Forrest & Kristina

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MINISTRY FOCUS

Greater Europe Mission
Discipleship/multiplication in Stockholm Sweden

FRUITS OF OUR LABOR

Kristina and I have served in Greater Europe Mission for 37 years. We have lived in Sweden and Latvia and have also traveled to minister in Greenland and all the way to the Greek Island of Lesvos. I have even taught 4 years full time at a Bible School thinking that I would one day be a Bible teacher. But each work that we have been involved with has always led us back to discipleship/multiplication (evangelism). We have been involved in a number of church plants. We have been called camp leaders and and youth leaders but everything we have done has always led to more discipleship/multiplication. From working an Inuit youth camp in Greenland to helping at refugee camps in Tunisia and Lesvos (Greece), it always goes back to sharing the Good News with the people we meet and starting discipleship groups with as many of them that we can gather.

Perhaps the most exciting thing we have done recently has been doing discipleship/multiplication (evangelism) in several neighborhoods where we are living in Stockholm. We live in a neighborhood full of immigrants. From this work we have seen a number of young refugees from the Middle East begin to follow Jesus. Some of these young men we know are continuing in discipleship and some are not. Last year one of them told me that in his struggles to find a new country to call home in Europe he has traveled a lot and met many refugees like himself. He told me that he has had opportunities to tell around 300 of them about Jesus. When I heard this my heart was filled with joy. As a missionary I knew that I had done my job.

Kristina and I are now working in the city of Malmo. Malmo is the third largest city in Sweden and has a population estimated at around 350,000 with a little more than half of the population born outside of Sweden or at least one of their parents. This culturally diverse city opens the door to discipleship/multiplication. The vision of Greater Europe Mission is God expanding His kingdom through the peoples of Europe to the world. We want to be a part of what God is doing in the city of Malmo through evangelism and church planting.

PRAYER REQUEST

To find “People of Peace” in each of the 10 communities that we are prayer walking in right now.

That we might be able to help start three Bible Studies or discussion groups going among non-Christians in at least three of these 10 communities.

Safety, protection and health for our family as we serve the Lord in Sweden.

Call to Christ

Forrest: I became a Christian at the age of 16. It all started with my sister telling me one day that she had started to follow Jesus. I first thought that this was not going to end well for her. I really had no idea what following Jesus really meant. I started to observe her life and saw that she was changing in a positive way. Something had really happened in her life and now I was curious. She invited me to a youth meeting to hear about Jesus. I first said no, but later went with her to listen. That night I heard about who Jesus was, and that He could and would change my life if I began to follow Him. Now I was interested and a few months later after hearing this same message again, I also began to follow Jesus. Just as He changed my sister’s life He began to change my life too. Many years have come and gone and that change keeps going on…

Kristina: Kristina grew up in a Christian home where she heard about Jesus through parents and Sunday school. At the age of around seven she understood that Jesus’ death and resurrection was also for her and put her faith in Him. As a teenager everything was questioned, not outwardly but in her heart, and after that she decided to follow Jesus!

Call to Missions

Forrest: As a young Christian growing up in Florida I was discipled by a man that was a true evangelist. He led me in Bible study and also taught me how to tell others about Jesus. At first I saw my high school as a mission field and then the college that I attended. I never really considered that I could use my gift of telling others about Jesus outside America. That’s when I met a young lady from Sweden. Kristina had become a Christian when she was young and had grown up in a Christian family. We married in Sweden and as I lived and worked there I realized first that there was a need outside my own country for people to hear about Jesus and secondly I learned that I could have a part to play in what Jesus was doing both in Sweden and in Europe in general. Kristina and I realized that God was calling us to assist Him in the harvest. We set out to get the training we needed and then joined Greater Europe Mission. Our call to missions has allowed us to labor both in Sweden and in Latvia.

Kristina: Kristina’s call to missions has been ongoing since childhood. Little did she realize that it would happen mostly in her home country. Eleven years were spent in Latvia after the wall came down and the Soviet Union fell apart, and that’s when she jokingly claimed, “Now I am finally a real missionary!”