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| Grace World Mission The Praise Report Winter-Spring
2007 |
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here to support |
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Dunluce
Castle on the Causeway Coast of Northern Ireland, just a bit north of Belfast. It is said to be the inspiration for Cair Paravel in C.S. Lewis's the Chronicles of Narnia. |
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| Watch
our new videos of our mission trips:
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| We
recently returned from a two-month mission trip to Europe , the world’s
now least evangelized continent where only 3% of the population are believers
in Christ. The Lord did many awesome things as we ministered in Northern
Ireland, France and Romania. We had around 17 people come to Christ, as well as experiencing many divine appointments and regular outpourings of the Holy Spirit. |
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| Ministry
in Ireland |
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| We
hadn’t originally planned to go to Ireland but the Lord orchestrated
the events: A friend who was involved in a mission endeavor there invited
us to visit him if we came through the area. When we couldn’t find
a decent flight into Europe our friend Mel Tari suggested that we check
Aer Lingus. We found a great deal with them and ended up going through
Ireland on our way into Europe which led to us visiting and ministering
with our friends there. We had a blessed time at their house meeting, where the Holy Spirit was poured out powerfully, especially on the young people. Two teenage girls were touched and filled with God’s power in a dramatic way, along with the other kids, as well as others who were also ministered to as the Spirit of God moved late into the night at the meeting we held. |
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Left:
Ministering in Belfast. As the kids were praying for each other late into
the night, Patrick prays for a friend who was touched by God's presence.
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| Ministry in France | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| At
our camp/seminar in Tours, France with the Eglise de la Renaissance (Renaissance
Church) we truly had an awesome time. The Lord’s presence moved
with anointing as we taught in the mornings and then prayed for the young
people to be equipped and empowered. Then in the afternoons we went out
as a team into the city center, witnessing and passing out tracts and
giving invitations to the evening outreach meetings where we preached
the Gospel. We also sang and worshiped in the town center claiming the
city of Tours for the Lord. We also did outreach at an open-air market in a Muslim area right in front of an Islamic bookseller with people in full Muslim dress walking all around us. You could definitely feel the warfare in the air. Amazingly enough, in spite of the tough spiritual conditions in France, which is one of the most resistant countries in a resistant continent already, we had some very positive, powerful, and miraculous responses, encounters, and happenings. We had quite a number of people from the streets who responded positively and who came to the evening meeting, some came every night to every meeting we did! This truly was miraculous, especially in a place like France. One young lady in particular named Celine from Belgium was on a spiritual pilgrimage to Spain. We met her on the street and she came to the evening meeting and received Christ. She then asked to stay with the youth group at the church and joined the team the next day passing out tracts and invitations on the street with us! She delayed her journey and stayed with us three days, coming to every meeting and joining in the praising, dancing, and worship as God poured out His Spirit. She said her life would never be the same!!! Another man who came from the street received Christ; he then asked for prayer and was filled powerfully with the Holy Spirit and was even slain in the Spirit as God filled this new believer with His love and power!!! Around nine people made decisions for Christ as we reached out, which for France is quite "grande" (huge!). |
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| Left:
In front of the Church of Saint Martin of Tours, who always encouraged evangelism. Above: Mercedes and Patrick standing with Celine who received Christ and then helped on the streets with evangelism, and Leticia the pastors daughter, in an Islamic district of Tours. Right: Reaching out with the Gospel on the walking streets of Tours, France. |
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France
is one of the toughest spiritual places around! It is a country filled
with intellectual skepticism and much antichristian sentiment. Thus, the
responses we received and the number of people who came to Christ, as
well as the way the Holy Spirit was poured out, is due to nothing less
than the miraculous outstretched hand of God in all that we did; it truly
