Thanksgiving Day in Sweden 2009

Time has flown by so fast as we approach the Christmas holidays to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus.  Well I'm sure all of you just recently celebrated Thanksgiving with your family and friends, and I'm sure some of you got out really early for Black Friday in the mad rush of people looking for discounts on Christmas presents (I wish they had some sells like that here in Sweden, the taxes are too high here for that though!).  Well as you know Thanksgiving is an American holiday (it's Canadian as well but they celebrate theirs in October), so here in Sweden there are very few cooking turkey's and having a big celebration on that day, mostly just Americans living here.  Well this year I decided to have a Thanksgiving dinner in my apartment so that the international students we are connected with could experience this American holiday.  I was expecting maybe 10-15 students to show up, but they kept coming in the door and we had 25 people here!  I didn't even have enough seats for everybody, but it was a great night overall and I'm sure almost half the people were new.  Normally Thursday nights we have our home group Bible study at my place, so this was a good chance to connect with some new exchange students and invite them to our worship services as well and just befriend them.  

This was the first time I tried cooking a turkey by myself and surprisingly it turned out great!  I also made some homemade macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, and banana pudding.  One American girl also made some green bean casserole and fudge.  A few international students brought food as well so we had just enough.  It was a great time overall, but man was I tired, I cooked for about 6 hrs that day and it's harder work that it looks like!  Up at the top you can see  2 pictures.  One is turkey right as it came out of the oven, and the next is the after picture.  People tore it up!  All in all it was an enjoyable Thanksgiving dinner, about as good as it can get when you're away from home.  You can view the rest of my pictures and videos from my Thanksgiving dinner here in Sweden by clicking here http://www.flickr.com/photos/17394877@N05/  Hope you all had a great one!  I will be coming home in some weeks for Christmas break so hopefully I will see a lot of you then.  

God bless,

Adam Moody

August-October 2009 Update

Well i've been back in Sweden about 7 weeks now and things are going great! As most of you know I also went back to the US a few weeks ago for a 10 days trip. A friend of mine was getting married and had asked me to be the best man in the wedding, a friend i've known for 13 years now. I also got to spend a little time with my girlfriend and her family when I was home so overall it was a really nice trip :).

As far as what's been going on here with me in Sweden so far, God has really been working and moving! We made the decision last spring that in the fall school semester we were going to move our international worship services from the church that I partner with here in Växjö to a church that was much closer to the university and the students. The church I partner with here in Sweden, called Ulriksbergskyrkan is about 4 miles away from the university. Now that may not sound like very far, but when the majority of students don't have cars here and mostly get around by walking, biking, and riding the bus, 4miles can take a while. The bus normally takes about 30 minutes to get there because of all of the stops it has to make, so moving to a Lutheran church right across the street from the university has been a great move. We are consistenly having 20-30+ students show up every week for our meetings, many of whom have no relationship with God! They are getting to hear for the first time about what it means to have a relationship with God through Jesus! We have students from about 15 countries coming to our meetings and have been able to give out about 10 Bibles so far to some of these students who have never read the Bible for themselves. Every week we are also having a home group that meets in my apartment. We've been averaging 15+ students showing up for this meeting every week and it's so exciting because we've never had this much consistency! Last night on October 8th we had 16 here at my apartment for the Bible study and I barely had room for them all! Most of the students were Christians but 3 girls that came are not and are just curious. We had students last night from the US, Syria, Pakistan, Japan, Hong Kong, Uganda, Cameroon, Congo, Canada, Latvia, and South Korea. Basically the way these meetings work is that we have a meal together (last night we had home made soup from a few different countries), then maybe something to break the ice like playing UNO, and then have a Bible study and prayer time. Last night I spoke about Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well and how He crossed boundaries of race and culture to give this woman living water, eternal life that she really needed despite her life of living in shame. I shared that she was looking for something to fill the void in her life only Jesus could fill, by giving herself over to all of these men she had brought into her life. Jesus however crossed all of these boundaries and looked into the deepest need of her heart, a relationship with Him, and gave her living water. What was amazing is that a woman who came to the well to get water in the middle of the day to avoid seeing people, ran to the people of her town to tell them to come see Jesus! She no longer cared about her shame as Jesus had given her living water and wiped away her shameful past. I really pray that those who came to our group who don't know Jesus but are curious see who He is from our study last night. He wants to give the lost of this world living water, eternal life that will make them never thirst again for something to fulfill their lives. I can say that God has brought us into contact with about 10-15 students right now who are coming to these home groups and international worship services who don't know Him. Please pray that God will continue to use us weekly to open their hearts for Him and that Satan will not deceive them into thinking that what we are saying is false. Pray that they will see Jesus for who He really is and let Him change their lives forever! Here is a picture of our home group on October 8th. Click on the picture and it will enlarge.

