Dear Mission Partners,
The last few days have been a whirlwind. Much has happened with a couple things I’ve never seen before.
At the moment I am stranded, together with several other CfaN team members along with Eddie James and his team, in Lagos, Nigeria. Our crusade this week is in the city of Warri, but an extraordinary dust storm has reduced visibility to almost nothing and major airlines ceased operation until further notice. Most of our team has been traveling for several days having been diverted to various African and Middle Eastern nations. Some flights even returned home! Our team has been relentless, refusing to go home. We have pressed forward, one flight at a time, sleeping on the floor in airports, standing in lines for flights only for them to be cancelled. Finally, when all else failed, we flew with small local operators in terrible conditions, putting our own safety at risk to be here. Most of our team has been traveling for three or four days straight! We had hoped to make it, by some miracle, before the first night of the crusade started. But that was tonight and we are still in Lagos.
The bad news is that we missed the first meeting. Amazingly, however, more than 70,000 people turned up on the first night! I preached the Gospel on the huge screens by way of video! When we were raising funds for those screens, I never imagined they would eventually play such a vital role. Tomorrow we will press on to Warri and, God willing, be present for the meeting tomorrow in person.
Also, another first: Saturday I was in Brazil for The Send. I know that many of you know about this. It has been very visible on social media the last few days. For those that might not be aware, The Send is a collaboration, led by seven ministries of which CfaN is one. When we first decided to go to Brazil, we rented the largest stadium in Sau Paulo (Morumbi Stadium which seats 70,000 people). When registrations opened, it sold out in 6 hours, beating the stadiums previous record for sell-out time! We decided to rent the second largest stadium in the same city. It sold out in three days. We took the leap of faith to rent a third stadium in Brasilia – the capital. On February 8th I preached in three stadiums in two cities within 8 hours – something I have never done before! While driving to the second stadium, the Lord gave me the words of Amos 9:13:
“’Behold, the days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it.’”
These are the days of harvest. What we have seen so far is only the beginning. The days are coming when we will look back on what God did in the past and realize that it pales in comparison. I believe it with all my heart – the best is yet to come!
Thank you for praying for us and standing with us. Please continue as we press forward in Jesus’ name!
Yours in the Gospel,
Evangelist Daniel Kolenda
Together with the whole CfaN team