was a fruitful time. God ministered in power in the seminar too. The young participants were spiritually hungry and enthusiastic, which was a refreshing thing. We had wonderful times of teaching, ministry, worship and impartation, as the Holy Spirit was poured out with great anointing and fire, empowering these young people radically for the call to serve and reach out with the Gospel. The first day of teaching we later found out was actually a mirror of a message they had just received with God giving great confirmation to the Word we brought. It was also a blessed time of koinonia fellowship. Seeing such joy and enthusiasm for the Lord, combined with such boldness to share His message, encouraged us as we saw the hearts of these young people. We were told by some of the leaders of the clear change they saw in some of them by their attendance at the seminar. Some who would never participate before were now being very bold, involved and passionate for the Lord. The final meeting held at the Eglise de la Renaissance's Sunday service, after the week-long seminar, outreach and evening Gospel meetings, was very climactic as the anointing of God fell in great power and many were touched, impacted, and lit up with the fire of God for the purposes of His Kingdom, Glory! Here are a few words from the pastor in Tours, France, Jean-François, about all the blessing that came through the camp we did: “We just had a marvelous week of outreach with Bryan and Mercedes Marleaux: Many people accepted the Lord and some of them are Arabic people, which rejoices us a lot as we have been praying for the Muslim world during the season of Ramadan!” [Some spiritual warfare of course followed the awesome things God did at the camp, people getting saved and filled always angers the darkness: four policemen showed up to hassle them about minor zoning issues at their church right after the camp.] “The city hall leaders are all involved with the freemasonry and they are using the force to intimidate us! But let us continue to pray and praise our God almighty!” (Jean-François, Foursquare Church, France) Nathanael, who was at the camp also shares: “Sometimes you can have your own doubts… but as we reached out we saw that God is truly moving amongst us… It truly touched and changed us.” There were also testimonies of other people who were impacted by the outreach: One man who was suicidal found one of the tracts being passed out and found his way to the outreach. After reading it, he received the Lord and is now attending the Church regularly. Another older man from the neighborhood came and testified: “I am so different now. I don’t drink anymore. I am full of joy.” |
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Left:
Bryan doing some worship with the youth group at the camp in Tours, France Middle: The Holy Spirit empowers and equips the youth for the work of evangelism before going out on the streets to evangelize. Right: Bryan preaching at one of the evening evangelistic meetings in Tours while Pastor Jean-François interprets. |
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| Divine Appointments in Europe | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| We
had some other powerful divine appointments with some surfers while in
the coastal area of France after the camp/seminar in Tours. One was with a couple who were on their honeymoon. We met them in a surf shop in Hossegor, France. We were just browsing in this shop when the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart to wait there in the shop. The shop was getting ready to close and the people running it were wanting to go lunch but I knew God had something planned. Right before they were about to push us out the door as we were stalling around waiting on the Lord, this couple walked in and we immediately connected with them and spent considerable time talking with them outside. Hours later on that same day we were pulling up in a parking lot in a different town when that same couple pulled up at the exact same moment! We looked at each other in surprise. Mercedes and I knew the Lord wanted us to reach out to them. God opened up an opportunity to share and witness to them in depth for a couple of hours hanging out on the beach. We continued to run into them over the next couple of days and shared the Gospel extensively with them. It was a dramatic ongoing divine appointment where we planted many seeds. We also gave them our "Holy Ghost Surf Stories" DVD's to continue the seed planting in their lives. It is nice to now have some of our own relevant follow-up materials for situations like this. There was another man we kept running into as well: after two encounters on the coast of France we were shocked to walk straight into him on a street in Spain! We had felt led to come to Spain for a couple days and were blessed in numerous ways including this divine appointment with this Englishman and other people we witnessed to there, as well as some great surf. We knew God put this Englishman in our path after something so amazing, and shared with him and others the Good News of Christ. |
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God
has given us innovative strategies like using surfing as a bridge to reach
out to the lost and unreached Basque region of France and Spain. This
area is one of the most unreached in all of Europe. The Lord provided
numerous divine appointments with unsaved people where we were able to
