A Pictures Worth a Thousand Words

The team at a 10th century castle we visited in Guimaraes

Kirsty still smiling distributing tracts in the market despite the cold response!

Last Stop... Portugal

Greetings from Portugal our last stop!! Apologies for the lack of updates we have been serving in Portugal since the 30^th of November but have not had internet access. Last week we spent in a small town called Fafe working with a church plant there. English language schools are used widely here as a means of outreach and we have had the great privilege of sharing in many of them. We also had the privilege of doing some practical ministry painting the churche, we enjoyed many laughs during this time! My teammates especially enjoyed the spotted look that I was styling after I painted the ceiling with a water based paint.  This past week we have been in the small community of Mondim De Basto working with a church plant here. We enjoyed sharing in language schools, doing open air evangelism, and encouraging the local church here. We will travel to Porto on Friday where we will debrief for three days and then depart for our home countries. Thanks to all for your prayers and support during these past months. 

With some of the church members and worship band after the service last Thursday night in Fafe

The Harvest is Great, But The Workers Are Few

Greetings from Italy!, The team has been serving in Florence and several other small towns for the past week. We did not have internet access as we partnered with a ministry called Christ Is The Answer. The  team has also been joined by a young woman from Sicily who works for OM Italy as well as two girls from the U.S. who are serving in Italy for 9 months. It has been a great pleasure to have them be part of the team. We have been doing street evangelism passing out tracts, doing dramas, and sharing testimonies on the streets for the past week,

Friday evening we had the opportunity to visit a Roma community nearby. It was encouraging to hear the faith that is present in many in the community, but heartbreaking to have several of the youth share the hatred and discrimination that the Roma people face from the native Italians here. Many of these people have grown up being treated as less worthy people, and called many names simply because of the skin color and heritage.

Saturday we traveled to a small town in the mountains and shared on the streets in the evening there. We were able to attract many people with the music and others in the group were then able to talk and share with the people. We had a group of young boys who stopped to watch us sing and after watching and listening, Mpumi shared the gospel with them and 7 boys gave their lives to Christ. What an amazing experience it was to be a part of! 

Light amongst the Darkness

The drive to Kosovo was an adventure. After being rejected to Transit the Serbian border we ventured through the mountains of Bosnia and Montenegro. Our GPS had no signal and the dashboard meters didn't work, but God blessed us with many good conversations and stunning views. Miraculously, we entered Kosovo with ease and no need of visas. 

So far, in Kosovo, we have been assisting the local missionaries, Chris and Loraine, on their outreaches into the community. We spent some time with teens and children, including drug education and puppet shows. Helping out at Chris and Loraine's project, The Lighthouse (next to a Mosque) , has seen us build some relationships with local Muslim children - whether that be playing connect four, picking up rubbish or just trying to communicate with our few words of Albanian. 

Mpumi's back...back again

Yay!!! Our Leader, Mpumi, has returned from England with the blessing of a new visa. Praise God!! After 2 weeks gone, we all longed to see our missing family member. Thank you everyone for your prayers and support - it is greatly appreciated.

The last few days have been spent preparing and attending an Austrian Prayer Congress (APC). This event, which happens every 2 years, gathers hundreds of young adults in prayer. Our roles included cleaning (specifically showers and toilets), organising prayer posters and leading evangelical & practical outreaches into the city of Linz, Austria. We of course met some people along the way.
Enjoy the orange brightness of our exciting ministry...

A Busy Week

What a wonderfully busy week it has been. 

The Schloss Klaus Bible School (left) invited us to their historic building to share with some Bible students. We challenged and encouraged them to embrace the mission world more and enjoyed fellowshipping over dinner.  

We were blessed to lead an English Bible study with some international students on Wednesday. Yay!! It felt so lovely to speak to people in our own tongue - first hand. 

We also reached out to youth immigrants at the i-punkt centre. We used our limited German to do activities with the Children and build relationships with people from various religious backgrounds. 

Come Back Mpumi!!!

