Festival - Middle East 2009

The festival in the Middle East was great! God was present and used 1,000 volunteers powerfully to share Jesus with the 15,000 in attendance and thousands came to Christ. It was a privilege to be a small part of what the local church is doing to share the gospel.

It was fun to work with our friends that skate board, perform extreme feats of strength, perform martial arts stunts, and others from last year. We all performed together again on the tennis court (you can see the treatment center in the background - the largest in the middle east, run by the church) and prayed for people after each event several times a day.

Thanks for your prayers for an effective outreach. Keep on praying for growth and protection of the many new believers.

Big Stone Triangles

The culture is fascinating. The people are beautiful, the food is rich, the salesmen are aggressive and the sites are breathtaking. We played a bit of tourist this year before heading to the conference center where our 3 day festival will take place for over 20,000 people.

Our experiences included: a beautiful view of the river from our hotel balcony, a cave church, Garbage City (a community of 4,000 where they hand process all the garbage from one of the largest cities in the world, brought to them in huge bags by the truck load), several churches where Jesus and His parents are believed to have stayed while seeking refuge, a Nile river dinner sail, a museum with real mummies, a camel ride and of course the pyramids and the Sphinx.

It is amazing the extent these brilliant ancient people went to for a dead-end, empty religion. And just think…a pyramid is smaller than a speck compared to God!

Our Middle East trip at a glance

Wooden Shoes and Windmills

On our trip to the middle east we had an 10 hr. layover in Amsterdam. Our team of 9 took the train to Zaanse Schans for a real Dutch experience. We saw windmills, crazy wooden shoes and had some delicious pannekoeken. Though a bit sleep deprived, we had a great time in beautiful Holland

. At the airport Dustin and Justin (the illusionist on our team) and Dave Gibson (our missions pastor) shared their testimony, some tricks and the gospel with 2 Japanese business men. Pray for their salvation!

Events in Minnesota

The second week of November Dustin spoke for Southwest Christian High School Chapel. The Seniors were about to leave on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic so it was a great opportunity for him to challenge them to step outside of their boxes and boldly share Jesus.

We also participated in Grace Church's 5-6th grade Burger Bash again. It is always a treat to see the kids from our own church enthusiastically bringing friends they want to introduce to Jesus. We know that many prayed to receive Christ after Dustin's performance.

Our week ended with a performance at the Christian Community Fair at the River Centre in St. Paul, the day before leaving for Egypt. We had a good crowd and made many good connections for future events. It was fun to connect with our friends from JSAW who had been key in introducing us to this Fair. Dustin was excited to see his favorite bird (eagle) and Katie her favorite animal (camel) there.