Also just to share with you the last few weeks I have been taking Swedish language courses that are given out for free by the government here. I am definitely learning more Swedish than I ever understood before, but i'm in class about 5 hours a day 5 days a week so my head hurts from all the swedish once i'm done...lol. Pray for me that i'll be able to learn the language fast and in doing so be able to minister to the swedish people more effectively. Lasty I want to ask you to be praying for my girlfriend stacey and I. Pray that God will continue to grow our relationship though we are 5000 miles apart at the moment. Pray that we will continue to put God first in our relationship and trust Him for our future. Thanks!


I am putting up about 35 new pictures on my pictures website that you can find the link to on the right of this blog screen on can go to by clicking here http://www.flickr.com/photos/17394877@N05/. Look under August-October 2009 pictures. I would like to hear from you all as well how life is going and let me know how I can be praying for you all as well!





God bless,





Adam

Summer 2009 in the USA

June 1st I left my home in Sweden to come back to the US just for the summer time to spend some time with family and friends, but mostly to do more fundraising building up my financial partnerships. I have been home now for 5 1/2 weeks and have seen God do great things with my financial support levels increasing. I'm about half way to my goal of getting $2000 a month more in support so that I can go back to Sweden and continue the ministry there more long term. I definitely have to say that summer in GA is much different than summer in Sweden, but coming home to GA to 90+ degrees Fahrenheit (they use Celsius in Sweden) temperatures has been nice. It feels good not to have to put a jacket on and long pants every time I walk inside. At the same time the air in Sweden is much more fresh as we have less pollution and more rain there as well, so it's kind of bitter sweet being home as usual. I am so thankful that God has provided above and beyond for me in so many ways more than I could ever think or imagine. Fundraising is definitely not the easiest part of being a missionary, but I've found that it can be something to look forward to as I share with people, churches, and businesses about the work God is doing in Sweden and how they can partner with this storing up for themselves treasures in heaven the will last forever. We all have our part to play in bringing people into a relationship with God through Jesus and encouraging the believers around the world. We are all called to make disciples where we are at and for those of us God calls to go into other nations to do this as well, other's pray for this discipleship, and others fund this discipleship. Thank you all so much for your willingness to be a part of building God's kingdom locally and globally.
One of the opportunities I have had while I've been home was to go to Pascagoula, MS, a place hard hit by hurricane Katrina, and help a youth minister friend of mine do some ministry out there. He brought his youth group along with a few other youth groups to that city to do some backyard Bible clubs to connect children and their parents to a local church there. I had the opportunity in the mornings and evenings of leading worship for these youth and also share with them about what God was doing with this ministry in Sweden. I even taught them part of a worship song in Swedish. I am posting pictures of this time in MS on my pictures website so check out the link on the right side of this page to see those pictures and a video of these youth singing the chorus to "How Great is Our God" in Swedish with me.
I will be leaving to head back to Sweden around August 13th, but I have a lot to do before I leave. I really want to be able to leave this time fully funded and up to budget. In the next few weeks I have left I will be speaking to many individuals, businesses and churches about these partnerships. If any of you know any person, or church, or business that might be interested in contributing to this ministry, please let me know.
Lastly this summer I have the privilege of being ordained at my home church Eagles Landing First Baptist Church in McDonough, GA. I'm not sure of the exact date yet, but it will be closer to the time I leave. I'm excited about having the opportunity because this is a big encouragement for me having my home church more "officially" behind the calling God has give me to minister in Sweden. If you would like more information about when this will take place you can e-mail me at WMoody1471@hotmail.com.
Again thank you all for all of your prayers and partnership!

God bless,

Adam Moody

P.S. If you didn't get my last update letter, let me know and I'll send it to you through e-mail. It's an exciting update as 3 guys from Afghanistan received Christ and got baptized right before I left to come home and one of their stories is on this update!

