CLOSURE IN FRANKENBURG
Scheduling furloughs was always a difficult matter because the work had to continue. The Poffenroths left for furlough in June of 1997, and we assumed full responsibility for the church and book store in Frankenburg. During this time, a farmer and pillar of the young church, Toni Daxl, passed away after a brief illness. We were very close and I had baptized Tony along with our daughter Becky in July, 1987. His funeral was very difficult for me.
The Poffenroths were to return in June, 1998, so we scheduled a six-month furlough from September through March, 1999. But the Poffenroth's stay was extended two months and we had only two weeks to pass the torch. Ron didn't see himself as a preacher and panicked with the prospect of carrying the load alone. I encouraged him to engage men from nearby churches and fellow missionaries. I felt that he would do just fine.
Although we were returning to Austria in March, the Poffenroths cancelled the rental contract for the store and negotiated a merger with the church in Vöcklabruck in February. I was both puzzled and disappointed by this move, but soon discovered a likely explanation. Poffenroths were planning a return to Canada in 2000.
MORE CLOSURES
The Ebners retired in May, 1998, Joe and Carol Gunther moved to Germany in June, 1999, to work with the Black Forest Academy. Poffenroths departed in 2000 and the Wiebes in May, 2001. Of the GMU missionaries in Austria, only the Harveys and Meiers were left.
Index
CHAPTER 25 - GOD MAKES NO MISTAKES!
September 11, 2001 has become known around the world simply as "9/11". I want to share how we experienced that fateful day. Before I get to 9/11, I must describe briefly what transpired in the months prior to that date.
We decided to retire from Austria in 2002 after serving 38 years. This meant that 2001 would be our final full year of ministry in Europe. I was rapidly approaching 65 and was beginning to have health issues, but there were other factors which weighed in on the decision. With the arrival of computers, word processing, graphics software, copiers and laser printers, more people were providing their own graphical needs. Bible smuggling had ceased with the demise of the Iron Curtain and Berlin Wall. Presses in Eastern Europe were able to produce Christian literature at low cost, so we closed the printing ministry when we moved to Frankenmarkt. The Bible Institute that we founded in 1984 closed as a dormitory style school in 1999. My job as Field Director for our mission required less time after several couples retired or changed fields. The national youth organization that I helped Kurt found in 1987 was flourishing. We now had a national Board and about 500 trained Austrian leaders. It was clear that the Lord had been preparing us for this step.
We were determined to make our final year of ministry very special and asked God to help us. The biggest event of 2001 was the International Leadership Camp in Slovakia. My report on that can be found in Chapter 27.
BICYCLE DAY
Each year, a 50-kilometer (30 miles) stretch of road around Attersee Lake is closed to motorists for a whole day and dedicated to bicycles. It draws up to 50,000 cyclists. Vendors set up booths and refreshment stands. Towns along the route offer band concerts and there is a general holiday atmosphere.
We had made half-hearted efforts to use this occasion evangelistically in 1998 and 2000, but decided to go all out in 2001. We had thousands of special tracts printed with a fish symbol and the words, "Attersee Biker's Day 2001" on the front. The tract explained the history and significance of the "ichtus" fish symbol and invited readers to become followers of Jesus. Matching T-shirts were printed for helpers and a hundred more to sell. We set up a stand to offer free drinks, snacks and cookies to the bikers. We had many T-shirts made and 10,000 tracts printed for distribution. A Christian bluegrass band offered to provide special music.
Bikers Day 2001 was the 16th of September, five days after those infamous terrorist attacks in America. Weather forecasters predicted a cold, rainy day similar to the 2000 event. There had been a meagre showing the previous year, so most vendors and communities cancelled their plans to entertain and feed the visitors. But we went ahead as planned and even prepared for bad weather. We set up a large tent and filled it with picnic tables where bikers could get out of the rain, enjoy free refreshments and listen to live Christian bluegrass music. Because it was cool, we also offered hot drinks to the hardy bikers who showed up. We were not dissappointed! The tent was very well visited and we kept receiving accolades from the bikers.
EVANGELISTIC MULTIMEDIA
This project had been in preparation for thirty years and was finally completed in September, 2001. Our youth group in Linz loved to sing and several of the youth were gifted musicians. They even wrote songs that were later included in published song books. Before leaving for furlough in June of 1973, we arranged for eight of the youth to come to America for a concert tour. The impressions these young Europeans gained of an America they had not known inspired me to create a slide show about little-known aspects of North America. My idea was to make it interesting, educational, a bit humorous and of course, evangelistic. During the next two decades, I gathered information and took pictures, but never felt that I had enough for a slide show.