A major prayer request these past few months has been the renewal of Mpumi's visa. We said a temporary farewell to him yesterday as he returned to England (his place of residency) to re-apply for his visa. PLEASE WILL YOU PRAY that this will happen so that we can continue on the planned track of ministry. Please also pray for the us back in Austria, Coxy will be the only man, we will see how that goes..... :)

Serving Linz

For the 3 weeks here in Linz, Austria we call the OM Austria office building home. So far we have taken part and organised a prayer & strategy day. Cooking for 26 people was a challenge, but the stuffed peppers (or capsicums for you Australian readers) seemed to be a hit. 

Last night (Friday) we went out to the streets to evangelise with OAC (Open Air Campaigners). It was a great priveledge to hand out tracts, have deep and meaningful conversations and do some sketch boarding as a means of sharing the gospel. 

A Wonderful Weekend

We had the privilege of seeing the Meier family for the second time. Serving with them in Bulgaria was just wonderful and now to be a part of their congregation in Austria was a true honour. The first day we were there Daniel, the father of the Meier's, took us up to a glacier as he remembered that Coxy had never seen snow before. 

Whilst with them we challenged and encouraged some children and youth. We also lead the church service at the Meier's Church -through singing, preaching, dramas and leading Sunday School. Afterwards, we enjoyed lunch with some of our Austrian brothers and sisters....mmmmm Schnitzel.

A thick, girly and Italian Hot Chocolate

Italy was just wonderful. We managed to relax, reflect and recoup energy in the space of the 5 days we were there. One of the afternoons, Jill (a superbly talented musician and Omer) took us all out for a thick, girly and Italian hot chocolate. It was a great time of laughter, conversation and godly encouragement to one another. 

Meeting our Fellow Transiters

Leaving Croatia was hard, but four days in the Italian Alps was definitely something to look forward to. With no access to a GPS or maps it was really by God's grace that we arrived 1am Sunday morning. It was lovely to see the beaming faces of our fellow transiters here in Italy.  Hearing their stories of our amazing God has been a great encouragement. Italy has enabled us to catch a breath before we leave for Austria on Friday - cannot wait!!!

Still in Croatia & Still loving it!!

Our return to Split was not alone, welcoming another 17 people into our Croatian home was a beautiful challenge and has enabled many wonderful conversations with our Austrian and German brothers and sisters. Every morning of prayer, devotion and song has really prepared us for the evangelistic outreaches during the day.

First off, we handed out flyers on the streets about as a part of an outreach with Pastor Uwe's Church.

Another aspect of the outreach was busking with a twist. Please come and listen to us singing to our Lord, but instead of paying us, we want to give you free literature.  The Holy Spirit really moved,enabling good conversations with the locals as well as several people taking the Christian literature and Bibles.

In this time, we had an awaited visit from James (our leader at OM office). The above photo shows Meg, Coxy and some others evangelising in Split as they wait for James' plane to arrive. No time was waisted whilst waiting, as they shared Christian literature, songs and more importantly, God's love, 

Go4Jesus

 We had an amazing time at the Go 4 Jesus conference in Cakovec. After preparing the farm for the arrival of 70+ young (18 - 25) and passionate German and Austrian brothers and sisters, we preceded to serve along side them and acted as a flame in keeping spirits high. The Lord gave us fruitful conversations that challenged them and us. The conference prepared all of the teams for outreaches in the Balkans.

During the conference, our team visited a local school and presented skits, shared testimonies and challenged students with questions about Jesus Christ. Whilst most students were unresponsive, it was evident that the topics we touched on stirred their hearts. Some students even took photos with us after class.

Reach out to the Balkans.

The conference in Croatia was amazing! In praying for and preparing to go the Balkans, we fellowshipped with people around the world - well no really it was just Austrians and Germans (with a couple of Romanians). These days were filled with powerful prayer, lessons on evangelism and perhaps most importantly getting to know our brothers and sisters in Christ. We have now returned back to Split, Croatia with 17 other people to share the good news, the BEST news :)

Milk and Manure

We said a temporary goodbye to our coastal town of Split and headed, with Pastor Uwe, to a conference north of Croatia. To our surprise we arrived at a dairy farm and enthusiastically helped the farmers with their daily milking of the cows. 
We all milked a few cows, but after a short while, the men left us for a 'special' job. Yep you guessed it...SHOVELLING COW MANURE.