February & March 2009

Recently as I was walking around the University campus here in the town of Växjö where i'm working at as a missionary, I just felt the desire from God to do more on the University campus. I felt the desire that God wants me to reach people where they are at and not just try to find so many innovative ways to get them to our church services that are miles away from the University. I prayed that God would start giving me new ideas then on how to be more proactive about sharing my faith at the university as well as encouraging the other believers to do it. Of course everytime you take a step forward in the direction God wants you to go the devil is going to use someone or something to try and stop it. I recently found out that it is actually against school policy at this university to evangelize on campus for any religious group and somehow they call this freedom of religion?? Seems to me to be the opposite. I would be okay if they let all religious groups evangelize and then call that freedom of religion because that's what it consist of. Obviously they don't have the same idea here in Sweden. However, I found out that we can still do things shrewdly. It is okay if people have questions for us about God and it's even okay to have an educational showing of a movie about Jesus and if people have questions we can answer all we want to. The rule I found out was to prohibit people from outright having like protest type evangelizm where you hold signs up and throw Bible's at people (which personally I don't think that draws people into Christ, but pushes people away).
We have started back up once a week handing out free breakfast sandwiches and coffee in one of the main buildings at the university once a week. This has been a great opportunity for us to be able to just show God's love with students through a free gift and then many have questions about why we do this and then the have follow up questions about God. Pray for us that God will use us weekly to build relationships with students that come by and be able to tell them about God's love for them in Jesus! I have been very busy lately with a lot of opportunities to lead worship at church which has been exciting. I prayed that God will give me more opportunities to use these musical gifts more and actually in the next few weeks also I have a lot of opportunities to lead worship. Also, April 1-3 we will have something at the University called Christ Days. Basically it's 3 days of different events and meetings on campus. Some worship services, Bible studies and prayer times. We are starting out by having a full day of prayer on April 1 as we believe that is the foundation for everything we do here, laying it in the hands of God. An event like this has never been done at this University. Pray that the Christian students at the campus would be bold enough to be a part of these days and that we can also reach out to the non-Christian students and share God's love with them.
We also have a home group again this semester that meets weekly and it's been really exciting lately! I really feel God is using this group to grow us all and encourage us in our faith. Another exciting opportunity came about a week ago as some guys from my parents new church came here to visit with me and see the work going on here. It was really great to have some people come here and pray with me and check out what God is doing in Sweden. I'm very thankful for their encouragement. Lastly, in about 11 weeks I will be going home again to do another summer fundraising campaign. To be able to continue here in Sweden and have a future here I really need to be at a much better place financially. I know God is faithful and has always provided for my needs. I would just ask all of you to pray for me that God will provide that I can have a future ministry here in Sweden. It feels as if things are just getting started and that there is a lot more work to be done here. This summer I will be trying to find 50 people to commit $25 a month in partnership to this ministry. I would also ask maybe some of you to pray to see if God leads you to become one of these partners. Thank you all so much for your continued prayers. Let me know how all of you are doing as well. I also put up a few new pictures on my pictures website. You can find the link to that website on the right side of this page. Let me know how I can be praying for all of you as well!

God bless,

Adam Moody
Project Sweden

Holiday cheer

Well it's been almost two months since my last blog update so there's a lot to mention. First off I just want to say that God has been doing some good things in Sweden in the past months. In early December I got the opportunity to lead worship one Sunday morning at a church called New Life Gothenburg. This is a new international church in Gothenburg, second largest city in Sweden. It was really cool to get this opportunity to meet up with other american missionaries who are doing some of the same type of international ministries as we are doing in our town. Pray for their church as God continues to use them in Gothenburg. I also recently have taken in a roommate. He's a great brother in Christ from the African country of Cameroon coming to Sweden to get his masters degree. Pray for him as he is searching for a part time job to have money to live on while in Sweden, and his name is Paschal. I'm thankful to God for being able to have the extra space and resources to be able to help him. He's been an encouragement to me as every morning and all throughout the day he is singing hymns to God joyfully.
We just started up a home group meeting at my place on Tuesday nights. One night we had 10 people show up and it was such a cool international setting. We had 5 Latvians, 1 American, 1 from Cameroon, 1 from Armenia, 1 from France, and 1 from Brazil. What was really amazing is that we had a time of prayer, and we each prayed in our own native languages. We also had tacos that night and suprisingly to me the guy from France was the only other person who had actually had tacos before, but everyone seemed to enjoy them. Pray for us this next semester as we will continue to meet and grow in Christ together. Some members of our home group have had the awesome opportunity to share some with their friends about Christ and even give them a Bible for the first time in their lives. So far a muslim guy and a japanese girl, and an armenian girl are reading the Bible for the first time in their lives!
As far as the holidays go on Thanksgiving day an american girl who is an international student at the university cooked a nice thanksgiving meal so I was able to have turkey and dressing that day (remember thanksgiving is an american holiday, not celebrated in Sweden so this was a nice treat for me). I have actually had the opportunity to come home for the holidays back to Georgia. I have been home since December 16th and am heading back January 16th to prepare for all the new students coming in. This has really been a nice time to be home and relax with my family and friends and eat a few restraunts i've been missing (like Chick-fil-a and Longhorns!). Of course being in Georgia I haven't seen any snow for the holidays, but before I left Sweden we got about 6 inches over the course of a few days and i'm sure i'll see some more snow when I get back. The warmer weather here in Georgia has actually been quite nice since everytime I go outside in Sweden during this time of year I have to dress in layers. I also got the opportunity to speak at my relatives church down in south Georgia about what God is doing in Sweden. Pray that God will continue to provide the opportunities for me to share with His people about His vision for Sweden and develop more partnerships. I also just updated my pictures website, so check those out on the link to the right side of my page here!!! (I also had a really cool opportunity to attend the Japanese dinner party at the University campus. Check out my pictures of that.) I hope you all had a great holiday season and were able to remember that Jesus is the reason to celebrate not only at Christmas, but all year round. Let me here from y'all!

God blessings on your life,

Adam Moody