Much going on these months

Since my last update many things have been going on here. In mid-October I was able to attend a conference with the leaders of the Evangelical Free denomination here in Sweden, which is the denomination of the church I work with here. It was a 3 day consultation in Stockholm (my first time in Stockholm!!) about how we can get more missionaries to come to Sweden and about the future of church planting within their denomination. They gave us the bad news first. More churches in Sweden are closing than new ones being planted. If the trend continues, all free churches will cease to exist within the next 30 years. In the last 20 years 58 new churches have been planted within this denomination, but 112 have closed within that time. That was the bad news. The good news is that God is still saving souls here and there are opportunities for the Church to grow in Sweden, we just need more help! That's a big prayer request right now is for more workers in Sweden, especially at the universities. Overall that was a great trip and very encouraging. I got to meet with people who are doing a lot of the same work i'm doing in Sweden and build some great friendships. I visited an international church in Stockholm called New Life. They have about 350 people from 40 nations around the world. It was an amazing place. There were two baptisms that morning. One lady was from Egypt who was a muslim but unable to defend her faith. She then had a dream about Jesus saying who he was and she believed. She fled Egypt and her family to come to Sweden to become a Christian. She was speaking Arabic, then it was translated into Swedish, then English, a very international place. Then another lady who had been an exotic dancer heard God say to her that she needed to go to church, she ended up leaving her old life and becoming a follower of Jesus. God is doing great stuff here!

New Life Church has also planted another church in Gothenburg (Göteborg in Swedish), which is the second largest city in Sweden. It's a new church plant and there are some american missionaries working in there. The first weekend in December I will actually be going out there to lead worship that Sunday morning for them. I'm really excited about that opportunity. Also this past Sunday morning November 9th, I got the opportunity for the first time to lead worship for the Sunday morning Swedish service at my partner church here. We did a mixture of Swedish and English songs and the Sunday morning went well. The service was about God's jealous love and us not prostituting our lives before anything other than God. There were a lot of broken people in the service worshipping and pouring their hearts out to God.

The weather is kind of depressing here right now. It is completely dark by 4pm and this is just the beginning of the dark period here. Besides being dark so early, every day here lately has been really cloudy and rainy. About a week ago we had a snowy day, kind of early though. It hasn't snowed since but in the upcoming weeks it could again. I'm so ready to the see the sunshine again. Thankfully I will getthe opportunity to come home for Christmas in sunny Georgia!

As far as our international services have been going we've had some worship services and Bible studies and also some activities nights such as bowling and movie night. The most we have had so far come is about 40 and people form 15+ countries around the world. Most are Christians but some are not believers who are really interested. We've been able to give 2 girls Bible's who have never read it before; one girl is from Japan and the other from Armenia. Pray for these girls that God will use us to minister to their hearts. I have also started a home group for these students as well and we will have our second meeting tonight. Also pray for 2 mormon missionaries we've come into contact with. Pray that they see God's truth about who Jesus really is and that they see Joseph Smith as the false prophet that he was.
We have also had a new opportunity every Thursday morning at the university to hand out free breakfast to students going to their classes. This is a mixed group of all the churches in Växjö coming together to share God's love with students and to be a more visible presence at the university campus. Pray that these students will become curious as we are there every week doing this. I have updated pictures of everything I just shared with you here http://www.flickr.com/photos/17394877@N05 . Click on September-November 2008; there are a few short videos there as well. Check them out!! Let me know how all of you are as well! God's blessings on all your lives!

