Beverly McCraw's French mission

Things are returning to more of a routine for Beverly McCraw.

Her 20-year-old daughter is back in college. Her husband has a new job in Mocksville, and she has work most days as a substitute teacher for Rowan-Salisbury Schools.

But McCraw took a step out of her comfort zone this summer when she spent close to three weeks in the South of France as a — for lack of a better description — missionary evangelist.

“Being over there was like a reawakening for me,” McCraw says.

She signed up with a long-established mission program called Operation Mobilization USA, which today has 5,400 long-term workers in 110 countries and on two ships. Its goal is “to see the gospel of Jesus lived out among all people of the world.”

McCraw participated in the organization’s short-term movement “Transform 2010,” an outreach that started with four days of training, workshops, prayer and networking in Rome before 35 teams scattered to 22 countries in the Mediterranean region.

The destination for McCraw’s team of mostly younger women was Carpentras in southern France. Theirs was one of three French teams.

From Carpentras, the team’s outreach ministry included visiting markets and conducting a kind of “open-air evangelism” involving puppet shows for kids, mime acts, singing, handing out DVDs and literature, sermonizing and conducting on-street surveys.

Much of the effort was directed toward the strong Muslim populace and trying to forge connections between the Christian view of Jesus and how he is portrayed in the Koran.

Islam is the second most prevalent religion in France behind Catholicism.

McCraw’s strong command of the French language served her well in roles that were unfamiliar to her, such as delivering a market-day sermon.

She slept on the floor in the home church’s basement every night, and Carpentras church members provided most of the meals. The team members had to share a shower, toilet and sink.

Paul and Stephanie Dixon were part of the Operation Mobilization staff for McCraw’s team in France. Paul is responsible for organizing short-term outreaches, and the couple’s two young boys, Joshua and Nathan, accompanied the team on many of their outreach efforts.

Marcel Georgel, another Frenchmen, has a ministry around Nantes. Part of his work involves ministering to African women who were sold into slavery as prostitutes.

Some American girls from Bethany College — Ashley Boyum, Tamsen Gylleck and Sarah Halberg — also were part of the team. The evangelistic work based out of Carpentras was part of their yearlong mission to France, supervised largely by Georgel.

Other team members included Hilary Thomas of Georgia, Erin Meikle of England, Liliana Kerr of Mexico and Liane Lems of Holland.

Dixon told McCraw by e-mail after the trip how encouraging it was to see her take to evangelism.

“I think you have a real gift for engaging people in conversation,” Dixon wrote to McCraw. “That was clear from the contacts you were able to make while in Carpentras.”

McCraw, 56, partially blames a mid-life crisis on her decision to take this mission trip from July 18-Aug. 9. Her ability to understand and speak French was a talent, she knew, and McCraw also wanted to return to a country she had carried a deep love for since she was a young adult.

Some 30 years ago, as a young French teacher in Fredericksburg, Va., McCraw made connections with two visiting Frenchmen and invited them to her class.

They in turn paved the way for her visit with their family, and she soon set off for a six-month stay in Ermenonville, France, where she helped teach English to children 14, 12 and 8.

McCraw discovered the family she was staying with was “nominally Catholic,” and she had difficulty finding Christian fellowship, other than through the Salvation Army.

McCraw eventually returned to a life in the States, continued teaching and married. She and her husband, Jon, moved to Spencer in 1999. Beverly home-schooled their daughter, Sara Beth, and the family attended First Baptist Church in Salisbury.

Over the years, McCraw was host to several French exchange students for a month or two months at a time. She also won a four-day trip to Paris through one of the exchange services 10 years ago. On that visit she stayed a week with the family of one of the girls she had hosted in the States.

This year’s mission trip came together quickly, at a time when money was particularly tight for the McCraw family.

Operation Mobilization accepted her application in June, giving McCraw only a short period in which to raise $1,300 for a roundtrip plane ticket and $980 for the mission program’s other costs.

McCraw gained financial support from several small churches, such as Spencer Presbyterian and Oakdale Baptist, besides donations from individuals — some given anonymously.

Before leaving, McCraw had raised enough money for the mission and a one-way ticket. She thought she could use Facebook when in France to raise funds for her return, but that opportunity never surfaced.

In the end, the mission organization loaned her the funds to return home. She has raised $300, but still needs an additional $500 to repay the group.

Besides her concerns about getting home, McCraw faced other challenges. Her luggage was lost for two days in London on the flight over. But overall she was quite satisfied that within the young group, she was treated like everyone else.

“I kept up with everything they did,” she said.

The group had two Wednesday afternoons free. They used them to travel to Avignon and Fontaine Vaucluse.

McCraw hopes to participate next summer in Operation Mobilization’s Immigrant Ministry, in which she would teach English, conduct Bible studies and offer other outreach services to African and Middle Eastern immigrants living in Paris.

It’s a six-week program.

From a faith perspective, this summer’s trip was giving big church visions to little churches, and the evangelism gave McCraw something she felt she had missed in her first trip to France long ago.

“Thirty years ago, I couldn’t plug into the Christian fellowship as much as I wanted to,” she says.

Her recent mission also cemented her love of France and its people.

“It’s just a special place,” she says.

McCraw, who is currently attending the Destiny City church at The Inn, is available for talks about her recent mission trip. E-mail her at bevmccraw@live.com