September 2018
As I am sitting here thinking about what to write, the song “It is Well” by Kristin DiMarco is playing in the background. The sun is shining here in London and it’s actually warm enough to wear a short sleeve shirt! Combine the weather today and the things God has done this past month and I can confidently say – It is Well with my soul!
At the end of my letter last month I asked you to pray for a Women’s meeting that I would be speaking at and a Ten Days Mission to Sweden.
The Women’s Meeting was actually organised by a 21 year old Ghanaian young lady. She had a passion to get women together to worship and pray. She doesn’t go to our church but God connected us and she asked me to come and speak at the meeting. The people she was inviting were from an African or West Indies background and she wanted to expose them to a different style of teaching that they were used to and felt led to have me teach them about worship.
It was a wonderful evening and I believe that many people heard what worship is for the first time. It’s not just singing – but a response to who God is and we do it because He is Worthy.
On the 14 September I boarded a plane to Sundsvall, Sweden to join a team of 11 people from America. The original plan of our Ten Day Mission was to help Ronja who has started an Every Nation Campus society on MidSweden University.
We were going to be on campus every day doing the God Test, building relationships with students and inviting them to events we had planned during the week. Upon our arrival though, Ronja got word from the new student body president that he did not want us doing anything we had planned to do on the campus. In the past, this had not been an issue.
We were all discouraged at first but our leader had wisdom and quickly made a new plan. This wasn’t a surprise to God so it was still going to be a successful trip! She decided to put 4 of our team who looked like students on campus to just blend in and try to start conversations with students over the week. The rest of us would be sent to the town square to do the God Test and connect with anyone that we could.
Well………, out of all of the weeks in the year to be in the square – this was the week that they were having an international food festival! Every day the whole town would come to the square to eat food throughout the day. Teens, University students, families and people of all ages! How amazing Is God?!
Because our team was international we didn’t stick out and it actually looked like we were supposed to be there! We ended up doing over 250 God Tests and had many good conversations getting people to think about what they believe about God for the first time. The majority of the people we spoke to did not believe in God. One of our team members said it felt like we took most people from a -10 to believing in God to a -2. This was a success for us! We planted loads of seeds and we are expectant of what God is going to do there in the coming months.
One thing that really impacted us was that at the end of the mission our team leader and I flew out later than the rest of the team and we went into the square where thousands of people had passed through the week before. We were in the square at the same time it had been full the week before and not one person was there in the middle of the day! Look at the before and after below. God’s perfect timing!
Ronja, the Christian students from MidSweden University and the church Ronja attends were so blessed by the fact that people from across the globe would come to share the Gospel in their city. They have been praying for breakthrough in their city for years. We only had one salvation during our time there but out of the hundreds of people that we spoke to – we know God is doing a lot of work behind the scenes and can’t wait to hear stories about it!
Here are more pictures of me doing the God Test with people and another picture of part of our team. Thank you so much for your prayers and support!!!
Lots of Love
Traci