DAWN Fridayfax 2004 #06

Switzerland

It happened by the station...

"Is it still possible to talk to people on the street about faith in Jesus?" some Swiss Christians asked themselves after hearing the daughter of a pastor excitedly tell of her experiences during an evangelistic outreach with Operation Mobilisation in France. With support from short-term OM teams, members of the Philippus house church movement went out on the streets around the railway station in Berne, singing and speaking about Christ. One man gave his life to Jesus on the spot, and since then, the number of house churches has doubled from four to eight. "The Christians are now more motivated, and have a new dynamism," reports OM's Philipp Eschbach. Street evangelism, supposedly outdated, can obviously still bring fruit.
Source: OM News, fax (+41)-1-8328363; www.ch.om.org

Vietnam

Finished with life, now in ministry

Mr. Dien suffered a serious illness, and was near death. His wife laid him on a 'cyclo' - a delivery bicycle - and rode through the village, so that he could say goodbye to the people. They came to a house where Christians lived. They told him that he did not have to die, and promised his wife that they would pray for him. Three days later, he was healed. Mr. Dien has been serving God for five years now, pastoring several churches.
Source: Globe Europe, Fax (049)-2852-94208; web www.globeeurope.de

Congo/Uganda

Baraka laughs again

"Baraka is a boy who came to us out of the civil war area in eastern Congo," writes missionary Joachim Haller of German mission agency Diguna. "Baraka means 'blessing'. He arrived in a cut-off container in a military convoy, together with his brother and sister. Their parents and three other siblings were massacred before their eyes in their village. Soldiers, high on drugs, ransacked the village, killing and destroying everyone and everything. Baraka was also hit by an arrow. When Ugandan soldiers arrived in the village after the massacre and heard movement in a hut, they thought it was a ghost. Quaking with fear, they discovered Baraka. He was passed from one relative to the next until he came in contact with Christians. A pastor now takes care of him. His fear has gone, as have the nightmares; Baraka is now a normal 13-year-old, happy to be alive.
Source: Diguna; fax (+49)-2773-810249; www.diguna.de

Internet

"Interview with God" attracts 20 million visitors

"Interview with God," the website created by a Methodist Sunday School teacher, has attracted millions of visitors. Reata Strickland's imaginary conversation with God is an animated combination of landscape photography and inspiring texts. Each interview has a single theme such as love, self-esteem or relationships, and includes hope for future generations. Reata Strickland is member of a Methodist Church near Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She works as a web designer at the University of Alabama, and started designing the site for the Tuscaloosa Methodist Church in Spring 2001. "I was working on the site, and said to myself 'it needs something special'," says Strickland. She saw a PowerPoint presentation 'Interview with God', and was very impressed. The interview's author is unknown. "The words in 'Interview with God' are very simple," says Strickland, "but they have power."

Overwhelming echo

She was not prepared for what happened. "I expected 20 or so responses from people from our town," she says. The web site was swamped, receiving 500,000 hits in a week, and continued to grow. Within a month, 2.4 million people had visited the site. Two and a half years later, the number of visitors had reached 20 million, presently increasing at 15,000 each day. Volunteers have translated the texts into 13 languages.
Source: www.momentswithgod.com

India

God's electroshock treatment

Ishwar Das is a young man who was strongly into drug consumption and smoked hashisch. Gasram, a church planter from central India, came to Ishwar's village one day. Some people greeted him, shaking his hand, including Ishwar. When Ishwar shook Gasram's hand, something strange happened; he received an electric shock. He was instantly freed from his drug addiction. He asked question after question the whole evening, and was baptised the next morning, together with several of his friends. Of the village's 1,500 inhabitants, 275 have been baptised, and themselves reach the surrounding villages with the Gospel.
Source: Operation Agape, e-mail agapedlh@aol.com

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