Dear friends,

Our team is in Albania where they are the featured performers in the first Christian festival in a medium sized town.  This is the town where many of the believers came to the Lord through Taco concerts in recent years.

Our team has had a tiring week in Turkey preparing for this.  Last night, at the first event, almost nothing went right.  The stage was four hours late, the sound team was ill prepared and then the mixer blew.  This meant that the concert had to be cancelled.

The team had great attitudes and decided to do a spontaneous street show but it was a big disappointment for many.

On top of that, Peter on our team was told by the Turkish border guards that he had a 3 month ban because of overstaying his visa - though the reason for overstaying is that the government is so backed up on residence appointments that the appointment he made on May 15th is for September 2nd!  He will go to the Turkish consulate in Albania tomorrow to plead for mercy - and a new visa!

Would you please pray for:

     1.  Grace, unity and love in the team, despite hardships?

     2.  For Blerim, Kerri and the local organisers who have never run a festival before - they are learning there is more to it than they thought!

     3.  For God to do miracles and let effective ministry happen, even if it is in a different form than we'd expected.

Thank you for holding us up in prayer!

NLM's first show in Albania was in what is considered one the "Mecca” of Albania. The local partners told us that it is a city of 18,000 people and with only 15 known Christians.

The concert site was opposite a large mosque. A crowd of around 500 people gathered (plus a large group of people watching from the mosque across the street). Throughout the show, several fights broke out and the atmosphere was tense.

When the show finished, Ben was able to preach from the stage, calling the crowd to follow the Jesus who had come to pay the penalty for the bad things they'd done.  Aaron was able to invite those who wanted to know more about Jesus to join him off the stage. A large group came to the fire and listened to Aaron share about following Jesus.

As Aaron was sharing, an angry man started walking through the crowd yelling at all the people to stop listening to us. He was telling them that they were Muslims and that they followed Allah. It was a very tense moment and though it was clear that many wanted to listen, things soon started breaking up. This man started yelling, saying that they already know God and that He is Allah.

Then this man rallied a group of around 100 people for an impromptu Islamic rally in front of the mosque. They began chanting "allahu akbar" and other Islamic phrases, clapping and working themselves up.  Despite all this going on, the team was able to pray and talk with many people.  Over 40 people filled out surveys because they wanted to receive more information about Jesus - very significant in a town of only 15 believers! Our local church partners will pray and follow up with each one of them.

We are very thankful for God's protection and even more aware that we are in a battle for people's souls. We do not fight against flesh and blood, but powers and principalities. Please pray for the tour, that God would stir up hearts to sink him.  Pray too for protection for the band and team.

The team is in a town east of Ankara where they played music and were involved in many conversations.  There's been at least one invite for breakfast to share more!  Pray that these 'gospel chats' would bear fruit.

Thank you so much for praying! Smiles and relationships are restored in Kazakhstan and things are getting moving.  The team in Kyrgyzstan had an excellent day of rehearsal and Chris, one of the singers, has proven to be an amazing sound man!  What a blessing. Keep up the prayers! Great music is good but a clear presentation of the gospel fallling on fertile, hungry hearts is even better.

Our team member leading an outreach in Kazakhstan is having a specific difficulty today – please do pray for this. There is some disunity with the local organizer over financial issues regarding the tour. There is some anger and distrust at the moment. Would you please ask God to give a spiritual breakthrough?   UPDATE:  God has answered your prayers!!  Good relationships seem to be restored and communication is now clearer.  Thank you for praying!  Keep it up - two full weeks of attacking the enemy's kingdom only starting!