May 16, 2025

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Judy and I are getting things together to head to our annual church weekend. This is a moment that all enjoy as our spiritual family spends a couple of days together in fellowship and worship. This is a great time of encouragement and sharing that is very who good for the body of believers.

I recently read two autobiographies of individuals who many would particularly find outside the likely realm of people to be saved. One was a lady born in the early sixties who was a professor in a well-known university in Syracuse, NY. She was an atheist, lesbian and ardent fighter for gay rights. She came to the Lord through gentle believers after many meals and discussions. She contacted them initially to get an opinion of “the other side” for an anti-God book she was writing. She is now very active as a believer who has been married to a pastor for a number of years. The other life story is of a high-class Pakistani lady who had been married to a general and ambassador who came to Christ. She came to Christ in the sixties when already a young grandmother.

The scriptural text that greatly touched me from this second mentioned book was, “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing” (2 Corinthians 2:14-15).

This morning Judy and I were having our weekly discipleship encounter with a new believer, and as she shared about encounters with others in her extended family of broken relationships and the opportunities that our Father gave her in the last week, I was touched by the reality of how God is using her to touch broken lives with which she has connections. We don’t have to make things happen. We just get doused with God’s perfume and it permeates the world around us.

I will close with another example of the power of God’s fragrance. Laure, the mother and wife in the family who hosts Bible studies in their home in a small rural town, told us in the meeting last Saturday about her surprise reception of a letter from a fifteen-year-old girl thanking her for impact Laure has had on her life. She had just trusted Christ as Savior. She is not from a Christian family and not in Christian circles. Laure had been praying for the girl’s mother who has gone through great difficulties. Laure was surprised that she had had any influence on the 15-year-old daughter…My answer was from the text I quoted above. God’s perfume…

John and Judy Hatcher

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Contact Info:
John Mark & Judy Hatcher
2 T Impasse de la Picardie
31830 Plaisance du Touch
France
jmhatcher@aol.com

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P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
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