reach into their lives with the Gospel. Right: Bryan gets a few nice waves on the Basque Coast. |
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We
also had a chance to spend some time sharing the Lord with a friend in
Southern France who is the surf champion of a European country. We got
to go surfing with him as well as witness and share some Holy Ghost surf
stories too. We had met him recently in California and were glad to follow
through on that interaction while over in France. We were also doing some video filming, after the camp in Tours, on a narrow little out-of-the-way street, when a person walking by began excitedly waving to us. It took us a few moments to realize it was an old friend who lives in the area. He “just happened” to walk down the narrow little street we were on. We stopped everything and spent some time fellowshipping right there. An hour later while walking through the center of the city, we ran into his wife just walking down the road. We were all blown away by how God set up two divine appointments, one right after the other, so we could have a short time to fellowship with them when our schedules caused all of us to be so busy we wouldn't have seen each other otherwise. It is exciting to see how God works in so many different situations. We had powerful divine appointments and encounters while ministering at the camp/seminar in Tours, France. The Lord also brought forth constant divine appointments while on the coast for a few days taking a “break.” He constantly, supernaturally, set up divine appointments. The Lord will continually work in and through our lives in all situations if we will just pay attention and tune into the Holy Spirit. That is the key: to listen to the Spirit's leading (Romans 8:14.) |
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| New Documentary Videos | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| We
were also blessed to be able to go to some very historic sites where important
moments in Christian History have taken place and do some filming for
our programs. In France there are numerous places with spiritual significance, like right in the city of Tours where St. Martin was converted and led many others to the Lord and spiritual renewal. Another significant place as well is the city of La Rochelle, the last holdout for the Protestant Huguenots during the time when they were being persecuted after the Reformation, where they were chased, murdered and most were annihilated for their faith and return to the Bible. We were blessed to visit and film at other important places in Germany as well, where history-changing events took place, including those from the Reformation and other noteworthy events in the history of the Christian faith. We’ll have many of these programs, filmed right on the very location where the historical events took place, available in the future on DVD, as well as available on our podcast in iTunes, as are many of our programs available now at www.graceworldmission.org/podcast_index.html |
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| Ministry in Romania | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Left:
Taking in the sights of Cluj-Napoca in the region of Transylvania, in Romania. Above: Romania has some well preserved Roman ruins as it was the easternmost outpost of the Roman Empire and has the closest language to classical Latin. Right: The old methods of transportation continue to persist here in the rural areas. |
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| During
our ministry time in Romania the Lord moved very powerfully at every meeting
during the seminar on “Walking in the Power of the Spirit”
we taught there. The church in the town of Turda, Romania is fairly new,
one of only three Foursquare churches in the whole of Romania. The Romanian
government (formerly Communist) is very restrictive regarding Christianity,
even to this day. It was a blessing to come and minister in a place that has experienced such persecution in the past, something that is still a vivid memory to many living there even now. Many of the Christians there have experienced persecution and had friends and associates who were persecuted and even killed during the days of Communism because of their faith. The people were hungry for God's power and He met that hunger in a mighty way as He poured out His Spirit with some powerful manifestations of His presence. The Holy Spirit filled and empowered all that came to the seminar really bringing to reality the teaching we were imparting. We also had a number of people that received Christ after the seminar during the church service where we preached: two men who had just recently been released from prison were amongst them, as well as some young people and others who received the Lord. Just getting there to preach, however, brought serious spiritual warfare. People getting saved as well as ministry in the power of the Spirit often brings intense spiritual opposition and this trip was no exception to that spiritual reality. Our travel to the northern part of Romania by means of various trains and planes was already rather convoluted, as it is located in a less traveled part of Eastern Europe. Not only is it separated by distance, but it is also hard to find good travel connections to get there. All this combined with the spiritual warfare we encountered meant we actually came close to not even getting there at all… We first had a piece of luggage get taken on a train. We inquired with the conductor, who said to forget it and count it gone, as lost or stolen luggage is rarely found. We pressed him however, and he made some phone calls to appease us when, to his shock, he was told that it had been found at one of the stations. The conductor was so surprised to receive this news that he went to get it himself and brought it back to us personally! |
