Welcome to the latest installment of Harris in Paris! We are into a new year and excited about what 2026 has in store. Since we left off with our last newsletter, we’ve celebrated Thanksgiving with our new church family, made a trip back to the States for Christmas, fought off the Atlanta Flu (which proved a formidable opponent), travelled to an International Baptist Convention, and begun laying the groundwork for our 2026 ministry goals. And for the first time, we did all this without sending any of our children to the Emergency Room (an especially timely streak of good fortune, because we’re pretty sure if we showed up there again we’d be getting a visit from the French DFACS).

We’re excited to share it all with you, so let’s jump in!

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we hosted our largest church event to date. While the French have plenty to be thankful for - stunning architecture, world-renowned wine, the US 29th Infantry Division - they don’t have a day on the calendar to commemorate their gratitude. So for many in attendance, this was the first time being a part of a Thanksgiving dinner, and it was quite an experience for us to have the opportunity to share something so uniquely American with our new international brothers and sisters here. Rather than the normal sweet potato casseroles and cranberry sauces, the potluck meal featured fare from all over the globe, and the only turkey available was a single giant leg picked up from a food stand at the Tuileries Christmas carnival on the way to the party. The spirit of the holiday was fully present, however, and the family feel among our church was palpable that night.

Our Thanksgiving event doubled as a screening of A City of Light, a documentary made by our home church, Christ Covenant, and just released in November, that explores what it looks like to plant churches in a post-Christian Paris and illustrates the challenges that pastors and missionaries are confronted with here. The film highlights several local churches, including our own, and we were blessed to be able to have a few of those churches’ pastors on hand for an invigorating Q&A afterwards. Many thanks to pastor Bryan Koffman for being a huge part of the evening and speaking so eloquently about what it means to faithfully share the gospel without compromise in a place like Paris, while simultaneously building the largest “tent” possible.

It’s tough to put into words just how special the evening was for us and for the fellowship of our church family. As you know, a big part of our our ministry goal here is to help grow the church through hospitality and providing a space for engagement, and this evening was a massive victory towards that end. One member of our congregation even remarked, “If you guys do nothing else during your time here in Paris, your trip has been a success.”

The holiday season is an exciting and interesting time here in Paris. The city fully embodies its sobriquet - streets are adorned with seemingly infinite strands of hanging lights, and popup Christmas markets can be found in every neighborhood. It was a bit striking for us, however, given how enthusiastic the city is about Christmas, to see just how secular that enthusiasm is, and how devoid the excitement is of, well, the thing that Christmas is exciting for.

This concerning trend notwithstanding, EIC thrived during the Advent season, and we remained active within the church in December.

We were also quite humbled and even a little emotional when several of our apartment building-mates brought gifts for the little boys!

After the French schools let out for the holidays, we made our first trip back to the States to spend the remainder of the Christmas season with family and “old” friends. This trip was, as one can imagine, highly anticipated by all Parisian Forslings, and our itinerary for the journey was the subject of much discussion and debate at the dinner table in the weeks prior to our departure. By the time we were wheels up, we’d easily spent hours talking about folks we’d get to see and places we hoped to go, but the most heated topic, of course, was where and what we would eat.

So, where does a family full of 8th and 9th generation Georgian boys go for their first meal back in America after 6 months abroad? Well, we will tell you. The answer is La Parilla Cantina in Bibb County.

We celebrated Christmas with Britt’s parents and siblings, a first for us as a family. As many of you know, Britt’s father (and Bruce Forsling’s namesake) has been in a tough battle with Parkinson’s, and so spending time with him was a major impetus for our decision to travel stateside for the holidays. We’re grateful to have had the opportunity to be there, and happy to report that Bruce’s greatest talent - telling laugh-out-loud stories to a room full of people - is still as sharp as Somerset Cheddar.

We did our best to cherish the home cooking and fried seafood, the slow pace of life, and the Sun, which disappeared from Paris back in late October. We also had a great visit with Brad’s family, just up the road in St. Simons. It was a needed rest and reset after the absolute full-on sprint that was our 2025.

We then made our way back to Atlanta, where we were so eager to see our friends and neighbors and our home church. We are extremely grateful to our friends the Ellis Family for opening their home to us while we were in town! Carter was able to reunite with his classmates, thanks to the always enthusiastically hospitable Steve & Lani Gertz, who threw an afternoon poolside banger for the entire Heritage Class of 2029, and Thomas & Lindsey Kesler, who sacrificed any hope for sleep that evening by hosting the boys’ overnight after party.

