Last Saturday was Swedish-Finnish Day at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia. This year, they are celebrating the Swedish and Finnish settlers landing here 375 years ago and founding the colony of New Sweden, which is now Wilmington, Delaware. (King Carl and Queen Silvia were even here a few weeks ago for the celebration!!)A replica of the Kalmar Nyclel ship (kalmarnyckel.org) was there; that’s the ship the first Swedes and Finns came to the New World on. Personally, I wouldn’t have wanted to be one of them!! 24 crew members and 125 passengers – that means standing room only on the top deck for the 4 month trip!! SOOOOOOO glad for planes!!!! Besides the ship, there were lots of Swedish & Finnish merchants plus Swedish and Finnish music! A national Finnish group, a woman who studied opera in Stockholm and had ancestors that came over on the Karmar Nyckel, and a group imitating ABBA! What fun!! The only thing missing was some good Swedish fika!! I don’t know how that detail could have escaped the creators of the day, but…. it did!! Here’s some of our pictures!!
Swedish-Finnish Day in Philly!!
A Royal Wedding!!
Today was a happy occasion in Sweden. Princess Madeleine married her Prince Charming!!! Below, you can see some pictures of the happy event!!
Hope you enjoy them!!
Equipping Swedes to Plant Churches
The brief video here (http://youtu.be/3O8mnmR8WCw) demonstrates what we and our sending agency believe about equipping nationals (i.e. Swedes) for church planting. Here’s the best way to sum up our ministry…“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up…” (Ephesians 4:11-12)
Gwen and I recently spoke with a Swedish friend from the house church we started and he said he’s seeing a great hunger for Christ among northern Swedes that he’s not seen before. However, without enough trained leaders and house churches, there’s no way that this spiritual hunger can be can be satisfied with the Gospel. Less than 1% of the Swedish population are evangelical Christians…and they just can’t do it alone! In the Swedish town where we live, we are the only long-term missionaries (i.e. “equippers”) within a 50 mile radius?!?!
When we returned to the States in December, we needed to raise an additional $4,000/month so we could return to Sweden. We’ve talked to numerous churches, groups and individuals and we’ve been humbled that God has already released 25% of what we need. Our deepest desire is to return to Sweden by mid-August (the beginning of our girls’ school year) to be a part of what God’s doing in Sweden! Will you seriously consider being a financial partner with us to equip Swedes for church planting? Please go to www.uwm.org, click on “Give” and then let us know so we can send you our thanks. Blessings to you!
Back home
We are now back “home” in Pennsylvania! After traveling for 6 weeks, we’re happy to be out of the car for a while!! We had wonderful visits with family, supporters, and friends. And had lots of new experiences!! We’re especially thankful to have had several good days with Tony’s dad. He was doing really well while we were there, but is now not doing so well again. As you think of it, please keep him and Tony’s sister (Dad’s care giver) in prayer. Thanks!
Now, we’re finishing up our home-school year and continuing with raising our financial support to hopefully be able to return to our ministry in Luleå, Sweden in mid-August. Please contact us if you’d like to get together and hear how God is working in Sweden! We may be contacting you also!
Here are some photos of our road trip!
Thankful for God’s protection!
Monday, while Jiana and I (Gwen) were going to Wal-Mart, our car broke down. We were in the Wal-Mart parking lot turning right to find a packing space and the car just stopped dead in its tracks! It just simply would not go! It was really strange because it was running fine, just wouldn’t go. I got out to look at the car and saw that both of the front tires were pointing to the center of the car!! Of course it won’t drive like that!!! It turned out that something in the steering column broke plus the inner tie rods. When the mechanic saw it, he told Tony we were “lucky” that we weren’t driving on the highway or it would have caused a major accident. I can easily imagine Jiana and I could have been killed. We know there was nothing “lucky” about it!!! Instead, God had it all under His control and didn’t allow it to happen until we were in a parking lot and had 
already come to a full stop!! And we were in a place in the parking lot where we didn’t block any cars in their parking spaces and all cars and shopping carts could still flow around us!!! We are so very grateful for God’s protective hand in our lives!! Thank you, Jesus!!!!
