“Do not remember the past events; pay no attention to things of old. Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43: 18-19

These verses have resonated with Paul and me recently as we are coming to the end of a long and wonderful season. At the end of this year, December 2025, we will officially be retiring from One Collective.

We’ll be leaving so many dear friends and 43 years worth of memories (Yep, 43!) in which we have watched the Lord’s over abundant provision, protection, and power in our lives and in so many others. It’s a big step, and one we feel confident about, but of course, we have many mixed emotions. Overall, though, is a deep thankfulness for the privilege of serving the Lord with this organization for four decades. Throughout those years our ministries have been varied, from children and youth work, evangelization and discipleship, church planting, all in France, to the past fifteen years of offering pastoral care for our One Collective colleagues all over the world.

We especially feel deep thankfulness for YOU, many of whom have traveled most, if not all, of these 43 years with us.

Over the past few years, we’ve sensed the Lord calling us prepare for this transition. As we’ve heard it said, retirement means an end to our paid job, but we will never retire from our vocation, our calling as believers to serve our awesome God. Throughout our ministry lives, the Lord has been faithful to call us out of one thing and into another. To that end, we will be taking some extended time in 2026 to discern the next steps the Lord has for us. As of right now, we are still planning on splitting our time between France and the US.

From Paul:

In view of our upcoming retirement at the end of 2025, this is a season of transition with the mission.  Over the coming months I’ll be handing off responsibilities and leadership of the Global Member Care Team (GMCT). We have recently welcomed three new colleagues to the GMCT whose experience and gifts are already much appreciated. Elizabeth and I will continue to be involved with caring for workers until December, at which point we’ll have transferred them all over to other care providers on the team. We are grateful for the way the Lord has provided in this way. We’re excited (and a little nervous, if I’m honest) about the changes to come.

– Pray with us for the transition process, and for all the details yet to be hammered out.
– Pray that we will be filled with His peace throughout this year
– Pray that we’ll be good stewards of our resources as we seek to finish this chapter well.
– Pray for our team and the new leader, Wayne, as they continue providing support, love and care for workers around the world.

Pray especially as we continue to walk alongside our workers with all the many transitions going on in their lives. One worker was kicked out of the Middle Eastern country where she had lived and served for over 10 years. She even owned a house in that country. Several workers have found that in their European country, where paperwork already takes many months, getting visas renewed is becoming increasingly complicated.

In that same country, the refugees who were housed within a large city have now been moved to camps further away from the city. This makes visiting them much more difficult, and our workers are coming up with original ways to offer art and music therapy as well as Bible Studies.

Several families are experiencing the difficulty of having their children leaving their field of service to continue their education in another country. Two dear long-time co-workers are grieving the loss of a beloved spouse.

We are continually grateful for your prayers for us: that we offer wisdom, grace, encouragement, and hope to our colleagues.

Although our ministry these past years has been focused on our One Collective colleagues, we still have a heart for France and its people and are grateful for the opportunities we’ve had in the past two months to reconnect with our church and neighborhood friends.

If you would like to keep up with what the Lord is doing in France, we suggest the Pray for France blog/newsletter.

From Elizabeth :

Something small that nonetheless seemed extraordinary to me happened shortly after we arrived back in France. It was the answer to decades of prayers by yours truly. My novella Waiting for Peter is now available in French. Although my novels have all been translated into several languages, only one (Two Crosses) has been available in French. Looooong story. Until now. My heart’s desire has always been to bring together my two vocations of missions and writing for my French friends. In mid-March I shared my testimony with a precious group of French women in a sister church in Lyon and gave away copies of Waiting for Peter.

Now these women and other French friends are reading the novella and offering it to their friends and family who are not interested in attending church but will read a novella about a wounded boy, an abandoned mutt, a worried mother, and a God big enough to bring healing for them all.

It is always worth waiting on the Lord’s timing!

As we prepare to retire from the mission, it only seems fitting that my new novel, From the Valley We Rise, coming out in June, was inspired in part by my first months in France as a missionary when in 1983, my four teammates (of whom Paul was the cute single guy) and I, all young North Americans, first arrived in France for ministry service. We took a group of college-aged Americans to a ruined medieval alpine village near Sisteron called Entrepierres, which literally means “between the stones.” We spent two weeks hauling rocks and digging ditches to help build back the dilapidated village.

Heading up the work project was a visionary British missionary who challenged us in our thoughts about faith, work, and love. Over the years his vision to make Entrepierres a retreat center for full-time French pastors and missionaries became a reality. God has mightily used Entrepierres, the inspiration for what I call ‘The Camp Between the Hills’ in the novel, to bless families, including my own, and bring healing and health to hundreds of people throughout the years. Entrepierres is a living metaphor for Isaiah 61:4, a verse referenced several times in this book.

“They will rebuild the ancient ruins, they will raise up the former devastations, and they will repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations.” Isaiah 61:4

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You can click on the cover of the novel to learn more about the novel, which takes place in August, 1944, during Operation Dragoon, known at the second D-Day, the Allies invasion of Provence. Here is information about a few events I’ll be attending in the Atlanta area in June.

We’ll be giving more information about our retirement in our newsletters this summer and fall.

With so much love,

Elizabeth and Paul