Friday, August 25, 2006
Saturday, August 19, 2006
The narrow path
Hello....Are you out there, readers?..........
Having just returned from four days of intensive street evangelism in Taraclia, Moldova I have many thoughts that I want to share with cyber space.
Our Youth With A Mission outreach team were in the 10.000 people town for four days and were out talking to people and inviting them to (healing) meetings at the church 4,5 hours every day. At the end of our days on the streets it seemed like everybody had at least two invitations to our meetings.
I personally, and our team in general, had many good conversations with people. We had many chances of sharing our personal testimonies of how Jesus Christ has changed our lives and we had many chances of challenging people with the good news of Jesus Christ dying for everybody's sins and shortcomings. I personally talked to many people where I felt in my spirit that they were very open to get to know Jesus and that these people realized (contrary to most Moldovans sadly...) that money (from the West!) was not going to solve their problems and heal their hurts.
Thursday we had a 2 hour program at the church mainly targeting the youth of Taraclia. I wasn't present that evening since I was in another Moldovan city preaching. A group of maybe 5-7 non-Christians showed up and saw our program and heard the challenge to receive Jesus into their lives. As far as we know only one young woman made the step of faith and became a Christian that evening.
This young woman was also present last night where there was a healing meeting. Sadly no non-Christians showed up last night! Not a single one. After 15-18 hours of solid evangelism and loads of dedicated prayer. Not a single one. Wow.........talk about disappointment!
Many good explanations
I work as a missionary and I've been a Christian many years, so of course I know my lines and know that I need to point to the fact that it's not always that we see immediate results of our work....that sometimes we get to sow and water, but not reap the fruit....that we have helped people one step closer to God and maybe they'll be more open next time they hear the good news about Jesus....and bla, bla, bla.....BUT right now I'm just good, old-fashioned disappointed. Disappointed that nobody showed up. Disappointed that people chose the couch and their tv and their mediocre and dissatisfying lives instead of coming and meeting Jesus and experience his full life.
The path to the kingdom of God is narrow and few find it, Jesus told us many years ago. And that's true. That's a sad, sad truth. Many people in Taraclia heard the good news, but they didn't have the courage to step out, take a step of faith and experience that Jesus is real.
I'll continue to pray for the many people I talked to and witnessed to. I'll pray for the Jehovah's Witness lady who admitted that she would be kicked out of Jehovah's Witnesses if she didn't witness and who couldn't explain to me how that policy corresponded to proclaiming the name of a God of freedom and peace. I'll pray for the two ladies who worked in an Orthodox Church whom we challenged to stop praying to icons and instead focusing all their (religious) energy on Jesus. We prayed for them standing in front of all the icons, and I'll pray that Jesus will become more real to these ladies. I'll pray for Lena, who admitted that her life and her marriage with a cheating and drinking young man was in ruins, and who understood that money wouldn't fix anything. I'll pray for Vitalik whom I had a long talk with and who seemed open enough to understand that I had something (Jesus!) that he was looking for.
I'll pray for these people. I'll pray that God will continue to call on them. I know he will. And I'll pray that these people will stop and listen and will have the courage to step away from Satan's and society's lies and step out into a life of freedom and truth with God! I'll pray and I'll acknowledge that God is God and I am not! He knows best. He has his timing. Maybe we were just there to plant seeds and water them.
Maybe we will hear reports from Taraclia that many people are coming to know Jesus and that they heard about him during our days there. Maybe I'll meet people on the new earth whom heard about Jesus these last four days.
I don't know. Right now I'm just sad and disappointed. But I'll still praise God!
And so ends this little insight into a missionary's heart.
God bless you all!
Torben
Having just returned from four days of intensive street evangelism in Taraclia, Moldova I have many thoughts that I want to share with cyber space.
Our Youth With A Mission outreach team were in the 10.000 people town for four days and were out talking to people and inviting them to (healing) meetings at the church 4,5 hours every day. At the end of our days on the streets it seemed like everybody had at least two invitations to our meetings.
I personally, and our team in general, had many good conversations with people. We had many chances of sharing our personal testimonies of how Jesus Christ has changed our lives and we had many chances of challenging people with the good news of Jesus Christ dying for everybody's sins and shortcomings. I personally talked to many people where I felt in my spirit that they were very open to get to know Jesus and that these people realized (contrary to most Moldovans sadly...) that money (from the West!) was not going to solve their problems and heal their hurts.