Harris hit the social scene as well, thanks to a play date arranged and hosted by his future in-laws, Matt & Nicole Nolan. This proved to be a bittersweet hangout, though, because in his 5 plus years on Earth, we have never seen Harris more upset to have to leave anywhere.

It was incredible to see so many of you during the 72 hours we were in Atlanta. Thank you to all of you who had us for dinner, made time to come meet us, or even changed your Sunday worship spot just to come give us a hug!

One final thought on our time in the States that we’d like to illustrate because, perhaps predictably, the number one question we often get is some version of, “what’s it like to be an overseas missionary with a family?” Well, here’s a bit of a window: while it was invigorating and encouraging and refreshing to see so many of the folks we love, it was a rather odd thing psychologically for us to be back. We have built a life here in Paris - with a church and friends and jobs and neighbors and schools and routines. We feel like we’ve lived a decade in the past six months, and while you guys have been incredible at keeping up with us and praying for our lives and our challenges, there are still an infinite number of day-to-day experiences that have molded us and are stored up in our brains which are almost impossible to properly convey to anyone else. Being plucked out of this new life and thrown back into our old one for such a brief time… it just sort of left our heads spinning for awhile in the days after our return.

To be clear, this isn’t intended to imply anything negative about our trip home or any regret about making it! More-so a neutral observation of an unforeseen psychological phenomenon we experienced, included in this letter to be “real” and give you just a little bit more of an idea of what this journey is like.

Unfortunately, at some point during our flight home to France, every one of us came down with the Flu that we’ve heard has been ravaging Atlanta this season. This knocked us out for a solid 7 days and delayed the kids getting back into school our start to the year in general. (Forgive us, there are no pictures from this time. And if there were, Britt would swim across the Seine before she’d let them into this newsletter, so you’ll just have to use your imagination).

Paris did get a beautiful dusting of snow that first week we were back. This is a rarity in the Île de France, and the French clearly have little understanding of what to do in a blizzard because when, at the first sight of that Connecticut Confetti, Brad raced to the grocery store to buy a week’s worth of milk and bread, he found the shelves unmolested and still fully stocked.

Carter and Brad have just returned from an energizing trip with our pastor John Hugh and his sons to the annual IBC Men’s Retreat. The boys hopped a train (five of them, actually) to spend the weekend learning, worshiping, and fellowshipping with pastors from all over Europe in a small town in the Swiss Alps. With the world economic leaders in Davos; the Baptist brass took over Lenk im Simmental.

The weekend was an incredible time of education, rejuvenation, and encouragement. You should all know and be inspired that God is absolutely on the move in this region of the world. The men we met are planting flags for the gospel in some of the most spiritually dark areas on Earth, and they are feeling momentum and seeing their congregations grow. Further, they’re doing all this on extremely minimal budgets and without worship teams or sound systems or in some cases even an actual building, and you can rest assured that nobody is coming to these churches for any sort of social benefit (if anything, attendance comes with a social cost). Rather, they are thriving because people are simply seeking the good news of the gospel and their pastors are staying rooted in it, and it was a great thing for Carter & Brad to see and experience together.

We are extremely anxious to see what 2026 holds for our ministry here, and excited about the projects we’re working on with our church and its pastor, including:

• Online live-streaming of church services

• A bonafide kids church program

• A men’s leadership/Elder track study & fellowship course

• Hosting the Christ Covenant worship team for a multi-church combined worship night in Pars

• Continuing to develop strategies and pursue opportunities for a real estate solution for the church

So, we’re going to be busy this year, but not too busy to host visitors! The signups have started to flow in, and we hope if you haven’t made plans to visit yet, you’ll come witness firsthand the work that God is doing here in Paris. We’d love to see you!

As always, we are extremely grateful for your prayers, your check-ins and your encouragement - our ministry quite literally could not function without them! We wish all of you the very best in this new year and are so blessed to have you in our lives.

With Joy & Gratitude,

Brad & Britt

Follow along, send us a note, and give support at www.HarrisInParis.org

BONUS! Paris 2025 By The Numbers:

• Full family moves - 5

• Nautical miles flown with toddlers - 11,456

• Trips to the French Emergency Room - 3

• Baguettes consumed - 124

• Average daily steps - 11,648

• Appointments with French service provider to activate a single phone number - 5

• Little boys’ school “nope we’re just off today” days - 34(!)

• E-Bike Odometer reading (km) - 539

• Golf balls hit - 0