New semester

Well i've been back in Sweden almost 3 weeks and it has been an interesting and exciting time back. My first week and a half back was really rough. I had really bad jet lag, worse than i've ever experienced before. I felt disoriented, confused, a little bit homesick, and sick on my stomach every day. Thankfully I started feeling a lot better once I got over all that and got adjusted to the time change again. I spent one weekend overnight with the staff at our church. It was a nice relaxing weekend out in a house in the woods somewhere in a house that was built in 1858. It had a lot of nice apple trees around as this time of the year in Sweden the apples are ripe and ready to pick. We had a nice time of prayer and planning and it was a nice time to get to know the staff better. I also went this past weekend on a retreat with the whole church about 60miles from here. We had some nice times of worship and grilling out and another good time to connect with the Swedes at my home church here.
Last Thursday we had an evening at a Cafe at the University where we invited people to come who wanted to hear more about what the local churches here are doing and hopefully get involved with them. One group sang some cafe style songs and then I got up and sang some worship songs and informed the students about our international service. It was a nice night and about 100 students showed up.
This past Monday night we had our first international worship gathering of the fall and about 20 students showed up. We had students from about 6-7 countries show up. It was a really great time of worship. I was in charge of the music and the preaching so it was quite a lot to do, but I really enjoyed it. It's my first time preaching here in Sweden and only like my 2nd time really preaching in front of a church. The new students really seemed to be excited about having a place to connect with other Christians since most students on campus are not and just like to party a lot. This is a nice alternative for them and also a nice place to get away from the partying for a little bit and come worship together. Pray for us as we seek to connect with more new students international and Swedes. Pray for me as I will be teaching some more for our services this fall and leading our home group. Pray that more Swedes would be encouraged to be a bigger part of this international service and really connect with these international students. I really believe God has brought some of the students here from countries we cannot go as missionaries so that we can connect with them and share the gospel while they are here. Pray that the Swedish Christians here who are students will see what God is doing and join in that. I look forward to hearing from all of you as well! Also check out my newly updated pics from our first service and a few other events at http://www.flickr.com/photos/17394877@N05/ . Look under the title August-September 2008 pics. Thanks!

God bless,

Adam

Summertime fundraising

Well i've been back in the U.S. now for about 3 weeks with about 6 more weeks to go before I head back to my new home of Sweden. These past few weeks have been extremely busy with meetings with friends, pastors, and new acquaintances asking them to join me in being partners financially in what God is doing in Växjö, Sweden with university students. This summer i'm trying to raise (with God's help and guidance) $2500 in monthly commitments in addition to those who have already been giving financially so that I can get up to budget to be there for the next 3-5 years at least. God has already been working in the hearts of the individuals i've met with and i'm up to about 40 % of my total budget. Pray for me as this is a large task, but also a great opportunity for God's people to join up financially in what He's doing in Sweden. I have an update video I just recently posted on youtube. Check it out if you get a chance at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHNoEHoLE48 . I hope this gives a better picture of all going is doing with Project Sweden! Pray for the new university students that will be coming in the fall that we will have the opportunity to meet with for the first time and bring encouragement and healing in their lives through the message of our Savior Jesus!!

Back in the US for 8 weeks

This past Tuesday June 17th I arrived back home to the U.S. to Atlanta. I came home this summer for 8 weeks to do long-term fundraising so that I can go back to Sweden to continue to minister and be fully funded doing so. Thank you all who have given your time being a financial partner and prayer partner in what God is in Sweden. Before I came home a prayer was answered in a huge way. I wrote in April that I thought I was going to lose my apartment and then everything worked out. Well, it happened again that for sure I was going to lose my apartment again because of technical issues with how the apartment company gives out contracts. Basically there about a 1 in 10,000 chance for me to get my own contract on my apartment, so God had to really do a miracle for this to work out. Well, 2 days after e-mailing the apartment company explaining the situation God acted and now I have the first hand contract on the same apartment i've been renting second hand in. Not only that, but I do not have to pay any rent in July when i'm here in the U.S. and the wall papers that were messed up before I got there will be fixed free of charge! I really believed God confirmed that He wants me to continue in Sweden with this act of faithfullness. God is always faithful, we can count on that!!
This summer I have a big task ahead of me. I need to raise $2500 in regular monthly support for long-term work in Sweden. I am certain this is what God wants me to do and have such a joy and peace about going back to continue to minister in Sweden. Pray for me as I look for financial and prayer partners to join up with what God is doing in Sweden. Not only does this ministry touch Sweden, but it touches the world as we work with international students who come as exchange students to the university. They come from every continent in the world, well except for Antartica of course..lol. I've been able to meet and minister to students from Asia, the Middle-East, Europe, North America, South America, Africa, and Australia. If you want to support project Sweden send me an e-mail at wmoody1471@hotmail.com and I can give you more info on what we're doing there. Thanks and God bless!!

