Planes, Trains, & Automobiles

I'd have to add buses to this 1980's movie title in order for it to fit into our modes of transportation over the past couple months.

Keleti Train Station in Budapest

As we make our travels across Europe, I have often thought of Paul's missionary journeys. During a significant time in the early days of the church, God used Paul to plant churches and then return visits to bring encouragement and direction to the new believers and to strengthen the church. Paul traveled by foot and at times by boat, but in this day and age we travel further, faster.

In two weeks time we covered more miles than Paul probably traveled in a year to Albania (see last post), Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Austria to encourage our M's, focus on leadership development, and give direction to the work.

During the training sessions with our M's, Dennis taught what he calls a "stack," giving 13 different word pictures - from a teenage girl with 5 colors of hair to a mummy (some may know this better as a MUME:) and balloons - all to help the teams understand the dynamics of Kingdom growth. The stack begins with the world, illustrating that God's world-wide resources are always available to us, giving energy to His work and ends with a globe with a basket of fruit on top to demonstrate Paul's words of encouragement to the Colossae church: All over the world this Gospel is bearing fruit and growing (Col. 1:6). This is what it is all about. Bearing fruit.

These, too, are significant days in the life of the church in Europe. Pray with us for much fruit.

We are home for a week to recoup and catch up before heading out on the 6th journey - this time to the countries of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia - not in a plane, or train, nor bus, but a rental car.