Thursday we had a 2 hour program at the church mainly targeting the youth of Taraclia. I wasn't present that evening since I was in another Moldovan city preaching. A group of maybe 5-7 non-Christians showed up and saw our program and heard the challenge to receive Jesus into their lives. As far as we know only one young woman made the step of faith and became a Christian that evening.
This young woman was also present last night where there was a healing meeting. Sadly no non-Christians showed up last night! Not a single one. After 15-18 hours of solid evangelism and loads of dedicated prayer. Not a single one. Wow.........talk about disappointment!
Many good explanations
I work as a missionary and I've been a Christian many years, so of course I know my lines and know that I need to point to the fact that it's not always that we see immediate results of our work....that sometimes we get to sow and water, but not reap the fruit....that we have helped people one step closer to God and maybe they'll be more open next time they hear the good news about Jesus....and bla, bla, bla.....BUT right now I'm just good, old-fashioned disappointed. Disappointed that nobody showed up. Disappointed that people chose the couch and their tv and their mediocre and dissatisfying lives instead of coming and meeting Jesus and experience his full life.
The path to the kingdom of God is narrow and few find it, Jesus told us many years ago. And that's true. That's a sad, sad truth. Many people in Taraclia heard the good news, but they didn't have the courage to step out, take a step of faith and experience that Jesus is real.
I'll continue to pray for the many people I talked to and witnessed to. I'll pray for the Jehovah's Witness lady who admitted that she would be kicked out of Jehovah's Witnesses if she didn't witness and who couldn't explain to me how that policy corresponded to proclaiming the name of a God of freedom and peace. I'll pray for the two ladies who worked in an Orthodox Church whom we challenged to stop praying to icons and instead focusing all their (religious) energy on Jesus. We prayed for them standing in front of all the icons, and I'll pray that Jesus will become more real to these ladies. I'll pray for Lena, who admitted that her life and her marriage with a cheating and drinking young man was in ruins, and who understood that money wouldn't fix anything. I'll pray for Vitalik whom I had a long talk with and who seemed open enough to understand that I had something (Jesus!) that he was looking for.
I'll pray for these people. I'll pray that God will continue to call on them. I know he will. And I'll pray that these people will stop and listen and will have the courage to step away from Satan's and society's lies and step out into a life of freedom and truth with God! I'll pray and I'll acknowledge that God is God and I am not! He knows best. He has his timing. Maybe we were just there to plant seeds and water them.
Maybe we will hear reports from Taraclia that many people are coming to know Jesus and that they heard about him during our days there. Maybe I'll meet people on the new earth whom heard about Jesus these last four days.
I don't know. Right now I'm just sad and disappointed. But I'll still praise God!
And so ends this little insight into a missionary's heart.
God bless you all!
Torben
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Water....you can't live without it!
Water...No water, no life...
We’ve had several experiences the past few months where we’ve experienced first hand how every change regarding water changes many things. First we lost hot water for a month in our apartment in Kiev and had to get used to cold showers during a time where it was definitely not hot outside. Then we came to a village out in the middle of nowhere (3 hours away from the big Ukrainian city, Dnipropetrovsk) where time had been standing still since 1930. We had to use a good old-fashioned bucket in a well to get our water for washing hands, and if we desired a shower we had to pull the water up from the well, have the sun warm it and then we could use it for a shower. This week, in Chisinau, Moldova, we have now lost all water in our apartment, and then life gets difficult. Have you ever thought about how important water is to every little household detail? Right now we can’t flush the toilet, we can’t wash the big pile of dishes that keeps growing, we can’t shower, we can’t wash our faces, we can’t make tea which is hard for Eastern Europeans to live without, and we can’t do any kind of cleaning. That’s life without water.
Hopefully the water will be back soon. Or we’ll have to buy many air fresheners....
Gives life and kills
Water gives life. Water is essential for all growth. No food on our tables if the fields are not watered. No life for us if we don’t get enough water. Hundreds of thousands of people die every day because they don’t get the water they need. We need water all the time. Our bodies are approximately 60-70% water the wise people tell us. We sweat, we drink, we go to the bathroom, we drink more, we have watered tongues so we can swallow and speak, and we have internal water pools for all our organs to be kept in. It’s all about water. Without water no life.
