Elodie Josland Newsletter October 2025

Seeds Sown October 2025

NEW TERM- BUSY, BUSY, BUSY

OTHER SEED FELL ON GOOD SOIL, WHERE IT PRODUCED A CROP—A HUNDRED, SIXTY OR THIRTY TIMES WHAT WAS SOWN. MATTHEW 13:8

I want to start with some great news! Our English classes and hang out spaces are now back up in number. We have had people from 9 different countries coming from all around the world. It is still a fairly small group (maybe between 10 and 15 people), so we are building really lovely relationships with the people who come. It is still my favourite day of the week.

ENGLISH CONVERSATION- BEGINNERS GROUP

From that, we are still running the “Learning English through the Bible” session. We only ever get around 3-4 people coming (none of these people are Christian), however, we have just finished the Old Testament and we have just started with Jesus birth. One guy despite belonging to another religion is really keen to find out more, and even cancelled a meeting with his friend to join our class. Since I last wrote to you we have also had 3 baptisms from people to attend the Bible studies at Church.

We also ended up turning our back garden into a wedding venue, as a colleague of mine got married. So over the last few months there has been lots to celebrate.

GARDEN TO WEDDING VENUE

Unfortunately there is also some sad news- A member of our community lost his life (we think he was in his mid to early 20's).

Amazingly, around two weeks before he lost his life, he gave his life to Jesus so he is now, no longer suffering but instead celebrating with Jesus. This however has obviously had a huge impact on our community. But, every life has a purpose and even in this young mans death there has been purpose. The community of mainly men, who would never say they struggle have finally started to open up and support one another. They have started to admit that they actually cry sometimes, and often have negative thoughts. It is almost as if they now feel free to just be human. And everyone supports each other which is really lovely to see.

I have largely been a middle man between the two organisations that know him, and have been trying to figure out what happens next and figure out doing a memorial which has taken a lot of my time and emotions. Please continue to pray for the people I work with.

Some other disappointing news- my trip to Greece got cancelled for many reasons out of my control.

I am hoping to go to Marseille instead for a week (with the people I usually go to, who do some work with refugees in their community), they are doing a weeks training on Refugees and Community Development, so I am hoping to go there instead.

But to end on some good news- we have some more baptisms happening in December, so I am very excited for that! And we just did a Global God Conference in London for 14-20 year olds. I'm excited to see what happens as a result!

ENJOYING SPRING- MY FAVOURITE TIME OF THE YEAR

What's next?

In November I will hopefully be in Marseille, and I will have to look at options as to where to go in the New Year instead of Greece. My car is officially broken, to the point of not being worth it to fix- so I am on a car hunt. I use my car a lot for ministry- I drive roughly 2 and a half hours a week taking Farsi speakers to Church so it is very important. Please let me know if you see anything, my budget is tight. We then start to look at Christmas and arranging Christmas parties for everyone which I can’t wait for!