Sozo Missions Report  Summer 2003

 

I've been back in the States for a couple of days now. Time to rest, evaluate   and reflect on the last 6 weeks in Europe serving the Sozo Festival teaching and leading worship. It was intense, exhilarating, fulfilling, exhausting and ultimately - very fruitful. See photo report.

 

It's really hard to put the impact of it all into words. Of course it was a tremendous gift to be used by God to do his work, to be a blessing to others. That is fulfilling and satisfying, but that's not the highest measure of kingdom effectiveness. What are the kingdom activities we should invest our time, money and energy in?

 

Well, I saw the kingdom at work and here's what it looked like:

 

I saw lives changed.

I saw the discouraged get encouraged.

I saw people get renewed hope and vision.

I saw the wounded get prayed for.

I saw people get healed.

I saw many specific answers to specific prayer.

I saw unity and reconciliation in the body of Christ.

I saw wisdom and creativity being taught.

I saw many people from diverse cultures learning from each other.

I saw young leaders get a trained and equipped.

I saw leadership development.

I saw a dry and thirsty land get refreshed.

I saw children get enthusiastic about worshiping God.

I saw married couples taught about applying the ways of God to their marriage.

I saw musicians improve their skills.

I saw former enemies genuinely love and bless each other.

I saw forgiveness.

I saw a lot of good bands.

I met many amazing people.

             

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What I did … from June 21 to July 19 I served on the “pre-team” traveling throughout the Balkan region building relationships with leaders, ministering on the streets and in churches and sharing the Sozo vision of reconciliation among the nations. Then during the festival itself I was the Worship Director.

 Here's some highlights of our involvement in the Sozo Festival project :

 

Highlights for the festival in general:

  • 26 nations represented
  • Multi-national, multi-cultural worship – probably at the highest level ever of passion, anointing and “presence”. Words can not describe it fully. A foretaste of Revelation   7 “every nation, every tongue, every tribe “
  • Many nationals stepping up in leadership roles
  • 2 bus loads from Bulgaria
  • A group of 10 from Zadar, Croatia (we helped sponsor them)
  • Strong local church blessing and participation
  • Strong Baja and Hungarian participation – the best yet
  • Evening concerts were well attended by the local community with opportunities for evangelism and seed planting. Many of the bands were hard hitting and very evangelistic. The gospel was proclaimed to the lost.
  • God filled the gap miracleously by answering many specific prayers in times of great need. We especially saw this in the preliminary weeks.

Our Personal Highlights:

  • The whole family participated!
    • I was part of the “pre-team” which traveled   through out the Balkans four weeks before the event. During the festival itself I was the Director of Worship which meant   I led and coordinated the worship ministry for the 6 day event. I also taught 6 songwriting workshops, which culminated with our class writing a song we sang the last day of the festival.
    • Ivalene taught and led the first-ever Sozo Children's School of worship, which culminated with the children helping to lead worship on the last day – our big Sunday worship celebration.  
    • Faith helped Ivalene and cut lots and lots and lots and LOTS of tomatoes!!! She really enjoyed that, and cutting the cucumbers, bananas, and and other fruitish-veggie-like stuff. Faith also went out with the miming team   (“Storyteller”) to the city to pass out flyers. She thinks that Hungary needs air conditioning. Faith did not enjoy having a baby birds' nest in her wall. Faith would love to write more, but as it is, she thinks it is too long. ( ^^^^) written   by Faith.
    • John played drums on the pre-team and at the festival. He worked on construction and security during the festival. John developed a lot of relationships with people from all the nations.

FROM ROB:

As I reflect on the past 6 weeks serving Sozo I think it's fair to evaluate the “return on investment” of the time, money and energy that many people from all over the world invest in what God is doing through Sozo. Is it worth it? The bottom line, I feel, in terms of kingdom impact and doing something really worthwhile– this is a great investment. Especially for a place like Belmont and Nashville.

A heartfelt "Thank You" to all our supporters who are co-laborers with us in this work.

Rob Still

August 2003