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| Left:
Preaching and teaching at the seminar in Turda, Romania titled "Walking
in the Power of the Spirit." Middle and Right: The Holy Spirit moves in power, touching hearts deeply while praying for people during the meetings we held in Romania. |
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| We
then had some more luggage lost on the next of three airplane flights
we had to take. The Hungarian airport crew was very apathetic about the
lost luggage, and said we would need to come back to the airport and pick
it up whenever it was returned, which was a ridiculous requirement, as
we explained to them that we would be in another country. We were leaving
the following morning on another flight into Transylvania, Romania which
would make it impossible for us to come back. The luggage however was
brought to our door later that night after much prayer - Praise God! Lost
luggage can often take several days to a week to be returned, our prayers
and persistence with the airport crew had paid off! Then our passports got misplaced right before our flight the next morning, which of course led to another crisis; Satan was buffeting us at every turn. Thankfully, after furiously searching we found them fallen behind a desk. Then, to top it all off, our 45-minute flight the next morning—which we were taking to avoid a 9-hour bus ride on dangerously narrow and slippery mountain roads—into the area of Transylvania in Romania, became more and more delayed due to very thick fog at our destination. After six hours of waiting, the plane crew said we should be ready to take the bus because every flight for the last week had been canceled due to the fog. This was not good news after we had waited six hours already. We met another missionary that was on that same flight (surprise!) and while waiting on the tarmac in the plane we began to pray with him. Mercedes and I felt led to command the fog to lift, and a visit to the cockpit a little while later with Patrick gave us insight to the weather reports that were coming in. As I was standing there in the cockpit, I saw the pilot write down the numbers they needed for enough visibility to land in Romania! God was showing us our prayers were being answered before anyone else on the plane knew about the weather update. The battle wasn't over yet, as the pilot announced they would attempt to go but only had a 50/50 chance of landing and may have to turn around. We flew over and of course you couldn't see a thing on the ground. Then the plane began to descend to our relief, but then just as suddenly pulled up again to our dismay, so we redoubled our prayers. As we were commanding the plane to “Land in Jesus’ name!”, the pilot at once began to descend and we suddenly landed safely, Glory to God! Our flight was supposed to last 45 minutes and save 8 hours travel time by bus but it ended up taking us exactly 8 hours in the end, it was a very, very, very long day! But praise God we got there safely and soundly after all the battles! With all the trials we had experienced, plus our fatigue from being in Europe for quite some time already, living from place to place and ministering so much, we arrived in Romania knowing we’d be teaching, preaching, and ministering every day, sometimes twice a day while there. Exhaustion was what we were looking forward to we thought. Incredibly, we ended up leaving Romania more refreshed than when we arrived. But “those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” Being in God's presence everyday while ministering, as well as the prayers going up for us by others, made us leave Romania more refreshed and renewed than when we arrived! Hallelujah! The way God so powerfully filled and empowered His people in Romania as well as witnessing those that came to the Lord and the warm and blessed fellowship with the people in Turda and Cluj-Napoca made all the trials and battles of getting there more than well worth the effort! The battle continued to rage however, as on our way out we continued to have many attacks from the enemy, including drunk people fighting all night in a room next to ours at a hotel we stayed at while making our way slowly back to the U.S., as well as other attacks of Satan upon us as we’ve returned to the States. Your continued prayers and support are appreciated. Pastor Helmuth from Romania shares about the seminar we did: “Dear friends, I'm hoping you arrived safely back home and that you are doing well… We were so blessed by your visit. You are so wonderful, man, I really mean it. Let's stay in touch.” |
