Our Luke 10 expedition began on 23 August 2011 from Lisbon, Portugal.
The red team consisted of Frikkie de Beer, Carmen Ann Lombard, Christopher Griesel, Nelmari Smit and then there was a new member only for Luke 10, named Samuel Vogel.
Samuel's parents are missionaries form Switzerland in Portugal, Mem Martiens where we served for three weeks before Luke 10.
Our team prayed and asked God where He wants to send us for Luke 10. There were several words and pictures that came up in our prayers, but we didn’t get a specific place where God wanted to send us. It was strong among the team that our first step should be towards the sea, and seeing if we can find any ships and then work our way to the southern point of Spain.
At the beginning of Luke 10,
the team members met a man walking along the street, crying. We started talking to him and asked what was wrong, he told us things about drugs and prostitution and assaults that he saw the previous night. His name is Vasco. After we shared the Gospel with him, he decided to give his heart to Christ on the street.
At the harbour we met
an ill old man, that lives in a camper.He told us that he originally came from England but he was in South Africa since he was 9 years old until after he served in the army.His name is Tony Rose, he would not allow us to pray for him. He grew up as a religious Jew and religion was pushed down his throat from a young age. He gave up on faith and started living life as he sees fit, and became a millionaire twice. At the end he gave up on society and bought a camper and started driving where he stopped in Lisbon, Portugal at the harbour. He acknowledged that there is a God but that God has long forgotten him. We tried not to push religion down his throat aswell, but we have only listened to his interresting stories and showed love, trying to ensure him that God has not forgotten him. We greeted him and that night we slept under a small go-cart roof beside the harbour after God provided us with Pizza and coke.
The next morning we found a Portugese sailing boat with the name “Principe Perfeito&
rdquo; that is leaving on the 26th to Setubal. The captain, Rafael Silva, invited us to come with. We spent
the day walking up and down trying to find an
earlier option. We found nothing so that night we slept on the Principe Perfeito boat. The next morning we started praying and asked God if there is someone He wants us to go and pray for. God
gave us a yellow shirt, the name Peter and the statue of Jesus which can be seen in Lisbon. After a little walk we saw a man standing under the statue of Jesus with a yellow shirt and he was busy fishing. (Peter was a fisherman in the Bible.)
This man had an operation some time ago to remove a tumor from his brain. The entire right side of his face was paralyzed. We prayed for him and believe that God has healed him. In the afternoon, once again God provided food in the form of street people who came out of the blue to give us food to eat.
That afternoon bac
k at the boat we started helping Rafael to clean the boat for a function. He had an operation in his back a week ago and couldn’t bend down to do the work he needed to. He laughed when we told him that that’s why God sent us to him. God has once again provided us with food in the form of Rafael who then gave us food to eat. It was so much fun to work on the ship and help to hoist the sails. We also had the opportunity to share with all the sailors on the ship.
At the next town, we went to pray for the evangelical church. Then we started walking to the highway to get to the next town south. Only 11:00 in the evening we got picked up and we all squeezed into a tiny space with a dog. They dropped us off in Alcacer du Sol, the next town where God led us to a "house of mercy" where we stayed for the night and got food the next morning.
The next
morning we were back on the road to get a lift to the south.
Along the way, an ol
d man suddenly out of nowhere stopped and gave us fruit. Just before he would went, he asked us whether we can pray for him because his wife died recently. We prayed for him and as he walked
away, he repeated the words "Jesus is my savior".
God blessed us with a bus that took us all the way south to Faro. In Faro we got stuck for a day and went to the evangelical church the next mornig for their Sunday service. They received us with open arms and blessed us with enough money for food for the rest of Luke 10. From Faro we crossed the border into Spain to a town called Sevilla. We slept the night in front of the bus station on the streets next to all the street people. It was shocking to see how drugs were literally pushed in our faces and prostitution was out in the open the whole day and night. The next morning we got a bus to Madrid where we ended our Luke 10.
The time will be remembered as two parts.
The first part was a time of excitement and meeting people to share the Gospel with.
The second part was a difficult time where God tested our trust in His faithfulness and not doubting His faithfulness wether we are faithful or unfaithful.
He also tested us in our faith that we are exactly where He wants us to be even when it doesn’t feel like it in the moment.
We ask that everyone join us in prayer for all the people we met on the road that the seeds that were sown will fall on fertile ground.