Pioneer Update: Striking Gold in Brussels
Steve and Bridget Bree are RM pioneers based in Brussels, Belgium. Since arriving in 2018 their vision for a gospel community in the city has been evolving. The most recent development goes beyond what they could have dreamed up!
God always goes above and beyond our imagination. Bridget takes up the story…
Steve and I had been in Brussels since 2018, following God’s prompting to share our faith and to church plant here, but initially things didn't go exactly as we had hoped and then…COVID intervened.
We continued to seek God for His direction, inviting a pioneer team to come and pray with us for three days in July 2022. A word of prophecy was brought about ‘gold or jewellery’ and - as we always do with prophetic words - we made a note of it, but didn't really know what it meant or how to follow it up at the time.
A word in season, how good it is!
A few months later, whilst passing an empty shop in a Metro station, Steve felt prompted by God to consider using one of the empty premises in the town centre as a base for outreach. We have always opened our home to share the gospel and it just seemed like a natural extension of that. At the same time, our friend who initially brought this word about ‘gold or jewellery’ kept reminding us about it, prompting us to look for an empty premises connected with that theme - but nothing obvious came up. So we felt a bit lost again. How often this is the case!
Then one day, God asked me: ‘Where do you see all the gold in the centre of Brussels?’
Well, if you’ve ever been to Brussels, you will know that the beautiful buildings surrounding the Grand Place are all picked out in gold at the upper levels.
Grand-Place or Grote Markt in Brussels, Belgium
There was one empty building in particular, a former cafe on the Grand Place, that I had always been attracted to - though not for what seemed like not very ‘spiritual’ reasons at the time! - as it was used in a BBC drama from the late 1970s that I loved called Secret Army. Spiritual prompting or not, I decided to research the building, as I know that each of the guild houses surrounding the Grand Place is named in connection with a trade or profession.
I should not have been surprised by what I found...
French name
Le Marchand d'Or / Aux Armes de BrabantDe
Dutch name
Gulden Koopman / De Wapens van Brabant
English translation
"The Golden Merchant" / "The Weapons of Brabant"
Soon after this, Steve was in a Brussels leaders prayer meeting when a pastor had a picture from God for us: we were standing in a room praying for people, for healing and salvation. He couldn't see what the room was like, just that there was carpet on the floor - this detail is actually quite significant, as carpets are very unusual in European buildings; floors are usually wood.
Steve went back to look through the window of The Gold Merchant guildhouse and what did he see? Carpet on the floor!
We were so thankful for the way in which God was making His will clearly known to us.
Searching for connection
Finding the owner was more complicated. After exhausting every other avenue of communication without success, we decided to write a letter in both of the local languages (Dutch and French), pray over it and post it through the letterbox.
For a long time we heard nothing.
Just as we were feeling despondent, the phone rang - the owner was on the line! “I was interested in your letter,” he told us, “because the city of Brussels is fining us a lot of money whilst the building empty.”
It turns out that, because the Grand Place is a UNESCO World Heritage site, the city of Brussels likes the square to look good and issues substantial fines over properties that are left empty for a length of time.
After arranging a meeting with the owner at the property, he told us that the last commercial rent arranged for the property had been 18,000€ per month - a figure far above our budget. We shared how we were Christians and wanted to welcome people into the property to have conversations and to bless them.
We eventually settled on a rent of 1,660€ per month - a very significant reduction!
On chatting to him later, I asked him about his family and how they came to afford a building like this.
“Well, the buildings around the Grand Place were very cheap in the 1960s - nobody wanted them.” And before the war (WW2), his family were dealers...in gold and jewellery.
Praise God! He is specific, He is trustworthy, He is patient. We love Him!
December 2023: Meeting in the venue for the first time
January 2024: Live painting in the window
Looking forward
So our plan is to have an exhibition of paintings by a local Christian prophetic artist, to offer a hot drink and somewhere warm to sit and have a conversation. The artwork is by Elize Retief (@elizeretief on Instagram) and she plans to paint in the front window of the cafe so that people can watch.
There is a beautiful first floor room where we will pray and worship and we also plan to have some live music there. We plan to make genuine connections with passersby whether they are tourists or locals - and to share the love of Jesus with them.
And who knows what else God might have in store for this very high profile project?
Pioneering in Brussels: Steve and Bridget Bree
Pioneering in Brussels
Get in touch
You can contact Steve and Bridget at rmbrusselsplant@gmail.com or via WhatsApp at +32477168608. You can also follow them on instagram: @316_community.
Finally - visit!
If you have a heart for Brussels, Belgium or Europe, why not get on the ground and get a taste of pioneering? Steve and Bridget would love to give you a taste of the pioneering life and an opportunity to witness what God is doing in mainland Europe.