The Return of Elijah in French !

   Dear SDA believers around the globe,

   It has been a long time since I've told pastor Adrian I would write a blog about our translation of his book into french. I believe today is the day to do it ! In fact, last thursday, we finally got 700 copies of "Le Retour d'Elie" at our home, and we have already started to distribute them !

   God has been so good to allow us to do this work. I still remember when I first read this book in English back in january 2012. It took me less than two weeks to read it, and I even woke up during the night to read ! My wife had ordered the book and had tried to attract my attention to it. I felt there would certainly be interesting insights, but had not taken the time to get more into it.

   Once I started to read this book, I just got caught into it, and found it amazingly in tune with my own understanding of the truth about God, especially the two last sections. In fact, there had been insights which I had already thought of but had never read anywhere so far.

   For example, I had already   argued with my brother, an ordained SDA minister, that according to his understanding of equality, he had to consider his wife as  inferior to him, since Eve came out of Adam. Indeed, in the case of Jesus, he believed that if He came out of the Father, he had to be inferior to him. My brother didn't agree, but I just couldn't see any flaw in this argument !

   Thus, I realized that God had called an ordained minister to write the very thoughts I would have written, had I been called by God to write a book on the subject. It didn't take long for me to receive God's calling, that this book needed to be made available for God's french speaking children. Who I am to contest with the King of Heaven ? Thus, I started to translate, and translate and translate, beside our other God-given tasks, until the end of last year. But I must tell that my wife has been a great help in the realisation of this God-given mission. From the beginning, she supported me, and translated all the notes, the appendix, the tables and the diagrams.

   In fact, she did exactly the nurturing work so well explained in this very book. But my mum also played a great part, in faithfully proofreading each chapter, one by one, as I mailed them to hear. I can't count the hours we spent together at the phone. But all this I share, not to impress you with my "performance", but to tell you that God, in His goodness, has permitted me to work in this project in the very seeding/nurturing relation taught in the book. It is a project which has been realized in a relational setting.

   And what should I say about pastor Adrian ? My mailbox headed with his name counts 563 messages ! It includes many high moments, but also difficult times which, by God's Holy Spirit, we have been able to overcome. And thus, we have come to the agreement to meet this year, the very day of his birthday ! :) We are very thankful for his dear wife, who allows him to make this sacrifice, without murmuring. We will have a French camp-meeting from thursday the 4th september, to sunday the 7th, and spend ten days of fellowship together.

   What else shall I say ? We're just thrilled to think about many souls of God's French speaking children who will have a golden opportunity to deepen their understanding about God our Father, His only begotten Son, and their Holy Spirit even further.

   I'm looking forward to the day when I'll be able to write you a report of the feedbacks of changed lived I'll have got. In the meanwhile, I wish you all to walk each day closer from our dear heavenly Father. Through His Son Jesus, we know he is such a good Father that we can trustingly approach him and present him all our burdens and cares.

   May God richly bless you in Jesus !

Marc and Elisabeth