Our experiences with the Austrian team in America motivated me to invite a musical group from Caronport Bible College in Canada, to assist us in an evangelistic outreach in Austria (Chapter 18). In 1976, we conducted about forty meetings in six weeks. The team provided great music and I drew "Chalk Talks" and preached. It was very effective and we decided to do it again someday.
That "someday" came twenty years later, in 1996. I wrote about that outreach in Chapter 24. In addition to the music and Chalk Talk evangelism, I added a slide dissolve show about German-speaking Americans, the Hutterites, Moravians and of course the Amish. The slide show was so well received, that I decided to expand and refine it to show at a later date.
Many people feared that computers would crash and throw the world into chaos on New Years Day, 2000. Nothing of the kind happened, and the new millennium ushered in an unprecedented boom in technology that became known as the "Dot Com Revolution." Advanced technology was rapidly making multimedia shows popular in theme parks and theatres across the nation and around the world. A few Christians recognized an opportunity to use this new technology evangelistically. In Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Sight & Sound's new Millennium Theatre opened, drawing more than 10,000 visitors every week, all of them hearing a clear presentation of the gospel! Visitors were fascinated with what they saw on stage, but few bothered to look behind them. At the rear of the auditorium was a large glassed room packed with the latest technology including 36 German-made Kodak Ektapro slide projectors! Not far from where we lived, an Austrian firm was manufacturing the sophisticated hard- and software to operate Kodak Ektapro multi-projection setups.
We owned a 12-inch black & white television for only three of our 38 years in Austria, but I was one of the first missionaries to have a computer. I used slide dissolve shows on furlough in our supporting churches and I used three Kindermann projectors for the 1996 campaign. For the final show I purchased four Kodak Ektapro projectors, software and the equipment needed to operate them. We bought a video projector with memorial gifts donated at my mother's funeral. I also used a special CD-player with optical line-out, a giant portable screen, special racks for the projectors, and a stereo sound system. Our multimedia show consisted of 960 slides and several video clips. Stereo sound tracks containing music, sound effects, voice and embedded commands for the projectors were prepared on a custom-built multimedia computer using "hard-disk recording" techniques. The entire show with all its components was then burned onto a CD. Using the special Sony CD-Player and optical (glass fiber) cable, the show progressed fully automatically. This was state-of-the-art technology, the cutting edge of multimedia! The popular PowerPoint shows may be simpler to use, but for quality, they can't hold a candle to such productions!
Under the title, "ONLY IN AMERICA," the following subjects were covered:
1) New York City
2) The Jersey Pinelands
3) A Nation on Wheels
4) The entertainment industry, theme parks, Hollywood show business
5) Shopping - malls, outlets, yard sales and the American auction
6) American sports - baseball, football, basketball and rodeo
7) The fragile barrier islands and Intra Coastal Waterway
8) Milking trees to get maple syrup
9) Bee farms with 5,000 and more hives - "Harvey's Honey" and bee beards
10) High tech - computers, Silicon Valley, tour of a Philadelphia TV station and an atomic reactor.
11) German-speaking Americans, the Amish, Hutterites, Brethren and Mennonites
The show was designed for the unchurched and completed in late summer, 2001. We chose the town we lived in for the grand premiere and reserved a large hall for September 27. Posters, invitations and a 38-page handout (German and English translations are posted on our website) were printed for this and many showings to follow.
The invitations were delivered to every mail box of our town on Tuesday morning, September 11th, 2001. Several hours after they were delivered, a passenger plane struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
A COINCIDENCE?
We had been in Switzerland for meetings from Saturday though Monday, September 8-10 and needed some exercise. The sun was shining at 2:30 PM (8:30 AM in New York), so we set out on our daily walk. The normal route took only 20 minutes but we decided to take a longer route of about three kilometers.
After half an hour, winds picked up and dark, ominous clouds appeared. The terrible hail storm of July 4th, 2000 was fresh in our memories. Hundreds of new cars sitting in dealer's lots were written off as total wrecks, only salvageable for parts. Nearly all standing crops were flattened and chopped to pieces. The tile roofs of a thousand homes were destroyed and it took the better part of a year for building crews to replace them all. Our son and daughter-in-law's home suffered serious damage. All the copper gutters and vinyl siding had to be replaced.
It got very dark and there was no place to take refuge, so we hurried home as fast as our legs could carry us. We reached the door of our house just as the storm broke in all its fury. Fortunately, there was no hail, but high winds and rain coming down in torrents made us thankful that we were safe.
