Young people are showing a greater openness to the Gospel.

France (MNN) — Mission work in France is slow, and people in that atheistic society are resistant to the Gospel.

But the church is growing, and Greater Europe Mission’s Lel Fickett has been ministering to French women for over 20 years.

The small French churches, Fickett says, really don’t provide opportunities for women to receive training. But their Christian Women’s Clud outreach has had great side effects: “Our main goal has been to evangelize unbelievers, but we have realized over the years that, the Christian Women’s Club has really helped Christian women to develop their gifts and talents and become leaders and then to take those gifts back into the local churches.”

Fickett oversees Bible studies, and she finds Christian women to join and lead those studies. They invite their friends and neighbors to join them to learn about the Bible. For many it’s the first time they are learning about the Bible, and many lives are being changed.

GEM is seeing a lot of fruit, and Fickett says exciting things are happening: “There is an openness among younger people that I have not seen in the past, people maybe 20 to 30. And it’s interesting, because several other people recently have said the same thing to me, that they have noticed this. And so I’m thinking, it may not just be me. But I believe there’s a new openness in the younger people in France. And it may be because they’re just realizing the spiritual need in their lives and possibly they’re further removed from a negative experience that they might have had with institutionalized religion. They seem to be very open to the Gospel, and that’s encouraging.”

Pray that God will continue to build His church in France.