A cloud like a man's hand

For several years I've been praying for Luxemburg, the smallest member of the EU and one of the least evangelised nations in Europe. In the Nineties I walked the country in the form of a cross, from west to east and from north to south. I took a prayer team from Utrecht to Luxemburg to pray for God's purposes for this nation and to see new churches being established. Last year I prayer-cycled to Luxemburg in the footsteps of Willibrord, the apostle who brought the gospel to this area in the early 8th century. When on conferences there is a time of prayer for the nations, I use to take the stand for Luxemburg, as there are usually no representatives from this nation, and I want it to be at least a prayed-for nation.

Today God encouraged me. On the horizon I could see a cloud like a man's hand. When Reinhold was in Portugal half a year ago, he met Paulo, a pastor/church planter with a calling for Luxemburg. Of course we got in touch and today he paid me a visit with his whole family. It was wonderful to sense his heart for Luxemburg. He told me something I didn't know; that a quarter of the population of Luxemburg is Portuguese. It reminded me of something that Paulo Pascoal of the Portuguese Evangelical Alliance told me earlier this year, that the biggest minority group in Portugul are Ukrainians. No kidding, this is modern Europe.

Now the Ukrainians happen to be the most active church planters in Europe. If they export this mentality to Portugal, I can easily picture the Portuguese taking it into Luxemburg. That would be great. Anyway, this Paulo is now pastoring a Portuguese church in Luxemburg, but he also wants to plant churches among the indigenous Luxemburgers. He told me: "Before I came to Luxemburg I thought I would just pastor a church and that's it. But when I moved there some months ago, God gave me a deep passion for this nation, even to the point that I'm willing to die here to see Jesus proclaimed."

I told Paulo a bit about the history and the prayer trips I did, and showed him the research that DAWN Flanders did in 1998, and which could be done for Luxemburg as well. Basically it's mapping the number of Evangelical churches on the population, which immediately shows where the unreached areas are. Then those areas can be prayed into and adopted by churches who intend to plant a daughter church.

Earlier this week Patrick Scholman, the DAWN guy for Flanders, told me that they plan to do a new research and want to include Wallonia and Luxemburg, which would be another step forward.

Comments

[Jaime y Patricia Hernandez]

Hi peter, We are from Colombia,We are misionaries, and I am a journalist.We have a colling from GOD to go to Luxemburg on june, and work with young people and children, we have been working and trainig in YWAM for four years, but three years ago we heard the voice of GOD, he told us that we have to go to Luxemburg, we know the time to go there is now. We need a good contact there, and we are very interesting in your ministry.We get married the last december, Please pray for us and if God tells to you something about us write us soon. We need some papers for the visas, but we are trusting in GOD.
GOD BLESS YOU.
Jaime and Patty