End of Outreach

Outreach is over now and I am now an offical SOE (School Of Evangelism) graduate.

This is what I have learned these past 8 months.

1. Daddy likes me. Something I believe is too easy to forget and during outreach God really began to pursue me in this area. I realised as I began to accept these words I found my heart changing towards Him, towards myself and towards others and I found myself with a greater heart for people, with greater perseverance and joy. This 3 word phrase really began to shape and define what I did on outreach. This is something I discovered people really needed to hear. I found countless times during outreach that some of the bet conversations were had when we talked about God being on their side. It really transforms a person.

2. I have a desire to use art and design in evangelism which I have mentioned many times. But I did my best to pursue this on outreach and I really got into prophetic drawing. Often we went on the streets and told people what God thought about them so I thought well lets do that through imagery. God really honored me in this area and I found many doors open as I did this and discovered it is really important key for people to understand that God likes them. It also made me realise how much I wanted people to understand how much I wanted people to know that God likes them. Remember my last post with the video of the free lollipops, I remember one guy coming up to me asking what it was all about and I told him that we do this because God really likes you. He mentioned he never would have guessed we were Christians. It then struck me that all this work I do with God is about re branding Christianity, as too many people have a wrong image of God, me and God were setting the record straight. 

3. Our last week we spent a week on a youth retreat (pictures below) and it was incredible as God allowed me to see so much potential in so many young people. It was a huge blessing and I remember God speaking these words to me. "I believe in you". These words cut deep into me and he said it again "I believe in you". I find this very encouraging and as I began to accept that God thought I was amazing it was so releasing to be me. He then said "Believe in others". So that is what I did and I got to witness that to be believed in is so important if people are going to be able to be their amazing selves in Jesus. So I want to share this with you. I believe in you to be everything God wants you to be, and I believe you can be everything you want to be for God and more.  

Thank you for believing in me.

FREEBIES are fun

This week we started our student evangelism at the main University herein Vienna. We decided to go all out creative and fun as this is what attracts students and it allowed us to be more ourselves. Our focus was FREE DAY. We had free encouragements, free prayer, free lolli-pops, free msuic, free fun, free anything we coudl think of. We really wanted to change the atmosphere in the place and our hope to bring a postive view of God back to peoples lives. Below are some fun pictures and videos which should give an idea of what madness we got up.

 

This is a little taster of the kind of thing me and this guy called Stefan did to grab attention at the University. A little unorthodox but it worked and people had a lot of fun as did we. We had the pleasure of bringing joy to peoples day.

Testimony about an open Catholic Student

Mark and Sharee met a guy name Joachim and surprisingly he led most of the conversation. We told him what we were all about and that we were Evangelical Christians.He asked us how we felt about people here who are so against God and the church. He explained to us that he was involved in a Catholic church where he was from in upper Austria and helped out with youth-group there, but didn't share the churches beliefs. He just believed that it was a good thing and could add up his good deeds. He seemed really open to discussing religion, but freely explained that he chooses not to be a follower of any religion. He comes from upper Austria, and really enjoyed talking to us. He even offered us his phone number to contact him if we wanted to get together and travel :) It was encouraging to see how open he was to talking about all areas of life. 

Testimony about reconnecting friends

Sharee walked up to 3 girls sitting watching the lolli-pop guys :) Vera, Ellen, and Christine are all studying English at the University. They were curious as to why we were passing things out, "it seemed a little suspicious" they said. :) I explained that we came with a Christian organization and were giving away free encouragement, conversation, candy, and prayer :) I got to share with them where I came from, how we were sharing the love of God throughout the city of Vienna, shared encouragement in the area of waiting for God's timing, how I met my husband, and much more. One of the girls Ellen, said that she was a Christian, and it as it ends up she knows Nadine from CIG, and wants to connect with her again :) What a small world! They were very curious and open to what we were doing in Vienna and I got to invite them to join any of the Starbucks bible studies. They seemed excited about it and I really think they will come. Such sweet curious girls with so much potential in knowing more about the love that Christ offers freely. 

Testimony about 2 girls and a film about chasing an onion

The week before this student evangelism we had a talk at church about something called the 15 min revolution, where we allow God to take 15 mins of our day to show the kindness and goodness of God to another. So there we were playing music and handing out loli-pops when 2 girls we have never seen before walked up to us and asked us if we could be in a film about a business man chasing the onion. We were supposed to go home but we decided it would be a bit of fun, we were asked to be in the background posing as musicans. We went to meet them and waited over an hour before they showed up and then we started filming for about 3 hours. It was a lot of fun, they asked us what we were doing in Vienna so we got to share about what we were doing. No big conversations came out of it but it was an honor to be able to be love some people and be inconvenienced by them and to support people in their passions.

