Friendship Baptist Church

2008 Missions Conference

Gailen (Butch) Abbett

BIMI

I was born into a family that wouldn't stay put in one place. I was born in Indiana, and then spent 4 years in Michigan where I was saved in Sunday School as a bus kid at the Grace Baptist Church of Belleville, Michigan.  Then it was on to Georgia where I finished High School in 1963.  I left that same year for Tennessee Temple Schools in Chattanooga, where I eventually met Margie, who had come down there from her home out in the mountains outside of Abingdon, Va.  She was starting her junior year when I was a freshman.  She graduated in 1965 and I finished college in 1967 and seminary in 1969.  We were accepted by BIMI in July, 1969, and began our time of deputation immediately. 

 

We arrived in France June 5, 1970, with our children, Teresa (3 years old) and Jeff ( 8 months old) in our arms.  I was 24 years old when we stepped off that old plane.  With the help of BIMI missionaries, Bob and Gail Huffman, we found a small apartment.  We started language school and completed it in close to 18 months.  In January, 1972, we moved to the town of Sens where we began our first work "from scratch".  After being there for nine years we were able to leave it in the hands of the people there and begin our second work in the country.  That work is still going on today and doing well.

 

Our second work took us to Sarreguemines, where we again started a work from "scratch" and stayed there for 21 years.  That work was a much greater struggle than the first in many ways, and was never as strong as the first.  This was due mostly to the inability of the people to get along with one another, although we saw many, many wonderful things accomplished in those years.

 

While in language school we had another son, Philip Carey, and while in Sens another daughter, Anna Louise.  Teresa is 40 now and is happily married and busy in their church with her husband and two boys.  Both Jeff and Carey are full time missionaries in France, Jeff returning in 1998, and Carey in 2000.  Jeff and Jane have four children and Carey and Susan have three. Anna is married to a young preacher boy she met at Crown College, and they are serving in the ministry in a close suburb to New Orleans.

 

In 2001, our youngest son, Carey, moved to a small town near the larger town of Amiens, to begin a new Baptist church there.  We joined him there in late 2001 and begin to help him in getting that new work started.  That was a very difficult task.  Being an American in France had become increasingly difficult. In addition, the French government has taken a strong stand against all "false cults" of which they consider Baptists.  We have been involved with other ministries in France which consists primarily of winter and summer youth retreats and camps, special conferences and meetings, and teaching in a French Bible School.