Dear GTM friends,
We hope you are doing well during these unusual times. Please let us know if we can pray for you in any way! We thought we’d give you an update on some great things we believe God has been doing lately.
HOW HAS CORONA AFFECTED US?
We truly praise God for His timing and are so in awe of His guidance even in the preparation for this year. I think that we have been blessed to see a little bit of His sovereignty in this situation; this did certainly not catch Him by surprise 😉 And that goes for your personal situation too...
He’s got you! 🙏 ♥
We were able to wrap up our two last winter music mission trips RIGHT on time. One to Norway March 2-9 and the other one to Costa Rica March 7-14. If we had waited even a couple of days on that last one, it is doubtful we would have been able to move forward with it.
We had a few music mission trips we were working on for the spring, but none of them really came together for various reasons (except for one, which is our annual trip to the prison in Sardinia; which is rather easy to postpone compared to what most others would be). We didn’t understand then why these spring trips didn’t come together, but now we see.
We usually have 6-7 trips to Italy every year, but already in the summer of 2018, Monica (European Coordinator) shared how she believed we shouldn’t do any trips to Italy (or any of the trips she usually does) in 2020, and that we, in general, should take that year to strategize. So, for the first time, we actually cut all our Italy music mission trips (except for the annual one to Sardinia).
COSTA RICA | COUNTRY NUMBER 25!
I would love to share a little bit from our most recent music mission trip, namely Costa Rica. And I got to be a part of this one myself. Costa Rica is actually country number 25 that we have been a part of doing mission work since the beginning in 2008, so this trip was in a way a milestone for us. 🙌🎉
The team was a high school choir from Coram Deo Academy in Dallas, TX, and what an absolutely unique group of people they were! We partnered with the fantastic family-team at Camp Brittney for this trip, and we can’t wait to hopefully send more choirs there in the future; it’s excellent on all levels, and so Christ-centered.
Camp Brittney is a ministry based out of the beautiful mountain town of Athenas, and they put together a wonderful schedule for us that included concerts at a hospital cancer center (the students sang for them while they were receiving chemo and radiation), a women’s prison (about 10 responded to the gospel message to be saved), a school, and three neighborhood churches.
For the church concerts we would walk around the neighborhoods to invite them to the concert in the evening, and we would hand out flyers along with gospel tracts. I think we must have handed out more than 300 gospel tracts in total this trip, so please pray that many seeds will have been sown through this. One man, we met while handing out flyers actually came to the concert because he knew that this might be one of the last events he could go to in a while due to the corona situation; and while he was at the concert, he heard the gospel message and got saved.
And another man we met...Well, I believe this is a story worth expounding on: ♥
Wednesday afternoon we sent two groups out in a neighborhood in Sarchi to invite people to the concert. While out we met a man called Eloy at a bus stop. I was in that group and remember the pastor of the church speaking with him in Spanish. I did not understand then what they were talking about, but I later learned that Eloy was planning on taking the bus to the downtown area of Sarchi, but when he got the invitation he changed his mind and decided to go to the concert instead. He said he couldn’t explain why. He showed up for the concert really early, and Toby, the dean of schools at Coram Deo Academy, sat down with him at a table outside. Toby used to be a missionary in Spain (and had taken language classes in Costa Rica) and is fluent in Spanish; so we saw them sitting there and talking intently and also looking at the gospel tract that he had received along with his concert invitation.
Eloy was very downcast and sad, and he told Toby that he had done so many horrible things that he didn’t think God could forgive him. Toby shared the gospel with him, and he ended up giving his life to Christ at that moment. That changed Eloy’s countenance immediately and completely; he couldn’t stop smiling. Toby said he had not really seen anything quite like it before. Eloy then got inside the church for the concert. He still kept smiling and listening to beautiful singing, testimonies from the students and a message from the pastor. And afterward, he talked with the pastor and was invited to a men’s breakfast a few days later so that he could be plugged into the church and be disciplined.
We learned that Eloy has cancer that is very likely fatal; but we know now that if he is not healed from that, that Eloy will get to spend eternity in heaven with Jesus. That is what mission work is ultimately all about! ♥ Will you pray for Eloy?
PRAYER REQUESTS
We will have to postpone (or possibly even cancel and start planning for next year instead) our International Night Of Worship which was supposed to take place on May 17th. Please be in prayer for God’s guidance for this event. This event is not difficult to move this at this time, thankfully!
Please also pray for our summer trips. ☀ 🌸 We trust that God will make it clear to us what to do!
Please pray for the Gospel to get out to many people around the world during these days as most missionaries, churches, and ministries are more or less immobilized during all this. However, we believe God can grab the attention of people more than any of us ever can, and we think He is doing that especially during this time. So this is both a prayer and praise, and we are looking forward to seeing what will come out of this time for HIS Kingdom!
Please pray for provision during this time. Both for the ministry and each of us volunteer employees. This is a difficult time both for us as many of you. BUT, as always, He is the good shepherd, and He takes care of His flock.
Please pray for one of our music missionaries. It’s urgent. God knows the situation!
CAN WE PRAY FOR YOU?
We would love to also pray for you! If you have any requests, we would love for you to send us an email. You can also just write “unspoken” if you don’t want to share what the request is about, God still knows what it is, and we’ll pray for you. And remember what Jesus said in John 16:33,
“In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”