It was shortly after 3:00 PM (9:00 AM in New York City). We were hardly inside when the telephone rang. Our neighbor across the street was on the phone.
GOOD NEIGHBORS
When we first moved to town in October, 1992, we knew no one. We wanted to make friends and hopefully win them to Christ, but how was that to happen? We made it a matter of prayer and began by introducing ourselves to neighbors. Most showed little enthusiasm about having American missionaries living next door. The older couple across the street was staunchly Roman Catholic. He served as leading presbyter in the church and she was involved in many church functions. But we discovered that we had much in common and a spontaneous friendship developed. We shared many moral convictions. The ladies liked gardening, handcrafts and cooking. We men enjoyed making things of wood and talking about current events.
The biggest surprise was the fact that they had moved into their house just one week before we arrived! They turned the farm over to their son and moved here for their retirement years. They were nervous about what kind of people might move in across the street.
A few years later, they also confided that they had hoped to make good Catholics out of us!
We decided to attend public functions and get involved in community affairs if we could do so with a clear conscience. We wanted to get acquainted with local citizens. The first such function was a band concert. Frankenmarkt was a relatively small town of only 5,000 and the eyes of nearly everyone in the hall were fixed on us. We could read the lips of people asking, "Who is that couple?" The concert began and there was some shuffling behind us as late-comers took their seats. In the next moment I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around. Our neighbors were seated just behind us! During the intermission, we chatted and enjoyed an amiable conversation. From that day on, everyone in town knew us! We were good friends of prominent citizens, both politically and spiritually!
A DEFECTIVE TV
We didn't have a television. Our neighbor friends had one but they seldom watched it other than the news. We spent New Years Eve 2000 with them, talking about spiritual things and sharing wishes for the New Year. Near midnight, he turned on the television to watch festivities in Vienna, but turned it off again in disgust after seeing all the drinking and listening to announcers tell shady jokes. We welcomed the new year by praying for each other!
In early September, 2001, their television quit working and it was taken to a repair shop. On September 11, at 3:00 PM (9:00 AM in NYC), the repairman showed up with the repaired TV. Our retired farmer friend, who seldom watched TV, and never, ever, during the day, turned it on to make sure it worked.
Seconds later, we arrived back at the house; the storm broke; and our telephone rang.
SHOCKING NEWS
It was our neighbor, “A plane just flew into a sky scraper in New York City and they are showing it on TV. Do you want to come over and watch?“ We grabbed an umbrella and made a dash for their side porch, trying not to get wet.
At that time, reporters still thought it was a tragic accident and were not even certain about the size of the plane. But for the next three hours we watched in horror as another passenger plane crashed into the second tower, and we continued watching as both towers of the World Trade Center collapsed in a cloud of dust and smoke. We found it difficult to believe that this was actually happening and not just a bad dream. Our eyes were filled with tears long before the news broke of a third hijacked plane hitting the Pentagon and a fourth crashing in western Pennsylvania. It seemed like a modern day reenactment of the first chapter of Job.
Eight years earlier, Richard and I had flown to New York for Becky's wedding and we had to wait a long time at the airport before we were allowed to disembark. President Clinton had arrived just before we landed. He was there to inspect damage after terrorists detonated a truck bomb intended to bring down the twin towers of the World Trade Center! Only seven persons were killed, but thousands were injured in 1993. Now, eight years later, we were thousands of miles from New York City, yet eyewitnesses of 9/11!
My thoughts kept returning to our upcoming multimedia show. The twin towers of the World Trade Center were depicted prominently on color posters, on our website and on the cover of the 38-page booklet that each guest was to receive. A coincidence? Hardly!
Needless to say, we were in a dilemma. Should we cancel the event? Everyone would understand if we did. If we went ahead with the show, people might ask if we had no respect for the victims. On the other hand, we could expect capacity crowds. God obviously had a hand in all this, but what was he telling us?
After much prayer and thought, I decided to change the section on NYC. I inserted pictures of the terrorist attack with the burning towers and then paused the show for ten seconds of silence. It seemed like an hour! The response was dramatic, both at the premiere showing and in at least 50 other presentations throughout Austria. Halls were usually filled, many were counseled and a good number gave their lives to Christ.
WITH GOD, THERE ARE NO ACCIDENTS!
When we first arrived in Austria in 1964, we soon became aware of the fact, that we were surrounded by people who needed the Lord. Everyone who crossed our path was sent by God. We purposely shopped locally. Our neighbors and people we met were not accidents! If God cared for the sparrows and knew how many hairs are on our head, he would be more concerned for the salvation of these people than we were.