April 2008 update

These past few weeks have been stressful yet exciting. I wanted to share something really cool that has been happening. Back in January I wrote about a friend of ours here a Chinese girl who is an exchange student. We gave her a Bible in her language as a Christmas present which she received with gratitude. However, I have never taken the opportunity to just sit down and talk with her about the Bible we gave her. She has been coming on and off to our services and Bible studies when she can. Well about two weeks ago I decided that me and my friend Ben should ask her if she'd like to just sit down and talk about the Bible we gave her. We had dinner here with her and what I thought would be a simple 15 minute discussion about where to start reading the Bible turned into a 4 hour talk about God and why He wants a relationship with her, why He sent Christ, and how our deepest need in this life is to fulfill our hunger and thirst for God. She ended up also sharing with us some personal thing and pouring out her heart. We were able to share with her that only God can heal her broken heart. She left that night probably for the first time in her life really understanding at least what Jesus is all about. She has not yet come to faith but is still asking a lot of questions and really curious. All of this is new to her so pray for her life and that God will bring her to Himself. She comes from a country where we can't get into as missionaries so I believe God sent her here along with many other Asian students we've been able to meet and encourage. Pray for all of them! Some are believers, some are not but are very curious! God is working in their lives!
I also got the opportunity to spend a few days in Berlin, Germany with a short-term missions team from my organization Powersurge Worship Ministries. It was a great chance to meet up with them and help out for a few days. The whole music team was very genuine with their worship and that genuineness to serve and worship God helped to impact a lot of lives. I have some pictures of my 3 day trip to Berlin updated on my pictures website at http://www.flickr.com/photos/17394877@N05/
At the moment I am preparing to renew my permit to live in Sweden another year as God is laying a foundation for the future ministry here. Pray that this process will go smoothly. I also am preparing to come home for about 6-8 weeks during the summer to update my ministry partners and raise more long-term funding to achieve a stable budget. Pray for me as God continues to direct and guide my path here in Sweden. Let me know how you all are doing and if there is anything I can pray for any of you about as well!

God bless,

Adam Moody

Prayers answered

In my last blog one of the issues I was dealing with and needed prayer for was the fact that I thought I was going to lose my apartment. God answered a big prayer however, and the guy that I rent from is now allowing me to stay here as long as I want to which means there is one hurdle down in my pursuit of staying in Sweden for another year. The next hurdle is my finances. I will be need more monthly financial commitments from people to be able to continue to stay here and move into the next phase of ministry here. Pray for these needs as well.
Today I will be leaving for Germany for a few days to meet up with some people from my missions organization who are on a 10 day missions trip there in Berlin working with a few of the international churches there. Pray for the team as they will be leading worship and encouraging the believers in these churches. I have really been looking forward to this time since I have not been able to get out of the city of Växjö here that I live in since 3 months ago so i'm going a little bit stir crazy. Thanks to the support of some friends that stayed here about a month ago I was able to have enough money to join them on this trip, God provides.
This past weekend we had an international conference at church that went really great. A man from the EFS church denomination here in Sweden came and spoke most of the day Saturday and Sunday morning. Most of the conference was in Swedish and we had headset translations in English, Frech, Romanian, and Spanish, so it was quite a mixed international group there. The speaker challenged us that since the creation of the world God has had a mission to redeem mankind back to Himself and that God wants us to cross physical, spiritual, emotional, and cultural boundaries to be a part of His mission in the world. It was very challenging and God worked in a lot of people's life at the conference. At the evening worship service time of the conference our worship band got the opportunity to do the music for that time. All the songs were in English and suprisingly people seemed to know a lot of them. It was great to see people pouring their hearts out before God in song and worship and to see people broken before God and having their hearts healed through His love.
We have also had another asian girl start coming to our international service who is from Taiwan. Pray for her as she says she is about 70% there to becoming a Christian. I am not sure what that means for her exactly but I am going to see if she would like to have coffee someday and talk about it and ask her what's holding her back. Pray for my friend Ben also. He is a Canadian exchange student who was here in Sweden with his wife. She had to go back home early so he moved in with me for a month until his classes are over and he goes back home. Pray for them as they experience this time apart.
Also some great news, Passion Conference is coming to Stockholm on May 18th. Right now we are in the process of getting some vans and trying to get about 15 people to go. With travel and all it's going to cost about $100 a piece for each of us so pray that the students will have the finances to be able to make it for this trip. Hope you all enjoy reading these blogs! Leave me some feedback!

