None of our mission partners can do their work on their own. Liz and Tom Trump share how they’ve come to depend on people’s prayers, and the truth that shapes everything they do: ‘Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labour in vain.’ (Psalm 127:1)
We arrived in Brussels on 17 June 2013 having packed the contents of our small flat in East London into a white van with the help of our church small group. We had both benefitted from the gospel ministry at St Helen’s Bishopsgate and felt challenged by the question: ‘Given the truth of the gospel and the gifts we’ve been given, how can we best serve the Lord?‘. We wanted to use our lives for Jesus, maximising our potential for gospel advance. We could never have imagined how deeply we would come to depend on the prayers of supporters back in the UK.
Tom had grown up in Belgium and spoke French, and I was working in Westminster. Brussels felt like a good fit – the gospel needs were huge and although there was faithful gospel work going on, overall the church was and still is fragile and lacking in trained Bible teachers. We had already been involved for several years with the bilingual InterAction summer camps in Belgium and felt confident, with the enthusiasm and naivety of youth, that we could serve there. We found new jobs in our new city and without spending too much time counting the cost, we left the UK.
Five years later, Tom resigned from his finance job to train for ministry at the Brussels Bible Institute and five years after that became the pastor of Emmanuel Etterbeek church, a French-speaking community of around 30 adults. We are so aware that we cannot do this work on our own and are deeply grateful for the prayers of our six supporting churches and many faithful individuals across the UK. We recognize that prayer is costly – joining a prayer meeting at the end of a long day often requires real sacrifice. Yet these prayers have carried us.
One thing we often ask people to pray is that God would bring people through the doors of the church.
Half of the population of Etterbeek, the European quarter of Brussels where we live, are not from Belgium and there is a high turnover. Yet, without fail, every time someone dear to us leaves, God brings new people to work alongside us and to do life with. One year early on we hadn’t yet got used to this cycle of arrivals and departures and were feeling bereft after two close friends moved away. A French Christian student got in touch with our church and asked to stay for a few nights while she searched for a flat to rent. She knocked on our door and very quickly lifted our spirits and boosted our small church with her godly attitude and enthusiasm.
A few years later a young man joined our church after reading the Bible on his own at home and becoming a Christian; another lady found her way through the doors and discovered that Jesus is worth much more than the relationship she had been clinging to; a young couple grew in their gospel convictions and were trained to read the Bible with others, and Sunday school teachers appeared out of nowhere. Little by little the church is built and prayers that are tentatively prayed are powerfully answered.
On a personal level, prayer has also sustained us. Tom is bilingual, while for me working in a language that is not my own has been stretching and at times exhausting. Before teaching a Sunday school lesson or leading a Bible study I can do nothing but pray that God would use what words I have.
Through our fervent prayers and those of our supporters he has always provided for us – a house at just the right time, miraculous financial support despite living in one of the most expensive countries in Europe, visits from faithful supporters that cheered us up when we were at a low ebb.
Last May, our church weekend away was especially helpful in driving this home. We spent time in 2 Corinthians, and two realities came into sharp focus: the ministry of the gospel is both glorious and hard. That isn’t a contradiction – it’s God’s design. Ministry is hard – the discouragement that comes with slow progress, the strain of difficult relationships, or the practical challenges of family life. But the gospel is glorious as God opens blind eyes, using our prayers and meagre efforts to bring new life.
So, thank you for praying. Please keep praying – for faithfulness, for godliness, for encouragement in times of weariness, daily provision and gospel advance in Belgium. We know that prayer is not an optional extra but the very means by which God sustains his people and builds his church.
Liz and Tom Trump serve in Brussels, Belgium where Tom is pastor of a local church plant