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Monday, September 06, 2010
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MMT Update 7/17/2009
Dr. McCauley ...
Published: 7/17/2009
Neuwied, Germany
July 17, 2009
Dear Friends:
We're now back in Germany, having completed eleven days of ministry in Slovakia, Austria, and Italy. We learned much about missions and ministry by serving in these needy countries with six different churches and a mission house.
Our mode of operation was, as usual, to present concerts that end with a brief but substantial Gospel sermon. Besides giving out the Good News to unbelievers, we hope that each concert will give the host organization new contacts and avenues of opportunity for their own work in the community. We believe that in answer to your prayers and those here in Europe the Lord blessed the hosts with an exceptionally high number of new contacts as a result of the services. Of course, they had worked as well as prayed to that end. They begin preparing for the team’s visit months in advance. First, the host must find venues for the concerts. Then he and his church members must advertise the concert through newspaper notices, posters in public places, phone calls, and the distribution of invitations—often between 10,000 and 100,000 such invitations. They also have to make arrangements for housing and feeding the team during our visit. Thus when we arrive at a host church, people there have already invested hundreds of hours preparing for the evangelistic outreach we will conduct with them. The Lord has truly blessed the team with earnest, hard-working host churches this summer.
In Slovakia our host organization was the mission house at Sus, near Stara Tura, run by our Swiss friends at the Guetli missions organization at Metttmenstetten. The work at Sus is difficult and slow, but the Keil family is faithfully living out their Christianity there by running a small, productive farm in a rural community and sharing the Gospel as often as they have opportunity. On Sunday afternoons they have Bible studies for a few people. For the team’s concert there on July 5, forty-five new visitors appeared. The full house of Slovakians heard a compelling Gospel message presented by Emanuel Lippuner.
Dr. Kai Soltau and his wife Missy were our hosts in Vienna at the Huttledorf Baptist Church. On July 6 they arranged for us to minister in a Romanian-German church at Krems. This young congregation believed that hosting a choral concert that included many German language pieces would help them reach German nationals in their city. It was a joy to serve with believers who have undergone not a small amount of persecution as they have attempted to build a substantial work for the Lord. When their new house of prayer was dedicated this past May, all the leaders of the city came, knowing nothing about Baptists. It had been rumored that the group was building a mosque. In fact, 90% of the Baptists in Austria are Romanians who moved to Austria after the fall of communism. Please pray for these believers as they work to make their faith known to the German national community they live in.
The next evening we presented a concert in the Huttledorf church in Vienna, and it too brought out a large number of people who are not associated with the church. It was a joy to see Todd and Sarah Hudson and Bonnie Raught there along with Tammy Detwiler, who, like Kai, is an MMT “grad” serving in Vienna.
Pastor Rob Krause of the Serenissima Bible Church was our host for concerts in the region of Sacile and Pordenone, Italy. For the July 8 service, he had secured a very old, historic hall in the center of Sacile. We enjoyed singing in a building with such rich acoustics, but even more so, we rejoiced to see the Lord bring 150 or more unbelievers to the concert. After the hall filled up, people stood six deep on the porch to hear our presentation of the Gospel through music. Tim Joiner provided a running narrative between numbers to take the concert audience through the plan of salvation. Afterwards, Pastor Krause spoke with the mayor, who said, “I know there’s something more to life that I have yet to discover. We need to talk.”
The team also worked with GFA missionaries Frank and Sherry DiBagno in the Perugia region for the first time this summer. Words aren’t adequate to describe the rich spiritual experience we had with these folks and their small congregation in Sant’Angelo Di Celle, where this faithful couple has worked for 24 years. Our ministry proved to be highly compatible with their goals of giving out the Gospel to unbelievers in their region of Italy. On Sunday morning around 20 people, some of them unbelievers, came to the concert. One woman who came had not been in the church for 14 years. Then on Sunday afternoon the church room was full of visitors from the community and from other churches as far as 2 1/2 hours away. Some who came were unbelievers who had vowed they’d never set foot in the church.
On Sunday evening we were the featured musical group at a city festival at Sant Nicholai. The town administrators welcomed us and fed us an enormous Italian dinner after the concert. Some 750 to 800 people were there. Brother DiBagno made many new contacts and has been invited to bring the team to the city again to give a concert in a castle. The Lord had His powerful hand in all these events. We rejoice to see the encouragement and opportunity He gave the DiBagnos while we were there. We also left them with full hearts because they exemplify faithfulness and fervor in the Lord’s service.
Last night we felt very comfortable singing in German again. Here at Neuwied we are ministering with a large congregation of believers who have been in the West for around 20 years, having come from Khazakstan in the former USSR. Last night we had around 600 people at our concert, which included one song with the young people of the church. Tonight we will hold a youth meeting in a sister church.
Thank you for your faithful prayers. We have now traveled safely over 10,000 kilometers on the ground. The Lord has been very good to us. Please pray that as the trip begins to wind down, team members will stay focused on the ministry and will be able to “process” all the wonderful blessings we have had from the Lord’s hand this summer.
Sincerely in Christ,
Janie McCauley
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