The Every Nation Tour set out in February 2023 with more than 60 people, a full band and one goal: a Youth Revival event in every nation we could reach. Here are some of the stories from the first two months.
Norway: a “pop” in the knee
In Sokndal, youth groups came from Egersund, Nærbø, Sandnes, Hommersåk, Jørpeland and Moi. The room was packed, and when the gospel was preached, more than half the room responded. A girl with an inflamed knee heard a “pop” while we prayed, and could bend her knee without pain.
In Arendal we preached in the streets and were even invited to sing and preach inside the clubs. That night, two young men we had met in the street came forward at the altar call. One of them, who had grown up Muslim, told us he struggled with asthma. After prayer he took a deep breath and said: “This is real!” Both gave their lives to Jesus. We found him an Arabic Bible and connected them both with the local youth pastor.
On the way we stopped at Saronsdal, the original campus of our Bible school, TBBMI, and were inspired again by the legacy of Aril Edvardsen.
Sweden, Denmark and Finland
In Västerås our teams preached in some of Sweden’s roughest neighbourhoods before the evening meeting. At the call for salvation, many ran forward, some for the first time and some coming back to Jesus. In Copenhagen we preached to the queues outside the nightclubs and sang gospel songs in karaoke bars. In Pori, Finland, we spoke to students in grades 7 to 9 at a local school, and ten responded to the call for salvation. That evening more than 30 young people filled the altar.
The Baltics: three nations in three days
In Paide, Estonia, the church had rented the biggest venue in town, an old communist-era building that had also hosted revival meetings just after communism fell. Over 200 people came, and more than 50 ran to the front to surrender their lives to Jesus. The pastor said she had never seen anything like it in Estonia.
We drove through a snowstorm to Riga, Latvia, and prayed with local leaders for a breakthrough among their young people. In Vilnius, Lithuania, we were invited into a school chapel with about 90 students. After testimonies and a gospel message, 58 came forward, including the geography teacher.
Central Europe
In Prague, seven churches came together and rented an auditorium for over 700 people. Italian and German students on a school trip, staying at a hotel nearby, came too, and five Italian boys were among those who gave their lives to Jesus.
In Vienna we held street meetings in a neighbourhood with many Muslims and immigrants. More than 50 of the people we met came that evening, and of the more than 60 who came forward for salvation, five were Muslims who had heard us in the street. In Warsaw, North Church had prepared so well that more than 500 young people came.
Ukraine and beyond
A team of leaders visited friends in Lviv, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Zhytomyr and Uzhhorod. In every city we saw the pain and destruction of war, and yet we have never seen so many people open to the gospel. More than 60 received Jesus in five days. The churches are planting new congregations during the war and preaching in shelters, schools and universities.
In Košice, Slovakia, we joined the national youth conference, and more than 80 young people ran to the front. In Pécs, Hungary, more than half the room were unbelievers, some of them loud and drunk at the back, and we still counted more than 40 decision cards that night.
In Cluj-Napoca, Romania, a young man who had grown up in a Buddhist family in Sri Lanka stopped to listen at our open-air meeting. He told us the last four years had been the darkest of his life. He came to the meeting alone, heard the gospel for the first time and was one of the first to run forward. He left behind the jewellery he had used in the occult and walked out free.
We finished this stretch in Chișinău (Moldova), Ruse and Sofia (Bulgaria), and Athens, where a man who had suffered back pain for more than five years was healed after prayer.
The harvest is ripe, and the gospel still works in Europe.
Leave a Reply