But water also kills. Water kills more people every year than any Kalashnikov-rifle or any other type of weapon. People die in the big oceans and the tiny lakes every day. People are hit by floods every month. Rivers go over their banks all the time. And then a tsunami hit and we really understood the power of water to give and take away life. And we cry. And we yell. And we despair. Water was supposed to bring life, but it can also kill.
Living water in Chisinau
Jesus talked about himself as being living water. He told a woman he met at a well (I imagine it looked a lot like my Ukrainian village-well) that if she received his living water she would never be thirsty again. She would never lack anything. I have tasted this water. I have tasted the living water Jesus talked about. It’s good. It’s filling. But it’s not all. I want more. Jesus was right. When you’ve tasted his water you don’t want anybody else’s water. When you’ve truly tasted what’s good, why would you take what Satan and the world can offer? When a Christian dies there is hope, because we have living water in us. Water that won’t dry out. And we offer that water of hope to each other. When non-Christians died in the tsunami, where was the hope? Where was the living water for them? They had tasted water, but it was the water of death and eternal life without God. That’s the reality of water. Water either kills or gives life. For eternity. You need to taste Jesus’ living water in order to have real life. Both here on Planet Earth and for all eternity. There is no other way to real life. It goes through Jesus’ living water. In all eternity we’ll live by the spring of the water of life that John saw in his revelation from God.
Last week we had a Jesus-festival here in Chisinau. Many evangelical churches had come together and invested a lot of money in renting the local brand new football stadium where the festival was held Friday and Saturday. A Zimbabwean Russian-speaking pastor from Kiev, Ukraine was speaking at these meetings and the thirst in the crowd was tangible. Moldavians were thirsty for living water. The living water that they haven’t found in the Orthodox churches here where tradition and rituals have dulled the living, ground-breaking water. They haven’t found it in the new waves of Western-style entertainment and luxuries that flourish in the city either. They knew that they needed more. And hundreds of them found it in an orange-green colored football stadium in July, 2006. They met Jesus. They got the living water that will never dry out in them. They met the giver of life. And they smiled. They smiled and cried the tears of joy that only Jesus can bring. Many experienced physical healing and gave glory to Jesus for that as well, but these meeting (as all good Christian meetings!) were about their hearts. It was about bringing the water of life to thirsty hearts. And the hearts that took the chance and opened up for this new, unknown water were washed and refreshed in a way they had never experienced before.
Plenty of water
There is plenty of water in Jesus’ well. The water of life doesn’t run out. It’s there. I want to bring it to people. People need it everywhere. People need it in Bangladesh where floods kill people every year, people need it in the Sahara desert where they cry out for rain every year, but receive very little. People need it in the West, where most of us live our lives thinking that we have all we need. We don’t need God. God’s living water is old news. But look how the West is drying out. Look how the spiritual life is disappearing in the West. Look how Westerners are financially blessed, but spiritually poor. Look how racism, homosexuality, promiscuity, fascism, Nazism, depression, abortions, murder, and other types of lawlessness is the order of the day in the West. We have water in our taps in our kitchens and bathrooms. And these weeks we even have enough water to water our thirsty backyards, but so few people in the West have living water. So few people in the West have ever tasted living water. So few people have experienced the abundant life that Jesus promised his disciples.
Bring people the living water. Dig deeper in Jesus if you need more water yourself before you have anything to bring. But bring it. It’s needed. Everywhere.
We’ve had several experiences the past few months where we’ve experienced first hand how every change regarding water changes many things. First we lost hot water for a month in our apartment in Kiev and had to get used to cold showers during a time where it was definitely not hot outside. Then we came to a village out in the middle of nowhere (3 hours away from the big Ukrainian city, Dnipropetrovsk) where time had been standing still since 1930. We had to use a good old-fashioned bucket in a well to get our water for washing hands, and if we desired a shower we had to pull the water up from the well, have the sun warm it and then we could use it for a shower. This week, in Chisinau, Moldova, we have now lost all water in our apartment, and then life gets difficult. Have you ever thought about how important water is to every little household detail? Right now we can’t flush the toilet, we can’t wash the big pile of dishes that keeps growing, we can’t shower, we can’t wash our faces, we can’t make tea which is hard for Eastern Europeans to live without, and we can’t do any kind of cleaning. That’s life without water.
Hopefully the water will be back soon. Or we’ll have to buy many air fresheners....
