and run a kids club, hoping that word would get around and local kids would feel like joining us. The French system was too complicated to do this officially. Although it was a slow start we had a full kids club by the end of the week, made some great friends and had lots of fun ourselves. Many of the kids were sad to see us leave.

We had a few difficulties we didn’t anticipate, eggs dropped on us from a top floor apartment hitting our team and a child who was playing with us, fire works directed across the floor towards us, but with Gods help, major prayer (some actually written on our shoes and walked around the perimeter of the club) and worship and the constant presence of the local pastor we were working with, we overcame the difficulties and had an amazing week culminating in an unbelievably successful last day.

After a week of  opening the church beach cafe in the evenings and not seeing many come, the last day blew us away… a large group of 40 people walked down from the estate into town to join us at church for a fun evening of music, bouncy castle, ping pong and chocolate fountain. For a small Baptist church plant in an old wine cellar this was a major step, contact with local people taking them seriously is hard and with God directing our mission this week we saw a major spiritual step taken.

To be a part of this team was an honour, to see five nationalities work together towards the same goal was inspiring. To see God move in the local people on the estate is something I will never forget.

[Caroline, team leader, France]

Over the summer of this year we travelled over land with 20 young people to Slavonski Brod in Eastern Croatia. The journey seemed to last much longer than expected; especially when you are cramped in a mini bus with no air con and 8 other sweaty people. We saw God draw the team closer together through team training in France and during the first few days of travel.

Over our time on mission we supported the local church by running an international sports camp, basketball camp, and two kids clubs on local estates and running a Youth Space out of the church basement. Over the years we have seen a real connection with the local young people and this year was no exception; we seem to be attracting more and more young people to our events. Pastor Darko is so supportive and helps us in many ways to make sure our ministries are prayerfully considered, that we are all on the same God page an that we understand the cultural context that we are entering into.

As a team we set aside time each day to worship, pray and do bible studies. These times have been particularly significant as God has clearly been leading us on the right paths and strengthening us physically and spiritually. One thing that I am reminded of from this year’s mission is the amount of times we have ran into the police. In the past running into the police is uncommon; somehow in each situation we were let off the hook – for me personally the sense that God was protecting us was more than obvious.

One week into the mission 9 of the team went to pioneer some work in Banja Luka, Bosnia. With the team split in half we then began to draw much closer together because of the smaller numbers. Over the last week we built upon the friendships already made and saw some truly significant transformations. Each year we aim to be more like Jesus in the places we find ourselves; Croatia is a war torn place filled with hopelessness. By being ‘Jesus like’ in these places we see light being shone into darkness and hopelessness turned into hope. Our volunteers always take away that sense of hope into the places where they have come from; bringing Jesus’ love into everydayness.

[Chez, team leader, Croatia]

The trip has been run several times at this time of year and the church and missionaries down there love it. Not much happens in the winter and it’s hard to connect with the town’s people as everyone stays inside in the cold months.

We run craft clubs in the church in the afternoons which the church uses for out reach. Our main aim however is praying for the city and the struggles (which are many) that the pastor and his wife and the team in the church face.

Winter is a great time to visit Slavonski Brod, Croatia. No one goes there; it’s not a tourist spot. It’s quite a strange place when you realise the towns beauty lies in the people who have all been affected by the war in some way.

We have a lot more adult contact than on our summer missions and split our time between a fabulous bible study written by Gerard Kelly,  craft clubs in the church, some prayer and worship and a lot of contact with the locals and the church team.

We basically go to support them as they live their lives on the spiritual front line.

We always seen God move in amazing ways, not only on the mission but also in our own lives.

Our trips are usually based around young people but this is for all ages, you’ll be surprised what a blessing you can be.

It will be eye opening, sometimes hard, but always rewarding.

To find out more contact Caroline@blessnet.eu

It is short notice but our next heart2bless will be at Bethanie Friday 8th – Sunday 10th October entitled Working the Land. The idea of our h2b weekend stays at Bethanie are to equip you to pray for Europe and will inspire you to bless others through prayer. Whilst giving you the opportunity to work on the Bethanie landscape – getting the paint out, finding soil in your finger nails and feeding the chickens.

For more info email matt@blessnet.eu

We arrived on the estate to the sound of bangers and the smell of gunpowder. The floor was littered with burntout fireworks from Bastille Day celebrations and the air tinged with smoke. A rocket whistled by. BANG! A group of twentysomethings stood menacingly in the doorway of the high rise flats observing their territory and watching our every move. They let off another rocket at random. Whistle. POP.

We unloaded our resources and set up camp on the grass beneath the largest tree in the square which provided us some respite from the hot summer sun. We took a moment to pray. Taking a marker pen we each wrote a prayer on the sole of our shoes.

‘peacemakers’ was the single word prayer I scrawled on my trainers in large letters.

Ordered chaos ensued as the team moved to action; blankets were laid out and carrier bags emptied to reveal an abundance of coloured beads, threads, juggling balls and face paint. The parachute was unfurled and football teams selected. Our sole prayers began to spread out covering the square. Some remained still beneath the shade of the tree, others danced around the parachute and others still chased football and frisbee around the park.

Within minutes the air seemed to clear. Bangs were replaced with the sound of children laughing and playing. Hostility substituted for hospitality; intimidation for intimacy. There was a tangible sense of joy, peace and festivity. Their territory suddenly felt like it was Gods ground.

Two hours later we left the estate, exhausted, but with an amazing sense of God with us. As I climbed wearily into the car I glanced at the soles of my trainers; nothing but dust and dirt. Our prayers had rubbed off, literally.

for more stories go to liveforothers.eu or read our go2bless france issuu

Our upcoming heart2bless takes place at Benthanie in France later this month. Themed ‘Learn to Lead’ it is aimed specifically at equiping and training young leaders.
A weekend to explore leadership for the emerging cultures of 21st Century Europe. Our culture is changing faster than ever and the challenges to our churches get deeper by the day. What kind of leadership will 21st Century Europe require of us? Hosted by Gerard and Chrissie Kelly, learn2lead will explore new paradigms of leadership in three key areas: SENSITIVITY (to culture; to change; to the mission of God in our world), SPIRITUALITY (blending activism with contemplation and mission with prayer; learning to love others because we know ourselves as loved) and SERVANTHOOD (following in the footsteps of a servant messiah; learning the power of self-emptying; playing our part in a servant generation). This will be a significant weekend of input and encounter, with plenty of time to prayer, learn together and gather for Bethanie’s famous meal-times…
For more information e-mail us at info@blessnet.eu.

Great to see that the 24-7 crew are asking for 6 months of global prayer for Europe. Sign up to join here.

- Follow on twitter. The feed will also be posted as status updates to our facebook page

- We’ll take a few days to get the feed established, then on February 23rdwe launch 40 DAYS OF FAITH. Pray with us for 40 days towards the incredible goal God has set us: to see established a new centre for missional formation at Bethanie in France. Will you join your faith to ours to see a servant generation for our continent?