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| Remembering Harald Bredesen | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| We
had a rough landing on our return however. Just a few days after we arrived
back to the U.S., our dear friend and founding board member of our ministry,
Harald Bredesen, fell down the stairs and critically injured himself and
died a few days later. We went from being in the middle of unpacking, to spending days at the hospital, to dealing with the grief of losing a dear friend. It has been a rough transition returning to the U.S.; we’ve had more than our share of the typical “missionary re-entry shock” dealing with all that has happened so close to our return, and we’re still adjusting to the fact that we won’t be going to hang out with our dear friend anymore. |
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| Bryan with our dear friend and mentor. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Thus, moving along with things, like this newsletter for example, has taken a longer time, as well as more effort than it normally would have. Harald was one of the most uniquely used men of God in the 20th Century. He is actually known as the first “Charismatic” as he is the first mainline minister to receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit way back in 1946 yet still remain within his denomination, even though he was almost forced to leave because of his experience with the Spirit. As well as being such an important figure in the historic “Charismatic Renewal” he also mentored and helped Pat Robertson begin CBN, along with impacting and influencing many other well-known ministers and figures such as David Wilkerson, Pat Boone, Dale Evans Rogers, John Sherrill, Jack Hayford, and on and on. He has also ministered to world leaders like Anwar Sadat, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter and Menachem Begin, amongst many others. One of the great legacies yet lesser know aspects of his life, however, is what professors Bobby Clinton from Fuller Theological Seminary (where Bryan is an Alumnus) calls “Convergence,” a term Clinton coined, which includes as one of its main aspects the point when a mature and seasoned minister, that is well established and on in years, sees the importance of pouring himself into younger people as a preparation for the equipping of the next generation, an important aspect of ministry that, as Clinton points out, “few ministers ever reach nor unfortunately see the need to pursue.” We feel so blessed to be included amongst those whom Harald took the opportunity to spend time with. Over the past 14 years we have been so blessed to have had many great moments of fellowship, friendship, and discipling with such a giant in the faith, a man who was so full of experiences and treasures of the Kingdom of God! God also used him in both of our lives as neither of us ever had much of a relationship with our own earthly fathers. He was to us, as to many others, a “Father in the Spirit.” To read more about Harald go to our link at: www.graceworldmission.org/hb_tribute.html. |
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|
Harald Bredesen (1918-2006),
well-known minister, Board Member of Grace World Mission and Founding
Board Member of Christian Broadcasting Network and Teen Challenge encourages
your support of Grace World Mission: |
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| 2006
in Review |
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| 2006
was an incredible year. God blessed us in our ministry as we proclaimed
His Word and power in many different places in Mexico like Ensenada, Maneadero,
Rosarito, Tecate and Tijuana and in California in places such as Los Angeles,
San Diego, El Cajon, Ontario, Chino, Alpine, Orange, Lake Forest, Costa
Mesa as well as in new places like The Central Coast and Phoenix, Arizona.
We also did the 2 month mission trip to Europe that we shared in this
newsletter. We appreciate your ongoing prayers and financial support. We are still paying off some of our expenses from our last trip to Europe, the weakness of the dollar bit hard into our budget as we traveled. We are continuing our radio program--going on 10 years!-- regional TV and other ministries. We continually receive testimonies of those touched and blessed by all the ministry work we are doing and you can participate in these blessings by partnering with us through prayer and financial support. We appreciate it and you will be blessed as there is no greater investment than that of Kingdom work. The Scriptures put a priority on support going to those seeking to fulfill the Great Commission and thus blessing is assured to you when you partner with us in our mission endeavors. |
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| May
God richly bless you, Bryan, Mercedes, and Patrick Marleaux |
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| Don't
forget to check out our new videos of our mission trips:
France Mission Trip Windows Media Version Quicktime Version Romania/N. Ireland Mission Trip Windows Media Version Quicktime Version |
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| Your
support of our ministry is greatly appreciated. |
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