Loving Through Labor

Our team has been working with Uwe and Edita Muller supporting their ministry in Split. Sunday we had a wonderful time of fellowship with the local church, sharing testimonies, songs and skits. This week we have served  practically by cleaning and organizing the storeroom for Uwe’s Christian bookstore. We had much laughter and fun, but work was still done, check out the results below. 

Boys will be boys. We can always count on them to keep things light-hearted.

We have had many chances to engage with the body here through kids work, Bible studies, and meals with the lovely Croatian people. Please pray as we prepare for a conference that will focus on outreach in the Balkan region.

Bibles and Beaches

Everyday is ministry on the Transit Team. The 2 days travel to Croatia enabled a lot of team bonding and even sharing the gospel. We gave away 2 Bibles - one to 2 girls whilst filing up on gas and the other to a German man on the ferry. The mountainous drive brought us to the beautiful Croatia. God has blessed us with a house that is only 212 stairs to the water. During our day off, we met several individuals and God provided the opportunity to engage in conversation and bless them with New Testaments.

Here is a video that shows a little of what our ministry in Bulgaria entailed for the past 10 days. Thank you for the prayers and support. Please take note of the prayers at the end of the video and pray for Bulgaria and the Churches!

5 Countries in 3 Days

 After spending 10 days at the Lifehope training center in the UK the team departed at 11 am Wednesday for the next leg of our great adventure. We took a Ferry to France and then had a short drive to the OM Belgium base where we arrived at 11 pm. After spending the night we departed at 5:30 am on Thursday to being our drive across Europe to Bulgaria. The drive went smoothly on Thursday as we had many great conversations and laughs as we passes through Belgium, Germany, Austria, and finally rested for the night at OM Hungary at about 10:30 pm. We were so blessed to have a place to rest and regroup for a few hours. Friday morning at 1:00 am, yes that is only 1.5 hours of sleep, it was more of a power nap  we departed Hungary to continue our journey to Bulgaria. All was going well, we were making great progress, till 4:00 am when we suddenly had a tire burst. We safely navigated to the side of the road and began looking for the tools to fix the tire. We had a spare but could not locate a jack or tools to fix the tire with. After trying to flag down a car to help us we decided it would be best to just rest in the van until daylight. We got to enjoy a beautiful sunrise. A few people stopped to help but were unsuccessful. We decided that Jeremy and I (Meg) would run up the road to try to find help. We ran about 2 kms up the road and found a petrol station but the tire place did not open until 8 am. We ran back to the van and as we got close we could see a van was stopped with ours. Praise the Lord a Romania family had stopped and was able to help get the tire changed. After this unexpected delay we were back on our way, winding through Southern Romania, the small country roads provided beautiful scenery but left quite a bit to be desired in travel time required. We had the opportunity to talk and share with a lovely Romanian man when we got our tire fixed pray for this man and his family. We finally arrived at the Romanian border and waited to board the ferry that would take us into Bulgaria.We finally arrived in Plovdiv where we were staying the night at a hostel at about 3:30 am on Saturday.  Finally at 4 am on Saturday after traveling since 5 am Thursday we got to sleep! The journey to this amazing country was quite eventful but gave us amazing opportunities to see Gods provision at work and to trust in his strength as we tackled this incredible journey. Many times it has been noted that it was only through Gods strength that we the drivers and navigators were able to stay awake and alert for so long, with so little sleep. Thanks to everyone who has been praying for this trip so far. God has been doing amazing things. We have lots to share about the work we have been doing here in Svilengrad Bulgaria, but it’s actually time to go start doing more of that work, so we will update as soon as possible. Thank you again for your prayers and looking forward to sharing more soon. Pictures and video will up soon!!

Team Member Swap!!!

Preparing for our next outreach, we had great excitement added to our journey as one member from each Transit Team swapped places.  After spending a wonderful 2 weeks with Mike in Belfast, we had to say our goodbyes and welcome another to the team. His larrikin humour and patriotism makes him a "True-blue' Aussie. Introducing to you, none other than, Coxy!!(a.k.a. Jeremy Cox.)