Gives life and kills
Water gives life. Water is essential for all growth. No food on our tables if the fields are not watered. No life for us if we don’t get enough water. Hundreds of thousands of people die every day because they don’t get the water they need. We need water all the time. Our bodies are approximately 60-70% water the wise people tell us. We sweat, we drink, we go to the bathroom, we drink more, we have watered tongues so we can swallow and speak, and we have internal water pools for all our organs to be kept in. It’s all about water. Without water no life.
But water also kills. Water kills more people every year than any Kalashnikov-rifle or any other type of weapon. People die in the big oceans and the tiny lakes every day. People are hit by floods every month. Rivers go over their banks all the time. And then a tsunami hit and we really understood the power of water to give and take away life. And we cry. And we yell. And we despair. Water was supposed to bring life, but it can also kill.
Living water in Chisinau
Jesus talked about himself as being living water. He told a woman he met at a well (I imagine it looked a lot like my Ukrainian village-well) that if she received his living water she would never be thirsty again. She would never lack anything. I have tasted this water. I have tasted the living water Jesus talked about. It’s good. It’s filling. But it’s not all. I want more. Jesus was right. When you’ve tasted his water you don’t want anybody else’s water. When you’ve truly tasted what’s good, why would you take what Satan and the world can offer? When a Christian dies there is hope, because we have living water in us. Water that won’t dry out. And we offer that water of hope to each other. When non-Christians died in the tsunami, where was the hope? Where was the living water for them? They had tasted water, but it was the water of death and eternal life without God. That’s the reality of water. Water either kills or gives life. For eternity. You need to taste Jesus’ living water in order to have real life. Both here on Planet Earth and for all eternity. There is no other way to real life. It goes through Jesus’ living water. In all eternity we’ll live by the spring of the water of life that John saw in his revelation from God.
Last week we had a Jesus-festival here in Chisinau. Many evangelical churches had come together and invested a lot of money in renting the local brand new football stadium where the festival was held Friday and Saturday. A Zimbabwean Russian-speaking pastor from Kiev, Ukraine was speaking at these meetings and the thirst in the crowd was tangible. Moldavians were thirsty for living water. The living water that they haven’t found in the Orthodox churches here where tradition and rituals have dulled the living, ground-breaking water. They haven’t found it in the new waves of Western-style entertainment and luxuries that flourish in the city either. They knew that they needed more. And hundreds of them found it in an orange-green colored football stadium in July, 2006. They met Jesus. They got the living water that will never dry out in them. They met the giver of life. And they smiled. They smiled and cried the tears of joy that only Jesus can bring. Many experienced physical healing and gave glory to Jesus for that as well, but these meeting (as all good Christian meetings!) were about their hearts. It was about bringing the water of life to thirsty hearts. And the hearts that took the chance and opened up for this new, unknown water were washed and refreshed in a way they had never experienced before.
Plenty of water
There is plenty of water in Jesus’ well. The water of life doesn’t run out. It’s there. I want to bring it to people. People need it everywhere. People need it in Bangladesh where floods kill people every year, people need it in the Sahara desert where they cry out for rain every year, but receive very little. People need it in the West, where most of us live our lives thinking that we have all we need. We don’t need God. God’s living water is old news. But look how the West is drying out. Look how the spiritual life is disappearing in the West. Look how Westerners are financially blessed, but spiritually poor. Look how racism, homosexuality, promiscuity, fascism, Nazism, depression, abortions, murder, and other types of lawlessness is the order of the day in the West. We have water in our taps in our kitchens and bathrooms. And these weeks we even have enough water to water our thirsty backyards, but so few people in the West have living water. So few people in the West have ever tasted living water. So few people have experienced the abundant life that Jesus promised his disciples.
Bring people the living water. Dig deeper in Jesus if you need more water yourself before you have anything to bring. But bring it. It’s needed. Everywhere.