We’ve had a great time in Florida, visiting Tony’s aunt and seeing the sights! Now we travel on to Alabama and then Texas by the end of the week to visit Tony’s dad and the rest of his family!
On the road again!
Well, we are about to begin our trip!! Super excited!!! That is after the packing is done!! LOL! Looking forward to all of our visits with family and friends!! Tony leaves for the Center of Intercultural Training where he’ll be doing a school on church planting. Then the girls and I will join him later in the week and begin our travels!
Please keep us in prayer for safety on the road for the next 4-6 weeks, Gwen and the girls as we continue home schooling on the road, and also for Tony’s dad to stay as healthy as he can so we can have a good visit with him. Pray for fruitful visits as we go and for the opportunity to meet and share with new people who will be interested in our mission in Sweden.
As always now, raising our financial support is very much on our minds and in our prayers. Please keep praying that our support increases and we’re able to return by the new school year for the girls in mid-August. Thanks!
Follow-up on Tony’s Dad
Thanks to all of you who prayed for Tony’s Dad. Dad was actually released from the hospital the same day he went in. He had some kind of nasty stomach bug and needed to be re-hydrated. I’ve talked with him several times since he’s been home and he’s re-gaining strength and seems okay, although he’s sometimes confused.
He has decided to go on hospice for his emphysema, which means he will continue with his breathing meds to make him comfortable, but he won’t receive any extraordinary treatments for the disease. As of now, we’re planning a long trip to see family and supporters from late March into April where we’ll drive south to Florida, west to Texas, north to Missouri, east to Ohio and eventually back to Pennsylvania, We’ll get to visit Dad in Fort Worth, TX sometime in April. Of course if his condition worsens, we’ll go there sooner. Please pray for Dad’s comfort and wisdom for us as we plan this trip.
If we’ll be passing you on this trip, let us know…we would love to see you and share about our ministry! We are forever humbled and grateful to those who love us and are part of our ministry!
Urgent-Pray for Tony’s Dad
Tony just received a call from his sister, who leaves very close to Dad in Texas (we live very far away in Pennsylvania). They had to take Dad to the hospital early this morning and found that he has a very serious infection and is very near death. Please pray that either God will heal his dad or that He will give the doctors the wisdom to quickly find the source of the infection and treat it successfully. We have not been able to get down to see him yet and were hoping to do that in March or April. Thanks for your prayers.
We just wanted to take a minute to wish you all a Blessed Christmas this year. We are so very thankful that we can celebrate Jesus’ birthday! “The Lord himself will give you a miraculous sign. The virgin is going to have a baby. She will give birth to a son. And he will be called Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14) “All of this took place to bring about what the Lord had said would happen. He had said through the prophet, ‘‘The virgin is going to have a baby. She will give birth to a son. And he will be called Immanuel.’ The name Immanuel means “God with us.” Matthew 1:23-24 God is definitely with us each and every day, whether it’s a good day or a not so good day. And we are so very thankful for that!!! We hope that as you celebrate Christmas, you will also experience “God with us” in your own life!! Here’s a video from our Christmas Caroling Sunday night. This is not something that we do in Sweden, so it was really wonderful to be a part of it this year in the States!
CAR NEEDED
We have an urgent request to make. Our family is in need of a vehicle (car or mini-van) to use during the time we’ll be in the States raising financial support. We’ll need the vehicle for about 6-12 months to visit and thank current partners, to meet potential partners and to share about our ministry in Sweden. If you can help us (or if you know someone who can), please email us (tagmartin@yahoo.com) as soon as you can. We apologize for the last minute request – we thought we had a mini-van that we could use, but we just found out that is no longer available. We’ve seen God do incredible things in our lives recently, and we’re looking forward to see how God will surprise us with His answer to this request.
We have our flights booked and we arrive in the States on December 8! We are so excited! We don’t have cell phone numbers yet, but you can always contact us via email (tagmartin@yahoo.com).
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