THE BLOOD of chickens could not save Pascal Orome, but the blood of Jesus has. Pascal was a twin, born into a large family as his father was a polygamist with three wives. For a village in the Ivory Coast in the 1950s, this was quite average! His father was also an animist.

"We had an altar where we sacrificed chickens, with the blood put on our faces and arms," Pascal recalls. "There were lots of things I could not eat and lots of places I could not go as a twin." (In Africa, twins are sometimes regarded with suspicion.)

Jesus was to set Pascal free from all of these restrictions, and to make him a man with a limitless vision:

"My burden is for people to have their eyes opened to receive God. Wherever I go, I take the gospel. I want to take it to the whole of Africa."

However, it was to be many years before Pascal's own eyes were opened to Jesus. As a child, he went to live with an uncle who was secretary in a Catholic mission; Pascal served there as an altar boy. But years of study and depression at his inability to get a job in the UK laid Pascal open to other spiritual paths: for a while he was into Buddhism and then followed the South Indian guru, Sai Baba. But he found this didn't hold true:

"This man says he's like Jesus - how come I never hear about him then?"

When a friend who was a born-again Christian nagged Pascal to go to a gospel crusade, eventually he agreed - and there he gave his life to Jesus. In the church Pascal immediately saw a need - for organisation - and filled the gap; within a few weeks he found himself part of the leadership team. Over the next years Pascal grew in ministry, and the church grew in numbers, but sadly, when the original leader left, difficulties arose due to lack of experience among the leaders and Pascal was forced to leave the church.

And so Mission Ensemble pour Christ (MEPC) was birthed in a hired hall in Elephant and Castle, south London. Today Mission Ensemble pour Christ has five branches, one each in France (Orleans) and England (London), and three in Ivory Coast (Guiberoua and Abidjan). Mission is central to its vision, as Pascal explains:

"Jesus came on the earth to die for those who have sinned against God. As those who have received Him, Jesus gave us the mission to go to all the world and preach the good news so others can be saved."

Miracles have accompanied Pascal's preaching of the gospel. He tells stories of two Ivorian girls in detention centre who were miraculously set free; of a Ghanaian neighbour healed of cancer; of a French lady healed from stomach pains; of three blind people healed in his own village.

However, Pascal does not set much store on miracles for their own sake; he points instead, continuously, to the example of Jesus:

"My desire is for people to receive Jesus. When I look at the life of Jesus and all the miracles He did, they were nothing to Him. He did not emphasise them, He just carried on His way.

"When a miracle happens in someone's life, he will go and share it and people will come. It's a key to evangelism - but I want people to get the message and live according to what they receive."

Pascal describes a three-fold strand of mission - preach, teach and encourage:

"To preach is to talk about Jesus, to give information so someone can get baptised. To teach is to give some detail, to equip people. And to encourage… well, Christian life is not easy: if you give people the tools but they get stuck, you come to encourage them."

It was an Ivorian friend who recommended the Jesus Fellowship to Pascal, but it took months of nagging before Pascal agreed to ring.

It was 2003, and the sight of the Jesus Fellowship's community life was to be a revolution for Pascal "because when I was preaching, when I came to Acts 2:44, 'All the believers were together and had everything in common,' I thought it was impossible to be done by anyone today. We are all selfish. How can we sell our things and live together?

"Something new started in me when I met the Jesus Fellowship. The way they receive us is unusual, especially for white men. This love is not fake. It gives me more and more desire to know more and to get closer.

"So I'm part of this vision today. I don't want to join the Jesus Fellowship but I really want to learn and develop the same vision. Every country I go to, I preach how the church can come out of poverty - by sharing and having common vision.

"My prayer is to do something in Africa in every country, starting first from where we have Multiply leaders and then to spread."

Challenges - of money, of his wife's health, and of care for the children - do not hinder him.

"Matthew 7:21 says: 'Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.' It has made me to be totally straightforward about what I'm doing. In my first year of knowing God, He spoke to me in French, 'Pascal, I didn't call you to follow men, I called you to serve Me so don't look at men, but follow Me.'

"I want to do something that someone can carry on. I even want to build a city - with schools, hospitals, factories and community-style accommodation.

"I also want to evangelise by radio and TV so the gospel can go everywhere in villages in different languages. I just want people to be touched. For me, God's word has to be heard by everybody.

"Meeting the Jesus Fellowship has helped me a lot because it has given me the opportunity to try to live out Acts. I'm working hard and I'll share what I have so other people can come, and when they see, then they will join with me in the vision. I believe before I die I will leave a blueprint. Definitely."

This article has been extracted from Streetpaper and Jesus Life publications