DAWN Fridayfax 1996 #1

DAWN News from Germany, USA, Malaysia, Switzerland, Vietnam

Germany: Jesus appears to a Greek waiter

The German church-planter Wilfried Gundlach reports that he and his family were recently in a Greek restaurant in Neuburg, Bavaria, where the waiter asked them "Are you Christians?" Astonished by the question, he asked how the waiter knew that. The waiter's reply: God had told him. The waiter, Antonis Tanos, then told them of the wonderful way in which he became a Christian in 1991.

His Greek Orthodox mother had attempted to win the then atheistic Antonis for the faith by giving him a book about the "holy Raphael", some of which he read. On one occasion as Antonis was alone in his room, he felt the presence of "a holy person". He addressed this person as "holy Raphael", but was corrected with the words "I am Jesus Christ".

This experience changed his life. His mother says that on their next meeting, he was shining so that she could hardly look at him. Antonis started praying, reading the Bible and telling others about Jesus, with the result that one colleague after the other were also saved. Since that time, not only Greeks but also Germans have been saved through Antonis' testimony. All of the Greeks in the restaurant have been saved and meet regularly.

Source: Wilfried Gundlach Tel. +49-8251-3944

Vineyard churches focus increasingly on mission

The Association of Vineyard Churches (AVC), led by John Wimber in Anaheim, plans to grow to 2,000 churches by the year 2000; in America, they currently number 400. In 1991, there were Vineyard churches in 10 countries outside America, a number which has increased to 160 churches in 29 other countries today.

Altogether, 68% of these non-US churches were planted with the assistance of churches in the US. 89% of the AVC member churches pay 2% of their budget to the AVC. John Wimber encouraged them to make a further 1% available to the AVC for missionary work in 1996, and sees the AVC's most important work increasingly in the areas of church-planting, creating training centres for church-planters, mission, ministry to the poor and prayer for healing.

Source: Happy Leman, AVC

Malaysia: healed of meningitis - fellow patient is saved

The following is an extract from a report from Malaysia:

"My brother Ping was seriously ill with bacterial meningitis. On 20th October 1995, he was taken to hospital, unconscious, where the doctor immediately gave him a penicillin injection. On 24th October, his condition became critical, and the doctor gave him only a 50% chance of surviving, and said that even if he did survive, he could be permanently disabled. Shortly afterwards, he told my mother that there was no longer any chance of his surviving. Her reply was 'You can't heal him - but Jesus can!'
"Some of my relatives tried to persuade my mother to contact a Chinese spiritist, saying that my brother became ill because we did not worship our ancestors, and that they were punishing him in their anger. My mother's faith remained steady, and we and several others prayed for my brother.
"In the meantime, my brother has been completely healed. He was released from hospital in the first week of November. One of his fellow patients who was suffering from a kidney problem, witnessed the healing and has given his life to Jesus."

Source: Ting S.K., Malaysia, via Jesus Army 'Can we help?' prayer request service

1,000 Tamil Christians in Switzerland

The first wave of Tamil asylum-seekers reached Switzerland in 1983. The first Swiss Tamil church was founded in Basel by a few Swiss Christians with the assistance of Indian evangelists, and is now led by the Tamil Siva Selvaratnam. There are now some 20 Tamil churches and groups in Switzerland with around 540 members and a total of 1,000 visitors. Most of the Tamil Christians converted from Hinduism. A Tamil pastor's wife said: "The growth is mainly the result of the Tamil's evangelistic zeal; they often visit their families or go to refugee centres to talk about the gospel. People often become more interested in Jesus when they witness healing after prayer." There are currently 30,192 Sri Lankans in Switzerland, which means that over 3% of them are evangelical Christians - higher than the percentage in the total Swiss population, of which around 2.1% are evangelicals.

Source: Werner Spalinger, Zug, Switzerland. Tel. +41-42-230467

Vietnam: 13 new Hmong churches in 2 years

The Christian awakening among the Vietnamese Hmong is continuing. In only 2 years, 13 new churches have been founded in the 100,000-strong group. According to two American missionaries to the Hmong, the group was previously known as relatively closed to the gospel but new groups of believers are being created faster than leaders can be trained.

Source: Advance 1/96

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