Euro Mission
We recently returned from a mission trip to Europe. Europe is an emerging mission field caught in a pitched spiritual battle as darkness and false religion seek to fill the spiritual void left by the negative influence of secular humanism. Even though we often feel the heat of the battle, the Lord is the Victor and is moving things forward, and we were blessed to be ministering there again in England and Germany.
England
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| Ministering in London |
We had a blessed time as we ministered together in London, England. We were in the area of Lewisham in southeast London, sharing about some of our different mission adventures in different places, as well as some Holy Ghost stories that included divine appointments. We had a powerful time, as the Holy Spirit moved amongst us as we prayed for the people there after preaching, many were touched in a glorious way, including a couple of kids in their early teens who got powerfully filled with the Holy Spirit, as well as others who were ministered to powerfully as we prayed for them.
We also had a divine appointment with a guy we met who was from Kosovo when we were getting a lift at another point in London. He was of Islamic background, but the Lord opened the door to witness and pray for him and plant the seeds of the Gospel when we shared that we had been to Kosovo ourselves on a mission trip, as it is not really a tourist destination.
Surprisingly, we had some other encounters and opportunities to witness to some other people from Kosovo on this trip, as well as some divine appointments on our return back to the U.S. with some different Hispanic people whom we witnessed to, as well as others we prayed for that were believers.
Germany
We had a blessed time as we ministered together in Germany, in Giessen and Frankfurt, where we were sharing about some Mission Adventures, the Jesus People Revival, and the Reformation. It was a blessing to see the Holy Spirit move amongst us as we ministered, touching and filling, as well as empowering those who were in all the different meetings we did over the time we were there. Many were filled, renewed, empowered, encouraged, and received healing both physically and emotionally as the Lord poured out His grace and mercy through the Holy Spirit. We also had a few people make decisions for Christ, one shared with us personally how they were glad to have the Gospel explained so clearly when we preached and to know that they were on their way to Heaven now! Hallelujah!
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| Ministering in Giessen and Frankfurt in Germany |
We also got to share a few worship songs in the youth meeting we did as well as jam with the worship team in another meeting… they were all checking out and wanting to play the little Backpacker Guitar I was traveling with.
When we ministered there last year, there was a young man from Iran who was getting touched by the power of the Holy Spirit when we were praying for people. After this happened to him a few times, he then came to Christ when the Gospel was shared with him, praise God! He made a special trip this year to come to a meeting we were doing, even though he had moved out of the area, and visited with us as we ministered there again. He has been reading the Bible, and growing in Christ, and he helped us pray for people as we ministered this year. It was a blessing to see that fruit from the previous trip growing! Was a blessed time!
Divine Detours
We had some surprising divine detours on this trip. One of the things that has happened on mission trips at times, is that we step out in faith to go and minister to others; however, many times we have also found that the Lord begins ministering to us in the midst of the mission as well. This happened in some unique ways on this most recent mission trip. We were praying if we should go on to minister possibly in some other places when the Lord made it clear he wanted to minister to us now.
A little later on, after ministering in Giessen and Frankfurt, we were in the city of Hamburg. We were taking a walking tour of the city and had done 7 miles when we stopped in an old church to rest our weary feet, use the bathroom, and then we took a little rest by sitting down in a pew in the back corner. We noticed a small choir was singing up in the front of the church with just a handful of people. We realized they were singing in English (very unusual) and were singing about the Lord healing our hearts with His love. Completely out of nowhere, the presence of the Holy Spirit just began falling on us. The Lord’s presence just kept pouring over us again and again as we sat there in what felt like a vortex of God’s presence, just receiving from the Lord for quite a while… as that one single song about The Lord Healing our Hearts kept being sung on and on and on for quite some time… for like 30 minutes they just kept singing that one particular song … it was all so surreal.
After the singing waned and we came back to earth we looked around and noticed we were sitting right under a painting of Martin Luther… which the Holy Spirit used to illuminate the Lord’s grace and mercy even more to us. This wasn’t really a church known for being a big Reformation place, but we again found ourselves on the Reformation Trail and encountered the grace of Jesus in a powerful and unusual way. The Lord spoke into our hearts that He wanted us to pause and receive from Him at this point, which we continued to do. I remembered—as I shared previously in our Christmas letter—that a friend we had ministered with mentioned that we should hit the Reformation Trail since we were in Germany. Without trying, we ended up doing so in a few different situations.
Here is a short recap of that story:
We were having breakfast with a pastor friend named Sarah after we had been ministering with her and her husband, who said: “Since you guys are in Germany you should take some time to go on the Reformation Trail—visit the towns connected with Martin Luther and the Reformation.” We were kind of just thinking about what she said, but not sure if that would work out… when circumstances took place that literally drove us into that situation, and eventually made it clear she had given us a word from the Lord.
We in fact ended up being diverted by really bad traffic, there were six consecutive accidents in a row (!) when we were driving afterwards, that had us detoured off the autobahn and unexpectedly ending up in a little Lutherstadt (Luther Town). I don’t think I’ve ever experienced running into six accidents in a row, even with all the chaotic driving in California—driving in Germany is much more disciplined, so this was very unusual. We prayed, Lord what’s going on? And discerned that He was in fact allowing these trying circumstances and battles to reroute our steps right onto the Reformation Trail, the passage about Paul being redirected in the Book of Acts coming to my heart as we prayed. Having been redirected, we hit the little Luther Museum in the town the next day, which shared insights we had not known before.
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| Ministering at the Glory of Christmas in SoCal |
Having read different books, studied the Reformation, including in seminary, as well as visited many different places connected with the Reformation, I do not know how we never knew this fact: that even though Luther grew up in church, was an altar boy and sang in the choir, was at mass every week his whole life, yet he never even saw a Bible until he was 20 years old! Thus, these mission trips have also served as something of a spiritual seminary for us… taking us deeper and deeper into subjects we may know something about, but through these experiences learning more all the time.
Luther was sent off to study the Bible by the leader of his monastery just to get him out of their hair with his constant confessing of his sins for hours and hours a day—reading and studying the Bible was an unusual task then reserved only for theologians in that time, the Bible being completely inaccessible to the vast majority of people. Forced into the Scriptures, which he had learned nothing of his whole life in church, having instead been replaced with rituals and traditions, he now began to stumble his way into a revelation of the amazing mercy and grace of God. Revelation came to Martin Luther as he read the Bible: the Living Word, the Ancient Logos came to life to Luther via the anointing of Christ! A revelation of God’s grace is in fact what he experienced, and it changed his life, just as it has countless others throughout the passages of time. We found ourselves amazed and bowled over as well, the way the Lord took us on these detours to minister His grace and mercy to us.
Southern California
We were blessed to share at the Glory of Christmas meeting in Costa Mesa right as we returned from Europe, which was a great time as we had just experienced all the Christmas Markets and the influence of Martin Luther's awe over the incarnation while in Germany. The true Spirit of Christmas is the Holy Spirit, and we were glad to have the Holy Spirit move as we prayed for people there as well.
We were doing some online meetings, as well as some other meetings in-person in the college area of San Diego, organized by our friend Lauren, before we left and after we came back, where we've been blessed to share missionary adventure testimonies and pray for others there as well as share in the worship. In fact, we’ve had some people get breakthroughs and get powerfully filled with the Holy Spirit in some of the meetings.
Videos
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| Some of our video Shorts on YouTube |
You can have a look at one of these Shorts we did as we traveled here: https://youtube.com/shorts/1UwToTBtYaA?si=EIo13AyXGcMoDQ3A
