Trips Blog

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest,” (Mt 9:37-38).

First, let’s wrap our very full Wednesday, which concluded with a large Persian feast, hearing several testimonies, and lots of picture-taking. We aren’t able to show many of the pictures here due to security concerns. Following good visits with Mehrdad and Reverend Sargez, we traveled by car to the church Sargez pastors. There we were greeted by about 70 people and heard testimonies of people who had converted to Christianity both in Europe and when they lived in Iran.

Read More

by Caryl Weinberg

Each day so far, we have been steeped in Iranian Christian love, faith, and courage. But today was filled to the brim. So, this post is just part of a day I’ll call “The Great Awakening.”

Read More

“God’s grace is too good to keep to yourself.”

Our day began over breakfast with Dariush and Shapoor, who has joined us from the UK. These two Iranian Christian leaders have spent much time together doing ministry in Amsterdam and Turkey. Over what we hope will be the first cups of much tea with them, we reflected on the sacrificial nature of their work. With Pastor Saul present we started to dig into how their ministry is an “all in” thing. They use their own limited resources to do most of what so many of us are in awe of. So their work is not from what is left of their abundance. This was a theme we continued to come back to throughout the visit today.

Read More

Greetings from Europe! We’ve landed in Germany with two notable exceptions. Cort and Abby Gatliff (South Highland Presbyterian) tested positive for COVID and had to remain in the US. As of this writing, they are doing fine so we give thanks to God! Yet we are feeling the loss of their presence on this trip!

During the first phase of our Europe trip, I returned to Lithuania to reconnect with friends and explain the work of The Outreach Foundation. At LCC International University, Europe’s only 4-year Christian liberal arts University, I learned of new challenges and opportunities.

Read More

“We need you!” Germany: Day One

Our mission in the midst of this tour is to explore possible partnerships between these ministries and The Outreach Foundation while evaluating how we might engage the diaspora as a “mission field.”

Day one did not disappoint us. We spent 10 hours with “Uncle Dariush,” founder of SafeHouse in Amsterdam. Dariush went to the Netherlands as a refugee and Muslim in 2001. In 2003 Dariush was in despair. He felt hopeless and his wife was very ill. He prayed to God and challenged him “saying show yourself to me in seven days or I will never believe in you again.” On the seventh day, Dariush had an encounter with two men in a restaurant who asked him, “What are you looking for?”

Read More