Breakdowns and breakthroughs (When God adds an outreach location)

Mar 28, 2018

4 min read

Updated: Sep 17, 2018

After spending one night in Germany we continued our drive to Finland, Taking ferry boats along the way from Germany to Denmark to Sweden.

We planned to stay in Stockholm Sweden one night and catch a ferry boat to Finland the next morning. Until our van decided to break down somewhere 4 hours outside of Stockholm…

Just after driving across so many fields where there was nothing in sight. Thankfully we broke down after we had stopped at a gas station.

We were stuck there for awhile and our leaders were making phone calls trying to get something resolved. While some of us walked to see if a local repair shop was open. (It wasn't. most things are closed on sundays) The rest of us just stayed in the van and prayed for a miracle.

By the grace of God we found out there was a train station only a 25 minute walk from where the van was broken. We called a tow truck and taking only what we really needed and could carry into our bags, started our trek onward to Stockholm.

We got THE LAST train out of the city (talk about God’s timing) to another town in Hässelholm, got on a bigger high speed train and travelled the 4 hours to Stockholm.

Arriving in the train station in Stockholm, at this point its about 1am from all these delays. (we had planned to arrive around 9pm) We then buy metro tickets to get us across town to our host church. (an hours walk away from the station)

As soon as we finish buy them an employee comes over and tells us there are no more metros for the night and no more buses running..(He just watched our group of 8 young people with bulky backpacks stand their and buy them..)

We then ask if we could get a refund and he says no..

Emily then pulls out her phone and looks for buses, and she finds ONE bus and asked him if the tickets would work for it. The man says “Yes, but you have to come quickly and follow me.” We follow him to the exit of the train station and he motions over to where the bus stop is, but then ends up just walking and leading us out of the station and to the curb of the bus stop. (so unheard of that any employee would even do that) He says to us. “Next time come earlier” and goes on his way.

We are all so exhausted from being awake since 5am and loosing an hour from day light savings making our travel day feel even longer. We arrive at our host church in Stockholm around 2am and all crash on the churches nursery room floor.

Our van ends up being in the shop for two days, pushing back our ferry ride and arrival in Finland. What was planned for just an over night stop in Stockholm has turned into staying for 5 days here. I love how God had different plans for us and we are really happy to be calling Stockholm one of our outreach locations now.

So thankful that we have an amazing host church here as our contact and how willing and flexible they have been to let us stay longer than expected.

Evangelism in Stockholm!

We have taken advantage of the time here and have already done a lot of street preaching, praying for people, and sharing our testimony’s to others around the city,

We have even had time to meet up with the YWAM base here in Stockholm and do evangelism with them.

We have really been able to use the Easter holiday coming up to our advantage in this city. Many people here don't even know what Easter is and its not really something that is majorly celebrated. So its been an easy way to share with people the gospel.

So far each day God has been providing us with what we need and its been such an amazing time for my team already. Each day we have been given some kind of food for free just though talking to people.

It’s honestly just so exciting to be in a place of such reliance on God to show up and do something bigger than what we had planned originally.