EP 004 REACHING EUROPE -STEP ONE GO

​Hello and welcome to this episode of Reaching Europe Ministries. My name is Jason Mann, and I am glad you are able to join us today. Today, we're going to have the first half of a message that I preached at Heritage Baptist Church of Haslet, Texas. I will be talking about the transition the Lord used to get us as missionaries in Hungary to the Reaching Europe ministries. I hope you enjoy it and hope that the Lord is edified. You are encouraged and though this, more souls will be saved in Europe because of this message.
 
Thank you so much, and God bless. And I will talk with you on the next episode.
 
Just kind of directed me in different ways and different avenues, and somewhere along the way, he directed us to BBTI over in Bowie, and that's how we found you guys was through BBTI. So that's a very short, condensed version of how I got here. But about, oh, May of 18', I suppose it was. We went back to Hungary and with the goal of going to a new city and preaching the Word and handing out the Gospel, and seeing people be saved and get a building and start a church.
 
And the Lord said, no, I got something else for you. And I said, well if you have something else for me, I need to know what that is. So I went into the Word of God. It was about October time frame. And we had at that time about 20,000 tracts handed out and no response. And also, at the same time, I was trying to find a building and a location to hold services and things of that nature.
 
And for whatever reason, every door shut. I couldn't open up a door with an opportunity if I tried. And the weird thing is I rented several places in Hungary. It's like a two or three-day event. You call the realtor. I want to see it. You go look at it. I like it. You sign a paper done. Very simple process. Of course, you got to have the money right. A very simple process.
 
But for whatever reason, several realtors were just completely ignoring me. I would go there, and the person I needed wouldn't be in, and I would ask about this property in that property, and everything was shut down for me to go and see. And the even weirder thing is a year later, all of those properties were still for rent, and they unoccupied for a whole year. So it wasn't that I was just late and someone else was coming in, but the door of opportunity was closed.
 
So October of twenty nineteen, I said, Lord, something's going on. You're doing something. I don't know what it is. I'm supposed to be in Hungary as a missionary. I here for the endeavor of my life and as the Lord leads. But something's going on. So I went into God's Word, and I started in the beginning, I went to the end. But by the time I got to Mark chapter one and verse number three, I read this verse, and I said the "voice of one crying in the wilderness".
 
And along with other council and men around me, the Lord put a burden on my heart to see more churches and more missionaries in Europe. Did you know that Europe is about the same land size as America? It's very close and just a couple of extra states, and we'd be there the same size. America, somewhere around 350 million people give or take one or two, and Europe is closer to 800 million people. So they have doubled the population, but about the same amount of land.
 
How many independent Baptist churches are within, I don't know, maybe 60 miles from here? Probably three hundred would be a low number. Where I lived in Hungary, I could drive for 100 miles until I got to the next independent fundamental Baptist preacher. And that wasn't just like one direction that was any direction. So that along with the closed opportunities, along with other circumstances, that the Lord brought our ways because that's how Lord speaks to us through circumstances and through his Word and through guidance of other Christians, I said, OK, I have to pause, and I have to say, what's going on?
 
Many years ago, long before that, a desire and a burden to see more missionaries come to Europe was in my heart. And it was just a seed that was there but didn't grow until last October, and I got to talking with a friend over in Croatia and he's in a city of a few million people and he's the only one there. And we go up to a high building and we overlook the city. Sorry about that. We overlooked the city.
 
And you just see people everywhere. And he's the only one with truth. And it's not right. It's not right. God died for them, it's not right, and then you go to Austria and there's one you got a whole city of millions of people and there's no one. And then you go into Germany where you can go to Berlin, where, to my knowledge, there's one little spread out in Germany. There's others. Yes, but a city like Berlin, there's one.
 
And then you go over to Italy and there's a handful. We're trying to find out how many independent Baptists are actually in Europe, but they kind of slither around, you know what I mean? We're so independent, it's hard to find. My friends, there's probably less than 200. In all the research that I've done, I can't get over that number and I want to. You know, in Hungary, when I first went there, it was because of the need, because there wasn't enough going on for God, I went to I went followed my pastor over to Hungary for a pastors meeting, and there's three people there.
 
And I'm like three, it's a country of 10 million. How are three going to reach 10 million? It's not enough. So the Lord gave me this burden to start reaching your ministries. And we have simple goals. One is to edify Christ if we can't identify Christ and why are we doing anything?
 
Next is to equip not only the missionary, to equip them with different resources to help them and in reaching their people that God called them, too, but also to equip the American churches to understand and kind of be a bridge between the American church and the European church. And let me put it this way.
 
If you wanted to be an encouragement and send a package over to a missionary, what would you send them? Well, I asked I asked a group of men that we have a group that meets on Mondays in a zoom meeting. Didn't know about Zoom before covid. So thank you covid for Zoom. We asked in this group, and I said if a package came, what would you want? You know what every single man said? Ranch dressing. Ranch dressing, which brings us to the encouragement category that our ministry does, is to be an encouragement to the mission on the field and send them ranch dressing.
 
You know, we have everything that we need here, right? Is there anything that Wal-Mart can't provide us. Or another grocery store in the area can't provide us? We have everything, I tell you you move over to a foreign field and you're like, where's this? My first time in Hungary, they had three cereals and none of them would be good enough for UPS to put in packaging as peanuts. They were all. Not worth eating. In fact, I was with the same pastor and I went, I got a box of cornflakes and we didn't even finish the meal, it was so gross.
 
