International Newsletter March 2009
Dear Friends,
Sami, who has his own pop music TV program in Saudi Arabia, picked us up at the airport and took us to our hotel at around 4:00 am. We had heard rumors that I was blacklisted but I was able to clear customs without any problem. Thank you for your prayers about this! Download pdf
Jodi remained in New Zealand because our retreat in the Middle East was cancelled at the last minute. Despite this very discouraging news we felt that I should still go. Filip, who is a Steiger church planter in Poland and Andi, a university student from Germany, were there to meet me.
God did amazing things while we were there despite all the opposition we faced while preparing for this trip. I was able to meet with one of the most powerful men in the music industry in this part of the world. When I saw him, he was putting on a James Blunt concert that weekend and opening a new music station that was banned during the Syrian occupation.
Normally to see him you have to make an appointment three months ahead and maybe he would give you five minutes, if you were lucky. We were able to spend more than an hour with him. He told me that if we come in August, he would give us free TV and radio promotion and would help us in anyway that he could.
We also met with someone who works with the Hezbollah, Gulf Arabs and Druze. He told me that the young people from these groups would definitely come to our evangelistic concerts if we would perform in “neutral” venues in the center of the city, where they could come anonymously.
We also had other meetings with key people and leaders in the city who are very interested in being involved with us in August, including a possible concert in the main square of a major university.
So now we are putting together a plan to come in early August. Please pray, as this is such a volatile part of the world and we need God to hold it together. There is no way we can do this without an army of prayer partners behind us.
So thank you for your prayers during this trip. It really sustained me and we are seeing God move.
David & Jodi Pierce
Steiger International
Prayer requests:
1. Pray for our new weekly evangelistic outreach to the Minneapolis music scene in the United States.
2. Pray for preparations and sponsors for the No Longer Music evangelistic tours in August. We will be able to present Jesus to thousands who have never heard in Lebanon, Northern Iraq, Croatia, Finland and one possible one show in Istanbul, Turkey.
3. Pray for the NLM tour in August, we need (in US dollars): $50,000 to cover flights, local transportation and shipping. $25,000 to cover evangelistic concerts in the Middle East (Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq) $25,000 to cover emergency/contingency costs. Pray that our local organizers in Croatia and Finland are able to raise the support for the NLM tours there.
4. Pray for the Association of Evangelistic Artists that we are starting. The purpose of this association is to equip and challenge radical evangelistic church planting teams using art and media to proclaim the love of Jesus.
5. Pray for God’s continued financial provision. We need more people that will help us financially on a monthly basis. If you want more information about this, see our partnership program on www.steiger.org.
6. Pray for courage for our Steiger teams; that they can be bold in proclaiming Jesus in some tough places.
7. Pray that we will draw our strength and wisdom from God and not ourselves.