God bless,

Adam

Decisions for the future

This past month has brought a lot of exciting times, but also a lot questions. As I think about what God has been teaching me and using me to teach others I find myself amazed to see how much He can do even through something so simple as a flyer. This past month I have been able to meet more new international and swedish students at the university and begin to build friendships with. One new girl from China began coming to our international service who is interested in learning about faith in English. She saw our flyer up in one of the laundry room at the University and e-mailed me about it. A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to share with her the basics of who we believe God is and what Jesus has done for us. Pray for her as God continues to open her heart towards Him. Our international service see's new faces almost every Sunday night. A few guy who are international students from Africa joined us this past week and it was great to have them there! It really feels like a foundation is beginning to be laid for the future university ministry here. I can really see God working through our dilligence. A lot of stuff we have been doing has been trial and error so there's still much to learn. One of things i've learned since i've been here is to find out where God is already at work and join up with that, and if something new needs to be started then God will give us the direction in that as well.

Now comes the questions that I need much prayer for. I know there is much more work to be done here in Växjö and the question is am I the one who is supposed to do it. At the moment I don't feel like I have an answer for God one way or another. Today I talked to God and said to Him, "God i'm going to pursue staying here for a longer period of time, and if you don't want me to then stop it from happening." At them moment I feel good about staying. However one of the tough things is that every semester a new group of international students come and the ones I have become close to leave. It will be difficult and exciting at the same time with so many people coming in and out of my life. Pray for me in all of this. Pray that God will also raise up others who will eventually come here to Växjö and join me in this cause so that there will be a team of people here working together and mutually encouraging each other. I will be going home for a little while during the summer for a short break and to also do a fund raising campaign to raise more long-term finances. My Swedish and international friends here have been encouraging me to stay and have been encouraged by the ministries God has called me to here which makes me think God wants me here longer. Pray for me as I face all these decisions. Pray that my permit renewal will go smoothly, pray that I will be able to keep my apartment, and pray for more financial ministry partners to help fund the cause of Christ here in Sweden! Thanks and God bless!
I also just updated my pics recently last week, check them out here http://www.flickr.com/photos/17394877@N05/. There are new pictures from our international service and Tuesday night small group, so check them out!

Look what God is doing!!!

Hello all! It has been a month since my last blog update and so much stuff has happened. This past week my parents visited and really enjoyed their stay. The weather was kind of rough though, pretty much rainy, cold, and windy every day, only one day of snow when they were here. It was really good to have them here, their first time in another country! Our international service has grown quickly in just one week. Two weeks ago we only had about 8 people at the service. This past week we had 30 show up, mostly all university students. They were from America, Sweden, Ireland, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Korea, and China. Next Sunday we will begin having our service with a worship band i've put together here to create a service with some more energy to it. Pray for us as we try to become more organized to lead people in worship, challenge believers, and open up the hearts of the non-believers. I also started one of my University classes here this week. It's a history class about the contemporary middle east and there is a big diversity of students in the class. There are people from Pakistan, Iran, Nigeria, Austria, Sweden, and me the only America. About half the class is muslims so pray that God will use me to shine the light of Christ in their lives as well. There are three people in particular God has put me in contact with who have no relationship with Him that I want to ask all of you to be praying for. A chinese girl who i've mentioned many times before. She doesn't have any type of faith at the moment, but is very interested in Christianity. We gave her a Chinese Bible for Christmas and soon I will start meeting with her to see where she is in this whole process and spend some time looking at what God's Word says about a relationship with Him. Pray for her as she is very curious! Last week I also met two guys in different places. One guy named Daniel I met on the train and me and my parents shared with him about Christ. We could see that he is really seeking truth, but he has a lot of philosophical objections to the truth's of Christianity because of some bad teachings from churches in his past. Pray for him as I continue to share with Him. Pray that God gives me wisdom so that I can exactly what to speak into Daniel's life. Also I met a guy named Anil from Nepal which is near India. He said that his parents are Buddhist, but he himself has no religion. I met him at a music cafe we had at the University where people could find out about the local churches and the ministries there, so I believe he is seeking. He seems like a nice guy, always happy and want to come to our international service so pray for him as well! Another exciting thing has been our street church ministry on Friday nights. We go out late at night on the streets of Växjö and hand out free coffee, tea, and cookies at a table we have set up just to show God's kindness and love to people. If they want to talk about God, we let them initiate the conversation and suprisingly so many people want to talk about God. Some of them are drunk and some sober, but we are still planting seeds of faith and have even had the opportunity to pray for some people right there on the streets. Keep praying that God will use this ministry and that the believing Swedes that join us will have boldness and not be shy about sharing their faith. Pray for all of us to have boldness and courage as we fight the attacks of the enemy and fight to share the love of Christ with those who have no hope!
I would also like to ask all of you to pray for my financial needs. Everything is moving forward here which encourages me that God wants me to be here at least until my permit ends in the last part of July. To be able to do that however, I need to my financial support to increase. If you have the ability to support this ministry in Sweden, it would be much appreciated. For all of you that pray, read my blogs, and support me financially thank you for partnering with me in this ministry. Your part is just as essential as what God is having me do. Thank you all very much and God bless! Let me know how you all are doing as well. Send me an e-mail to WMoody1471@musician.org. Also check out all of my recently updated pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/17394877@N05/.