September 11, 2001 was just one more confirmation of this fact.
Index
CHAPTER 26 - EASTERN MISSIONS
THE "UNVEILING"
For decades, the so-called "Iron Curtain" divided Europe perpendicularly, right down the middle of the continent. Great nations were divided and the "cold war" between East and West threatened to escalate at any given moment into a third global war. The stockpiles of conventional weaponry were sufficient to annihilate the entire world population. Nuclear arsenals on both sides of the Atlantic provided potential for multiple "overkills."
Christianity continued to exist in Eastern Europe during the cold war period of history. Some churches went underground to avoid persecution and others complied to certain governmental restrictions and controls in order to continue operating legally. Christians were divided about which was right, but God used and blessed Christians in both camps. In Albania, religion was completely outlawed. Today, Americans could take lessons from Christians of Eastern Europe, because the church in this nation is rapidly heading toward persecution.
My first experience with Eastern Europeans was the refugee couple that escaped from Eastern Germany in 1966 (chapter 9). During language study, a young Russian was studying German with us, who tried hard to buddy up to us in hopes of gaining information that might help him advance. Vienna was the spy capital of the world and we had to be very cautious. One of my brothers was stationed at a satellite tracking station on Ascension Island. Verna's brother worked at NASA in Washington, DC, developing satellite photos of the earth. If that young man had known this, he might have tried harder, but he left us alone after we tried to share the gospel with him.
In 1972, a man speaking broken English called the Baptist Church in Linz and asked for someone to help him. He was relieved to discover that I was an American missionary. The caller was a Dutch businessman who had been involved in a bad accident on the Autobahn. The man explained that he was on a business trip to Rumania and had Rumanian Bibles hidden in his vehicle. Could I please get the Bibles from his wrecked car and store them until he was released from the hospital and could pick them up?
This Christian businessman was not affiliated with any mission and had made several successful trips into the East with Bibles and Christian literature. He was typical of many whose names and unheralded deeds are only recorded in heaven.
Most church leaders in the East showed a deep appreciation for the prayers of Christians in the West. They were particularly thankful for Bible teachers who traveled to their countries, providing the only available Bible training for church leaders. They were also aware that Westerners risked imprisonment, smuggling Bibles into the East.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN
In 1974, a young migrant laborer from Yugoslavia began to attend our church. He was a fine Christian and his father was a Yugoslavian Pastor. One day, he received a large package from home. It had been sent to our address because it would likely have been stolen if sent to where he lived. When he opened it, I noticed that the box was full of Bibles in Eastern European languages. I questioned him, and he explained that they were for truck drivers, who passed through Austria.
I asked how his father in Yugoslavia had obtained Bibles in Bulgarian, Rumanian, Russian and Hungarian languages! He explained that a large truck left a load of Bibles at their church, with instructions to transport them into the countries marked on the boxes. Yugoslavia had open borders to the West, but it was practically impossible to get the Bibles from Yugoslavia into other countries of Eastern Europe. So the Bibles were simply taking up much needed space in their church.
I then recalled seeing a photo in the magazine of an Eastern Europe mission. It was the picture of a smiling missionary pointing to Christians in Eastern Europe, unloading a shipment of Bibles. Here was the visible proof of their arrival behind the Iron Curtain!
"BIG BUSINESS"
In the post-war years, a number of "Eastern Missions" were founded. The adventurous spirit of "Bible smugglers" won the hearts (and pocketbooks) of many western Christians. Some "Eastern Missions" were collecting millions of dollars annually, yet refused to give clear information about where all that money was going. Mission leaders claimed that the success of their operations was dependent upon absolute secrecy. Ironically, those same organizations also spent millions of Dollars for public relations, including full-page color advertisements in magazines. For a donation of $25 or more, they offered books, calendars or videos and put you on their mailing list.
The gospel that some so-called Eastern Missions seemed to be propagating was, "Without money, we can do nothing!" Leaders of two such mission organizations openly accused each other of unethical financial policies. They even took each other to court, but eventually withdrew accusations when it became apparent that both missions stood to lose more than they could ever hope to gain.
Our mission print shop was often called upon to print literature in Eastern European languages. If the typesetting and proofreading was finished, I usually complied. In 1982, a GMU missionary on deputation was approached by the leader of an Eastern mission. The gentleman had heard about our print shop and asked if we would be willing to do printing for them.