What struck me most about that week of evangelism actually came through a conversation I had with someone wanting a lolli pop. I told him that Gods love is too good to keep for ourselves so we want to show you that God likes you a lot today through the medium of free stuff. His response was "I really wasn't expecting you guys to be Christians, they don't do that kind of thing". So I carried on explaining how there is a lot of bad perceptions of Christians and as a result there is also a bad perception of God. I told him we are here to set that the record straight. He left and was really blessed and encouraged, but it got me thinking that this was the very thing thatGod has been doing with me on this outreach, he has been showing me in fresh ways the kind of God he is, the loving, encouraging, giving, dancing, singing over us, fun, blessing, never giving up, patient, truthful and faithful God. In the same way God has been setting the record straight with me so that is what we do in evgangelism, we are there to set the record straight. God is good and he likes you today.

I Love God

It has been exciting few weeks.

We hve just handed in one our last assignment for our School back in Norway. So we are all very happy about that, an a little more relaxed now the pressure is off.

This week gone we received  our contacts for Vienna from our Norway school, they came for two days and they evaluated how things were going and how we as individuals were growing. We had a lot of fun did a lot of sightseeing and we ate lots of ice-cream. So those two days were bound to be good.

We went to a guys fun night at the Church youth greoup we go to. It was a lot of fun. So what does this consist of? Well we had 3 tournaments table football, table soccer, playstation (pro evo football). You will be sad to hear i lose all of them the first round. We also had lots of great food and a poker tournament which I also lost. With bad gaming skills aside, It was such a great opportunity to invest and get to know these guys better. It was actually this that made it a great night because we got to know this youth group of guys a million times better and it is amazing to see so many hungry people there, and willing people to give God there all. It's challenging to me at times.

We have this great opportunity to join them a youth retreat, it is a great opportunity because one we don't have many opportunties left so we would really like to go, and what a better way to say we love you than to be with them. It is quite expensive though so would you ask God as we ask God for the money we need about 120 Euros a team.


Only 3 weeks left of outreach, it is really quite sad, I have learned so much, God has been challenging me and loving me so much. We are going for broke for it these last 3 weeks so would you also pray that God opens every door of opportunity in the University here.

Many Blessings


Jon

Hope To Vienna

So as you know this past week we have done a week of evangelism, twice a day to really start impacting Vienna in run up to our Hope To Vienna event. Evangelism on the streets was a lot of fun, we had 3 YWAM DTS teams with us from Norway so there were 21 of us hitting the streets, a few locals joined us but it was not as many as we hoped. Nonetheless God made some awesome impacts. The event itself was on Saturday and Sunday and from what we can tell at least 10+ gave their lives to Jesus, we expect more but we are waiting to hear the response from the follow up team.


The night was a lot of fun. They say pictures speak a 1000 words so below are some pictures of some creative evangelism and the event.

We did worship on the streets (presence evangelism)

Myself and Lars Kristian (A DTS student from Norway) created prophetic art on the streets

A Creative DTS from Norway made a house on the streets and got young people to paint it we also did ballon modelling on the streets. God is a God of fun.

Main Hope to Vienna Event. It was a very successful two shows over 200 people at both events. The Reboot team is from YWAM Skien, Norway and is made up of DTS students.

So you maybe wandering what is next for us, well we have learned a lot from this event and we have decided that we want to push forward with doing bigger outreaches because they are making bigger impacts in the, streets, we can do more and people then direct contact with churches here which is what we desire. We are also going to start working with students here, we have a lot of contacts in this area and from my University experience it is make or break for many people as they are introduced to many influences which many are not good.

Picture Post

So much has happened and so I want to share with you with what is going on with pictures. Enjoy.

So here we are the team. (from left to right, Vegard, Bjarte, Me, Thijs). Recently we have had the pleasure and honour of doing many presentations at different youth events in churches and we have also had the pleasure of doing 3 sermons, two of them were here in CIG Church done by Thijs we were allowed to do both morning and evening service, and we recieved (x2) door offerings for our work here and recieved 900 Euros. Last Sunday I also had the pleasure of preaching at another Church called Four Corners, which went very well and many said it was powerful and relevant to them so I am glad God used it. They gave us 1000 Euros. It's exciting to see open these people are.

One of the things we love to do most is tell people exactly what Jesus thinks about them. Jesus really loves these people, he thinks each one is individually beautiful and he is delighting in each one. So we go up to people and ask them: 

"Hey this may sound strange but we believe Jesus really likes you and he wants you to know what he thinks of you. Could we listen to God and tell you what he has to say about you".

Scary for some to do but fun for us, and when people accept God has not failed to encourage each individual person. A power encounter with Jesus opens up the eyes to a relational God. This is what people are needing so badly.

Testimony
We have just recieved a Norwegian DTS team for about 2 weeks and one of the first things we did was take them out Treasure Hunting. Me and this one girl had a picture of an old woman with one of those wheelie storage bags outside Macdonalds. So a lady to this description shows up and we follow her to an food store entrance and we talk to her, it was a real shock for her to speak such good English as it is very rare for the older generations to be able to speak it. Anyway we shared about what we were doing and she was a Christian and loved Jesus but she seemed a little discourgaed so we asked if we could tell her what Jesus thought of her. We did this and she started to cry because it was not only just what she needed to hear but it dawned on her again at how personal and friendly Jesus was.