God bless,

Adam

Beginning of the year update January 2008!

Hello all, Adam here. Sorry it has been such a long time since my last update, but I have been busy with the holidays and such here in Sweden. For Christmas I spent 4 days with my friend Johannes and his family in a town about 1 hour from mine called Hässleholm. It is a much smaller town than where I live, but it was nice to spend time with my friend and his family. They were very welcoming and even gave me some Christmas presents (Julklapp in Swedish). The Chinese girl I spoke about in my last blog, we were able to give her a Chinese Bible for a Christmas present from our international group. She was suprised that it was in her own language and was very thankful. There is nothing like being able to read the Bible in your native language, and hopefully this will help her to understand God's Word even better now. Pray for her that she will be able to have opportunities to spend time in God's Word when she's by herself and maybe even encourage other Chinese friends that she knows here at the university. For New Years I had some friends over from the international group about 7 of us total. We had a fun time cooking some foods from our home countries. I cooked some BBQ Chicken in the oven with good BBQ sauce my parents sent me for Christmas in a Christmas box. Then we watched some fireworks around one of the lakes here in Växjö which were very nice. They lasted about 30 minutes. Then we came back and watched Pirates of the Caribbean 3, well most of it. We were all starting to fall asleep about 3am and couldn't finish the movie. This Wednesday I will be having a meeting with some others here who an interested in having a more focused University aged ministry at our church. We are looking to have a monthly service for people our age with some more rockin worship music and help plug students into weekly small groups that way. Pray for me as I will be talking to the ministry leaders at my church about me starting and leading an english small group here at my apartment for university students. We will also start back up the english language service and weekly prayer walks in the coming weeks. Pray for us as we seek to have a more focused ministry within these areas and do it more with excellence following God's direction and vision for His ministry here. A few other prayer requests, at the moment I have a few specific financial needs I would like to share. One need is for the books I will be having to buy for a class at the University I will be taking. The books will costs close to $100-150 total. I am also going to study Swedish at a place called Folkuniversitet here in town. It is a 10 week Swedish language course for beginners and it costs around $135. In March there in a conference in Stockholm in which missionaries will be gathering to talk about a more focused ministry plan for Sweden and how it is has changed into a country with a large international profile and how we can meet these needs. It will be 3 day conference all in english and the costs for the conference, food, and travel there and back will be about $350. If any of you have the ability to fill these one time financial needs, I would very much appreciate it. If you do not have the ability to give, then pray for my needs and for the people of Sweden. Please continue to pray that peoples hearts will be opened to the gospel and that believers will be encouraged to live out their faith in a visible and encouraging way. Thank you all for all the prayers and support! Also, it really encourages me a lot just to hear from all of you, so you are welcome to leave me a comment on here or send me an e-mail at WMoody1471@hotmail.com. Also check out some of my updated pics I've taken the last few weeks at http://www.flickr.com/photos/17394877@N05/
God bless,

Adam