Prayer Letter from Chris and Lotta Strajnic in Sweden
Dear friends,
As we write this newsletter, our apartment gets more and more filled with moving boxes. Yes, we are moving – again! As we have now moved over 20 times, we now consider ourselves as ‘moving experts’. With all the lists and labels, we even have pictures of every bookshelf so when we move into our new place on the 1 November, the unpacking process should be quite quick and painless, or so we hope.
Church update
By God’s grace, Emmaus church is doing well. We, as a church, are in the middle of preparations for the biggest annual outreach – Hallåvän (safe and non-scary Halloween party for children). We have a group of people in our church who want to become members. They have been coming regularly and are engaged in different church activities for some time now, so in two weeks’ time we are starting a new member’s class.
Apprenticeship and ministry
It’s our great privilege and joy to be able to announce that we are going to have our first apprentice. Until now we have only had a trainee, Simon, who is soon heading to plant a new church in Södertälje. As soon as we got to know our upcoming apprentice Henrik, we knew that he would be perfect for an apprenticeship. After time of prayer on both sides, we decided to proceed and will soon finalise all the practicalities. The apprenticeship journey can then begin at the end of November. Through our different ministries we have come across several young guys who have the same desire to be trained in a local church as an apprentice. Together with the church in Gothenburg, which we partner with, we want to develop an apprenticeship program that we can use in our churches. Our common goal for the future is to introduce and make the apprenticeship program available for the local church in Sweden.
Regional conference
Together with the church in Gothenburg, we are also running a small regional conference that started very spontaneously after seeing the need to encourage and train young potential leaders. Unfortunately many have no faithful Bible preaching church in their cities, and as they are meeting in homes, there is a possibility of planting more churches in the near future. This will be our third conference, held on 12 November. The theme will be the gospel: ‘What is the gospel, how to share and what is evangelism?’ Do pray!
Future ministries
In our cooperation with the church in Gothenburg we saw a great need for Bible training for our apprentices and for other interested. After a time of brainstorming and prayer, we came to the conclusion that we need a summer Bible school, which we hope will start next summer in 2023. Thanks to Trevor Watson from Northern Ireland (who was a Crosslinks missionary in Sweden but has now returned to NI), this might just happen. But there is more in the pipeline, also thanks to Trevor. Hopefully next autumn, we will start a Cornhill Swedish language group that will attend the Cornhill Training course online. These things are still in the early stages but so important for our need to train the next generation leaders in Sweden. So as you see, we have an exciting time ahead of us. As ever, we are so grateful for your prayers for us.
Praise points
- For our cooperation with a church in Gothenburg and their pastor Daniel Noren
- For our apprentice – Henrik
- For the new members
Prayer points
- For the outreach event – Hallåvän, which will be on 30 October
- For the regional conference
- For the upcoming summer Bible school in 2023
- For the Cornhill Swedish language group
Yours in Christ,
Chris and Lotta
