Here then are four great difficulties that David Brainerd wisely discerned 250 years ago in the backwoods of New Jersey, which can help us understand missions in modern, metro-politan Paris.

1. First, I have met with great difficulty in my work among the Indians, from the rooted aversion to Christianity that generally prevails among them. This aversion to Christianity arises partly from a view of the immorality and vicious behavior of many who are called Christians. Hence when I have treated with them about Christianity, they have frequently objected the scandalous practices of Christians...

The only way I have to take in order to surmount this difficulty is to distinguish between nominal and real Christians, and to show them that the ill conduct of many of the former proceeds not from their being Christians, but from their being Christians only in name, and not in heart.

2. Another difficulty has been to convey divine truths to their understandings, and to gain their assent to them as such…there seems to be no foundation in their minds to begin upon. It is next to impossible to bring them to a rational conviction that they are sinners by nature, and that their hearts are corrupt and sinful. Further, it is extremely difficult to give them any notion of the undertaking of Christ in their behalf, of his obeying and suffering in their stead, of their being justified by his righteousness imputed to them.

3. A third difficulty in converting the Indians: their inconvenient situations, savage manners, and unhappy method of living. (He goes on to explain problems arising from their work ethic, their living conditions, their habits, their lack of attention span, the great distances he had to travel in poor weather conditions, etc. We have it much better here, but similar obstacles can discourage us: the hours spent in traffic or crowded trains, the constant rain, the impossibility and expense of finding a suitable and practical church building, the absence of family values, the unbearable workplace environment for many, and so forth.)

4. Fourth difficulty: the designs of evil-minded persons to hinder the work. There are some in these parts of the country who have taken pains industriously to bind them down in pagans darkness, “neglecting to enter into the kingdom of God themselves, and laboring to hinder others.” (Luke 11:52). Some have endeavored to prejudice them against me and the truths I taught them, by the most sneaking, unmanly, and false suggestions of things that had no manner of foundation except in their own brains.

After describing these difficulties, he concludes by saying, “If what I have written may be in any measure agreeable and satisfactory to [my readers], and serve to excite in them, or any of God’s people, a spirit of prayer and supplication for the furtherance of the work of grace among the peoples here, and the propagation of it to [greater areas], I shall have abundant reason to rejoice, and God bless us in this, as well as in other respects.”

Up against the same difficulties, I write for the same reasons and rejoice in your kindness and concern for the work here. May these difficulties inspire your prayers. Regarding the immediate future, we pray that God would bless:

• A series of evangelistic meetings in Paris at the end of this month.
  
• The college group retreat, and make it a Bible-saturated and life-transforming weekend.
  
• The future of our English service, which will be losing all its key leadership at the end of the academic year.
  
• The numerous visitors at church these days, and help them attach themselves to God, to the Bible, and to a church.
  
• The ministries and futures of Cathy, Rebecca, and Matthew, my fellow servants here at the Bible Institute.
  
  

In hope, Sam