India
One of the symptoms of the terrible poverty of India is the horrible sex trade of children and young people. To protect the children and the people rescuing them, we are not at liberty to make details public. If you google the topic there is much public information.
My friends have schools for children in many parts of the nation. These schools are helping to lift children out of poverty and give them a chance to escape. They also minister to many of the children born to prostitutes and rescue these children from the streets.
Right now there is a great need to build an orphanage in an area where hundreds of Christians were massacred, churches were burned and pastors killed. As a result, over one hundred children were left complete orphans having lost parents and grandparents in the killing spree to wipe out Christians. Our friends pulled together a staff, found some buildings to rent (from some of the very people that were behind the killings) and are housing, feeding, and educating these precious children. Details cannot be publicly posted to protect the children and the workers but can be obtained by contacting us directly.
This van makes at least four trips before and after school to take care of all the kids, allowing them to learn and hear the Gospel.
We recently raised funds to buy an all-terrain van for one of the schools in an obscure location. Our friends have schools and after-school programs in many parts of the country. At this particular location, about 150 Hindu boys and girls are given an excellent education and provided a nutritious, hot meal daily. Without this school they would receive neither. They are also learning about the love of Jesus and experiencing His healing power. The only way the children can get to school is by walking, as there are no cars or vehicles in the villages. There were at least 50 other children that couldn’t go to school because of the distance. Now they can go to school and safely travel during monsoon season, when the "roads" are un-passable without such a special vehicle. The van makes at least four trips before and after school to take care of all the kids. We needed only $20,000 for this project. We will share other important projects in different areas of India. One of the projects coming up is a medical clinic that will be built where poor villagers have no access to getting health care.
America
When home in America, besides the normal traveling and preaching, we have many meetings a week for prayer for the sick, prayer counseling, and mentoring. We also host young people from Austria, short and long term, who come for training, healing and r&r.
Thanks to the wonderful ministry of Center For Champions, we have been able to have much ministry with families in the inner city, including the training of up and coming leaders. We have seen many healings and people’s lives restored. We are also seeing leaders being raised up who will be able to train others.
Indonesia
Thanks to my dear friend Jeffrey Fazl, a pastor from Sydney, Australia, I have had the privilege to not only meet the leaders of a great spiritual movement in Indonesia but also be a partner in helping. I have been there to travel and preach in various cities, jungles, and plantations, and to help at their anointed and effective training center. There are a number of great men and women of God who are leading this movement. Jeffrey has been a father to the fathers, and over the past 20 years has built a powerful and well trained network of leaders to spread the gospel through the land with many miracles and healings following.
Steve spending time with Indonesian students.
They have started a number of schools which are providing a first rate education to hundreds of children. Their students are testing way above the national averages. But they are out of room. Children are being turned away. At this time, for the small amount of $25,000, a huge addition can be added to the school in Pematang Siantar, North Sumatra and a second story on the existing education building. This would make room for one hundred new students. In the states this would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Austria
We love the young people of Austria! Their friendliness and generosity is amazing. We treasure our relationships with them and enjoy our many meetings and discussions.
Many people ask, "Why Austria? They don't need anything, certainly not like India or Africa."
Preaching the Gospel and sharing hope in an Austrian bar.
Our ministry is not just about helping those with physical needs, but also those with spiritual needs. The youth of Austria have been the recipients of the result of the emotional and psychological trauma of two world wars fought in their land and the subsequent death of tens of thousands of grandfathers and great grandfathers, as well as the history of an oppressive state religious system. This all has served many young people with a negative experience regarding their understanding of God and spiritual matters. They are very hungry for and open to spiritual things even though their previous experiences with Christianity is against them. Our desire is to model the love and reality of Jesus while we are with them, answer their many questions, and get to understand their hearts and thinking.
We also have had more formal gatherings such as bar church meetings, Bible studies, and concerts. Most everything we do is in bars, however. As we've hung out with our friends and multitudes of young people in various pubs and clubs, we have seen many experience God's love, receive healing, and find answers to the deep longings in their hearts.
We are looking forward to establishing a more permanent expression of God's love there as we pursue an ongoing bar church and coffee shop.