Finally free and a swastika
I’ve been fed up with contemporary worship songs for quite a while. The vast majority of them seem worn out, fairly shallow and a little bit too happy-clappy-Jesus-I-love-you-100%-all-the-time-no-matter-what-happens. I don’t think that most of them reflect the everyday experience of most Christians. But hey....that’s a longer debate I think I’ll save for another blog. I actually wanted to share an experience I had last night where one of these worship songs made some sense to me. “I could sing of your love forever” is one of the contemporary classics that is being sung in churches all over the world (sadly it seems like American, Australian and English worship songs translated into whatever language is the order of the day no matter where I travel in the world....come on...write your own songs in your own language!! I’m positive God would prefer that!). One of the lines of the song goes “and I will open up my heart and let the Healer set me free”. Yesterday I was with a group of people where the Healer had truly set them free. My outreach team was making a little program with testimony, skit and songs for a group of Christian ex-drug addicts here in Chisinau, Moldova. We started by sharing our names and a bit of our life story so far, and it was overwhelming to hear the stories from our Moldovan friends. All of them had the usual ex-Soviet Union names (Vadim, Sergey, Sascha, Dimah, Yulia, Natasha, etc.), but all of them had unusual and heart-warming stories of how Jesus Christ had set them free from their drug abuse. The church we work with here in Chisinau runs a rehabilitation center, and the outcome is impressive and wonderful. All 15 men and women we met yesterday had completed a rehab-program and had even met Jesus during their time in the center and now they had been free from drugs and full of Jesus for anything in between one month and five years.
“Finally free” and a swastika...
A woman who was there with her young daughter caught my attention in a special way. She was in her mid-thirties but had a face that looked much older due to her many years as an alcoholic and drug abuser. She was telling about how alcohol and drugs controlled her life and her family’s life for 10 years. Now she had been a Christian for three years and her kids kept telling her how wonderful it was to have a mother who was there for them and who was finally capable of showing them love. I’m sure the woman didn’t know a word of English, but still her t-shirt spelled out the truth in capital letters: “FINALLY FREE” it read.
Another young man had only been a Christian and off drugs for a bit more than a month and he still had a little swastika tattoo on his right hand. I hope he’ll have the money to have that replaced with a real cross soon.
The Healer had set them all free and now they were fighting for their freedom. After a time of worship and us showing a skit there was a guy who spoke about freedom. He shared some of his problems with being disorganized and frustrated and then we went around the circle and the ex-drug addicts freely shared some of their problems: lack of patience, lack of finances, problems with anger, problems with controlling emotions, etc. It was incredible to feel the honesty among these people. No masks. No Jesus-loves-me-so-I-don’t-have-any-problems-and-I’m-always(!!!!!!)-super-happy-attitudes that I seem to run into in most churches I visit. Good old honesty was the way of life for these people. Accountability and honesty and good friends to help them point to Jesus as the only one who can give them true freedom in every area of their lives. I left the place last night sensing that my new friends know in their hearts that Jesus will help them with absolutely every problem they have if they surrender to him. People who have felt the Healer set them free when they were in the darkest pit, have a lot of faith that he can help them with all other problems as well. One at a time. Healing for any of us is never a once in a lifetime experience, but a process that we walk through with each other and with Jesus.
“Finally free” and a swastika...
A woman who was there with her young daughter caught my attention in a special way. She was in her mid-thirties but had a face that looked much older due to her many years as an alcoholic and drug abuser. She was telling about how alcohol and drugs controlled her life and her family’s life for 10 years. Now she had been a Christian for three years and her kids kept telling her how wonderful it was to have a mother who was there for them and who was finally capable of showing them love. I’m sure the woman didn’t know a word of English, but still her t-shirt spelled out the truth in capital letters: “FINALLY FREE” it read.
Another young man had only been a Christian and off drugs for a bit more than a month and he still had a little swastika tattoo on his right hand. I hope he’ll have the money to have that replaced with a real cross soon.
The Healer had set them all free and now they were fighting for their freedom. After a time of worship and us showing a skit there was a guy who spoke about freedom. He shared some of his problems with being disorganized and frustrated and then we went around the circle and the ex-drug addicts freely shared some of their problems: lack of patience, lack of finances, problems with anger, problems with controlling emotions, etc. It was incredible to feel the honesty among these people. No masks. No Jesus-loves-me-so-I-don’t-have-any-problems-and-I’m-always(!!!!!!)-super-happy-attitudes that I seem to run into in most churches I visit. Good old honesty was the way of life for these people. Accountability and honesty and good friends to help them point to Jesus as the only one who can give them true freedom in every area of their lives. I left the place last night sensing that my new friends know in their hearts that Jesus will help them with absolutely every problem they have if they surrender to him. People who have felt the Healer set them free when they were in the darkest pit, have a lot of faith that he can help them with all other problems as well. One at a time. Healing for any of us is never a once in a lifetime experience, but a process that we walk through with each other and with Jesus.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)