They have a few others now, but the point is things aren't available there and what happens is you go to do something and you know, if you have one task for the day, that's a huge accomplishment to get done. Maybe it's go to the hardware store and get something to fix, something just to find the correct part. It's so discouraging because you can't find the right thing. So the devil gets in there and discourages. "Oh, you can't even find the right paint.
 
You're supposed to be a preacher of God and represent God. You can't even paint. Right". You know, that's how the devil discourages. Just silly, silly, stupid things. So we want to be an encouragement to them and help them. And we want the local church to engage with missions more than they are now. Whether it's did you know that you could text people, it's on your phone and you can text the preacher. And I have our telephone numbers.
 
We can text now and that same text technology for texting that works across the ocean, too. It was wonderful when I'd wake up and have a text from someone saying, praying for you, praying for you. It's so easy.
 
Every once in a while, I'd put in a prayer letter this is my number, please text me.
 
And then a letter would be dispersed and takes about a week to get there. And then I would get texts from people saying, praying for you, praying for you. It's so easy. Did you know that you can get on a plane and just in about nine hours be in Europe? Mind blowing. And you can actually be an encouragement and don't be a burden to them, be an encouragement to a missionary, you know, so often there's retired people that income wise, they're good, their needs are met financially.
 
Well, they can go to Europe and stay in an Airbnb for just a few thousand dollars for a month or two months or three months and be an encouragement to a missionary. Simple things that need to happen to encourage the missionaries. The problem with missions today is they don't stay.
 
Because they get discouraged, so pray for missionaries, pray for this ministry, the Lord's given to the Mann family to just be an encouragement to people to go and be involved. What there's two main aspects that the Mann's will do in the ministries is invite others from America to go over for 10 days, two weeks, whatever the case might be, and just to hand out tracts and with an established missionary and go in the area and hand out tracts. My friend in Croatia has a plan for seven new churches inside that city.
 
He has one and he's getting that established and he's working towards another one. When he goes to that new area, he needs help. You know, one person can't hand out 500,000 tracts. But 20 people came pretty quick and they make a big difference in reaching the people, and the other aspect is to go where there is no missionary. To my knowledge, in North Macedonia. There is no missionary for independent fundamental Baptist holding to the King James Bible, preaching God's Word, not one.
 
Well, that's where it all started. That's where Paul went. And yet today they're overtaken by the Muslims and they're overtaken by false cults and other religions. In fact, to my knowledge, they don't even have an accurate Bible in their language. So even if we went with the truth, we could not get it into their language on a very easy scale. You can go to Wal-Mart and get King James Bible. You can go to the dollar store and get a King James Bible.But over in other parts of the world, it's a completely different story.So the Lord asked me just to be a voice and just to tell people of the great need.
 
But that brings me to a problem, because the goal of Reaching Europe is to bring people over to Europe. And that sounds simple and easy.
 
And it's not because we're so comfortable. So I could come and I could say, you know, Europe, it's 10 percent of the world's population. And yet they don't have the Gospel. They don't have truth. You know, if you look and you did some studies, you'd find out they're Christian. That means Catholic. What we just saw, what the pope did, they aren't Catholic. I mean, they are Christian and in close to being Christian.
 
I can tell you of the 750 million souls, but honestly, that number is way too big to comprehend. It's too big. When you go in here, my Lord, send me and then you go, oh, 750 million people, I can't do that, it's too big. So what can I say to encourage others to go to Europe?
 
That's a problem, preacher. Because there's nothing I can do, there's nothing I can say there, nothing that I can preach. That can encourage you to make a difference in Europe. There's a reason for that I can talk about Sweden with 11 million souls and only two known independent fundamental Baptist there, there's a guy that's retiring and a guy that's come in to take his place. For 11 million people. So what can I say to convince you to come and share the Gospel in Europe?
 
Nothing. And that's a problem. In Luke 18:22, Jesus said to the rich man, he said, "Sell all thou hast distribute unto the poor and show that and shall have treasure in heaven. Come and follow me." That sounds pretty easy, right?
 
Have a yard sale. Get an airplane ticket. And off we go. Right. Yes, so often that's not the case. Sounds easy, but it's hard to do. That man left sad because he had great things. And in Austria and Croatian, Hungary and Germany and Italy and Spain and Portugal, the need I can go on and on and on.
 
Poland, 40 million people. How many missionaries do we know to Poland? I could talk about the great need and I can say come for two weeks, come for two months, come for 20 years, but there's nothing that I can say to convince you there's opportunities for young and old and everyone in between. But nothing I can do or say can convince you or convict you, constrain you unless your heart.
 
And this is the key that our heart is in the mode of go .
 
Well friends we've just heard the transition from Hungary to Europe and we left with the challenge that we are not going because we are not obeying the great commission.
 
Now, this is not a harsh condemnation on anyone, but just a sad reality of truth that men of God are not surrendering to missions.
 
If this was true, the story would be different, the landscape would be different. The amount of churches would be different. But our heart is not set on go. Step one of the great commission is go. May we be challenged and convicted about the great need for the Gospel around the world? Friends, as we look at the newspaper and watch the news. It is clear that it is aligning with the Word of God and that Christ is coming soon.
 
Friends, we can not wait any longer to get the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world.
 
Would you please ask God to give you a personal burden for sharing the Gospel with the lost? Thank you for listening to this episode of Reaching Europe.