Mobilized to Serve

How we got here!

“You don’t think it’s supposed to be us, do you?”

This was mostly meant to be a rhetorical question, and if Brad did choose to respond, he was supposed to say, “What? Of course not!” I asked this question as we talked over outreach to refugees in Nantes, France, after spending a week there with a short-term team in October 2022.

During our days in Nantes, we had no inkling that God was going to call us to serve refugees in Europe. We had enjoyed new experiences with our team members, we had been fascinated to meet people from multiple countries, and our eyes had been opened to God’s work in moving masses of people out of the Middle East and Africa to Europe, where the gospel is accessible to them. Like you, we have heard for years about refugees and have even prayed for them, but of course it is very different to sit down at a table surrounded by them and look at their faces and hear their stories.

So, after 27 years of pastoral ministry in the US, we said “yes” and moved to France to help mobilize Christians to serve refugees. A team of four people from our church joined us, and in September 2023, Refugee Oasis officially launched in a local church in Nantes, followed by a second church in October, a third in March, and a fourth in September 2024. Jesus then told the RO Team to take this ministry to other churches in Europe.

We discovered that Christians in local churches throughout Europe are eager to serve! They are simply looking for a practical way to connect with the refugees and immigrants who are right in front of them and that’s what RO provides.

Just two years later, there are now RO centers hosted in churches in France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, and even the US. Our goal is to mobilize thousands of Christians to serve millions of refugees with the love and gospel of Jesus through basic language classes and simple gospel events.

God is providing an incredible opportunity in the massive movement of displaced people to cities like Nantes, Paris, Frankfurt, Antwerp, and Madrid where they can experience the love of Christ through regular everyday Christians. We want to be at the center of this opportunity, so we continue to pray the words of Psalm 67, “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations!”

-Thea and Brad