He explained that a mission with offices in Vienna had been doing their printing, but it seemed very expensive. The GMU missionary sent me a sample copy of a Bulgarian brochure and asked me to respond. Imagine my surprise to recognize my own printing! I had printed 10,000 copies for an Eastern Mission in Vienna with no idea that the job was for another mission. The second mission paid three times what I had charged! I would not be surprised, if both missions reported the 10,000 brochures in the number of "Bibles and Pieces of Literature distributed."
Although refugee camps in Austria were overflowing with Eastern Europeans, missionaries from Eastern missions seldom bothered to visit these places. Several times, I asked the leader of one mission if they could send workers or at least literature to help reach these people for Christ. The refugees had plenty of time to read, and were open to the gospel. I was upset by the mission's response: "We must give priority to getting Bibles behind the Iron Curtain. We don't have enough workers or materials for the refugee camps."
CURTAINS FOR THE CURTAIN!
Sometime in the eighties, Austria and Hungary decided that it would be a great idea to collectively sponsor the Summer Olympics. The political scene in Hungary was changing rapidly and the two countries decided that the Iron Curtain had to go. In the autumn of 1989, Hungarians began to remove mine fields and roll up the barbed wire along the borders that led to the West. Not to be outdone, Czechoslovakian authorities followed suit. Although the Olympic idea never materialized, these actions set off a domino effect. Soon thousands of Eastern Europeans were taking advantage of the open borders to escape to the West. It was too late to close the leak, so one after another, Eastern nations deserted Communism and chose democratic or western-styled socialistic governments. In some places, like Rumania, there was bloodshed, but overall, the transformation was relatively peaceful. Pieces of the Berlin Wall were being sold as souvenirs to tourists.
At that time, there were at least a hundred missionaries in Vienna alone who worked with Eastern Europe mission societies. One might think that the demise of the Iron Curtain would have caused a mass eastward movement of missionaries, but this didn't happen. Although these missions had been calling on supporters to pray for the freedom of Eastern Europe, they were totally unprepared to act when those prayers were answered. Few of the missionaries spoke an Eastern European language. Most worked in well equipped, modern offices, preparing public relations materials. They had comfortable homes and their children were in English language schools. Even after East Germans began to stream through open borders into the West, little was done to take advantage of the new opportunities to share the gospel. Film crews and photographers were sent to document anything of value for making public appeals, but little else happened.
The leader of one evangelical denomination in Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) told me that their churches were visited by numerous "Fact-Finding Commissions" in 1990. Many photos were taken and articles printed in mission publications about "the new open doors in the East." This church leader said that the only result that his churches had experienced, was the loss of several qualified workers. They were hired by what he called "Western Missions" (perhaps a more appropriate term!) as "Regional Secretaries." The salaries paid were usually under $200 per month, but that was well above what most Czechs earned. These "Regional Representatives" were often outfitted with a car, computer and photographic equipment, important prerequisites for collecting useful public relations material.
Albania was one of the last Communist strongholds to fall. The Pastor of a small group of newly converted Christians in Tirana, had to contend with dozens of Westerners in most services. They insisted upon videotaping and photographing every aspect of "the Albanian revival," even during the sermon and prayers.
WHAT A DIFFERENCE IN NEW TESTAMENT TIMES
Acts 16 tells of a woman who followed Paul around, calling out, "These are servants of the most high God who preach the way of salvation!" Paul put a stop to such "free public relations.“ Paul knew the power of pen and ink. He wrote many epistles, but his writings were not appeals for money. In II Corinthians 8, he encouraged the Corinthians to give generously, but not to him. II Cor. 2:17 reads: "Unlike so many, we do not peddle the Word of God for profit (money). On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God." The third chapter begins: "Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you?" (I Cor.3:1) Paul then answers his own question in verses 5-6. "Not that we are competent to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant - not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."
If Paul had been living in Europe in 1990, he might have written: "Are we starting to toot our own horn again? Do we need public relations materials, photos and eyewitness reports like other missions? We are not eager to claim credit for our mission organization. God has equipped us with the Holy Spirit and entrusted us with the task of preaching the gospel. Public relations propaganda kills, but the working of the Holy Spirit gives life!"
THE OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME!
Nowhere in the world, was there a fortune teller, prophet or astrologer who predicted the dramatic changes which came over Europe at the end of the eighties. Still, the Moonies, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Hari Krishna and other religious sects reacted spontaneously. These groups had plenty of money and manpower at their immediate disposal. Like dried up sponges, Eastern Europeans began to soak up anything that even appeared to be religious. Unfortunately, evangelical Christians were slow to respond with more than token aid and empty promises.
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