Sanme treasure hunt we also had a picture of a woman with in Macdonalds with the words make her happy and Happy Meal. Sure enough we go in and we felt drawn to this woman with her child  who happen to be eating a Happy Meal. She also turns out to be a believer and so we get to bless her child and God said some amaying things and we got to tell this woman again what Jesus thought of her. Jesus is so good, so loving, so kind and here in Vienna is revealing himself as the personal friend to others. 

You will also know by now that we are having an event on March 12 and now excitingly also March 13. The Churches really took the idea onboard. As a quick summary we are putting on this huge creative event to bring people to Christ, firstly young people but anyone who is open. We are inviting a creative team called Reboot from YWAM Skien who speacialise in media presentations, dancing, singing and other creative things. There purpose to teach the Gospel in a relevant and fun way. God has been good to me and has opned up opprtunities to use my design skills. I have been able to design a logo, a poster and flyer design, and a response card for the event itself. I am happy because of this open opportunity.

Three Testimonies

A lot has happened since I last posted.

This week has been focused more on street evangelism which has been a lot of fun. So I will share with you three very exciting stories.

Story 1
Last Wednesday we were invited to a bible study group at one of the Starbucks in Vienna which I think is very exciting and is a great witness to the Starbucks staff. It was good to meet opther people in the bible study and we all got really encouraged. We hung around with the bible study leader and we felt the urge to doa bit of presence evangelism which is basically asking God to come fill a room/building with his presence to such a point where people start to notice. After we felt God was sufficently present we asked God what he wanted us to do, two of us got injuries one was a hurting back and the other a hurting wrist. Myself God told me to create some origami and give it to the staff to bring joy. I went to the staff and had a really great conversation telling him how Jesus must really love him for a random guy, from a random country,with random paper creations to approach him. He was very open, he turned out to be Muslim and so we shared a little about ourselves and he was very touched. The other guys decided to go from table to table looking for these injured people. Sure enough they found them sitting next to each other. To cut a long story short both got healed and both were really touched when we starte dtelling them what Jesus thought of them. The most exciting part is one will come to the bible study tomorrow.

Story 2
We went out evangelising with some friends from the churhces we have been to. I got into a few good conversations with some Americans, Germans and I got to sow a few seeds there. My favourite story though is I got to talking to this Belgian tourist, young guy who isn'ta Christian. Me and my frined got talking to him, shared about what I was doing in Vienna, shared a few testimonies etc. Then he invited himself around our house the next day, which was quite amusing (usually that's my job). Anyway next day arrives and he turns up and the whole team and him share lunch together talk about difficult issues he has and we got to pray over him, for healing and what Jesus thought of him. He was very touched. We are still in contact. his last words were.

"Jon that was amazing".
I find it such a blessing how he got so touched by God and I am very excited to the stories he will share back home.

Story 3
God seems is really showing me of how much of a provider he is for me. One the monday last week I met a frined and we shared some stories of God and she ended up buying me coffee and dinner. This same frined last sunday at church remembered our conversation of how we as a team needed a second Austrian mobile and how I needed a laptop to do work (it would be easier in many ways). So that evening they come in and sure enough without even asking for them she brings in a laptop for me to use during this outreach and a second Austrian mobile for the team. I find God doing things I wouldn't quite expect but I love it everytime. He see's me and looks after me, giving me everything I need just when I need it.


That was a mouthful, but God is good, kind and loving. How I have much to learn.

Until next week.

Vienna so far

I have finally arrived in Vienna or in Austria wrote Wien.

We as a team have been here one week and so much has happened it is quite incredible.
We arrived on Saturday and that same evening we went to a Church service and we were amazed at the enthusiasm of our arrival and it is such ablessings to know people have beenpraying for us before even arriving and even looking for a house for us. While at this service we met many useful contacts and were also given a free mobile phone, so contacting people now in Vienna has become a lot cheaper and a lot easier.

More so though is we have been given a free house to live in, 20 mins outsdie of the main centre of Vienna by the underground. All we have to pay for is electricity and once a week the landlady will wash our clothes and cook for us. INCREDIBLE.

Today we had a random stranger come to our house and give us a whole shopping bag of bread which is amazing so now we don't have to spend so much. It is so amazing to see God provide for us as a team iin ways I personally have never experienced before, such a testimony to Gods true character.

Apart from that we felt God say settle down and get used to the culture so that is exactly what we have been doing so this first week has been very relaxed but neccessary as it will be impossible to reach the culture if we don't take time to understand it or if we allow ourselves to burn out. Now we are moving into a phase of planning a huge evangelism event a lot of things to sort but as it beginnings to form I look forward to telling you more about what will be doing.

Prayer Needs
. Finances I have no money so please pray in the 200-300 Euros I need a month.
. That planning and building relationships for this evangelism event will take form as the event is next month
. Unity in the Vienna team