|
Russ plays and sings in an evangelistic tour in Moldova with a new PROCLAIM! International band called The Outlanders.
 In October, Russ left for a PROCLAIM! International tour in Moldova with a new Proclaim band called Outlanders. We try and always do trips and ministry events as a couple, but the decision to do the tour was actually taken a bit late in the game and Marjorie's sister had already scheduled a visit, so it didn't work for the two of us to leave together this time. (Click on the images to see a larger version)
Planning for this tour had started over a year earlier, with trips into the country by Proclaim staff to determine the possibilities and strategic importance of Proclaim doing a trip like this. Tours like this involve transporting a lot of expensive equipment over thousands of kilometers, many thousands of dollars of investment in things like airline tickets, housing, food, etc., and of course the time invested in getting the music ready, and getting the team that will live and work together full-time over a two week period. In some ways, the actual tour is one of the easiest parts of these events!
This tour represented the first time that a Proclaim group came to minister in the country of Moldova. It was also the first Outlanders band experience for three of the five musicians; myself, the drummer, Jamie, and one of the guitar players, Dominic, who came from Germany.
Whenever PROCLAIM does a tour, during the advance trips, one of the things that needs to be determined is what kind of presentation is going to be most
 effective to help the local organizers reach out to the people around them. Considerations like the target audiences, the types of venues available, and the time of year all come into play. For this tour in Moldova, it was determined that there should be a special emphasis on reaching the university crowd, which is why we went in October, just after the school season started, and the best type of music to use would be pop/rock, a style and demographic that the Outlanders band was specially created for.
I played guitar, keyboards and sang backing vocals for this tour, and right from the beginning of practising, you could tell that we had something special. Proclaim fields groups that perform in many different styles of music, and there is a sort of musical "language" and stage presence that goes along with each style, almost like a musical culture. For instance, when doing jazz standards, in general you don't jump around too much or wave your arms in the air or get people to yell as loud as they can at certain points in the song. That kind of behaviour at a jazz festival can get you removed from the billing rather quickly. However, it is perfectly acceptable in pop and especially rock concerts.
One of the things that everyone commented on who participated in the Moldova Outlanders tour was that we had a great team where everyone worked hard and did their job very well. To put on a concert properly it takes much more than the musicians on the stage; you need talented live sound engineers, experienced video personnel, and creative lighting designers.
For me personally, I had a lot of fun on this tour, and it was probably one of the best tour experiences that I've had. The pace was busy but not too busy, and I really felt the presence of the Spirit during my times on stage and also talking with people.
 We ended up doing 12 concerts for audiences ranging from about 200 to over 600, in venues that varied from a very old town hall where we had to bypass the entire electrical installation for the building and tie in directly to the mains to a brand new cinema that featured a 15,000watt surround sound system from JBL. One of the best concerts we had was in a technical school were virtually the entire school jammed into school's theater and stayed on the edge of their seats for the entire concert. The director of the school afterwards said she had never seen anything close to the quality of our concert in her building before and was very thankful for our concert.
Nearly every night we had people make decisions after talking to members of our team. I had the thrill of leading several to a first time decision to follow Jesus Christ which was very emotional, and a real gift from God. Many times it is only long after a tour like this that we get to see results.
Even before the tour was over, the local organizers were asking us when we could come back next, and we have started tentatively planning another Outlanders tour in the country for October of 2009.
Here are some of the comments that we received from some of the tour organizers after the tour:
“...in Chisinau, young people liked your music, especially because it was professionally done in their contemporary style and because it was LIVE. ...
 in Branesti Prison, the head of the prison was very impressed. He testify at the end of the prison concert and he invited you back; he made a short video and showed it to the Department of Moldova Prisons. It was great!"
"...in my teaching (at a local public school) about christian morality, ... everybody was excited about the concert! From my point of view the most important point of the show is that you can bring together a lot of young people and sing and testify about Jesus!"
"Once again I want to thank God and you for such a good experience we had working together. We could see God's hand on this event from the beginning till the end. We had about 600 people in our auditorium. I am so glad you helped us so much with that. We were able to share the gospel to so many people, especially when it is usually forbidden to have any religious activities in this auditorium.
We had a girl from that event get saved. Many other girls and boys are meeting us on the streets and recognize us from the event. I am so glad we were able to talk with the director of the House of Culture and the person from the Mayor's office. After the concert, we spent a lot of time with them sharing the gospel. We continue working with them.
 I was amazed how much energy you had because I knew how busy your schedule was. Almost every day you had a concert. I was at a concert on the first day. I think our concert at Criuleni was the fifth concert. There was no difference in the concerts - in the excitement, power, and enthusiasm. I got tired only translating for your concert. You must get so much more tired with all the energy you put into your concerts. You've done an excellent job for God here and His Glory.
We'll keep working with the people we met through the concert. We hope in time God will bring more people into His Kingdom."
"A very important time is after the concert you were open to talk simply with the people. I was impressed that you are not just musicians but you have your own experiences with God. You can think deeply about christian life and can through provocative questions bring people to think about Jesus, Life, Heaven and hell. Now I pray about how to bring these young people to continue to follow Jesus! Thank you for your ministry! You do a great job! We continue to pray about those that were to the concerts. I hope the seed will grow up! God bless you!”
One of the things we were asked to do during the tour by the tour organizer was to keep track of any interesting stories that happened. Whenever I had the privilege of praying with someone, I made sure to write out the story as soon as I could so as not to forget how it happened, and also what the person's name was so I could pray for them.
Here's the story I wrote out after the concert of October 11th in a theater:
Saturday Oct 11, 2008
After the concert, I walked off the stage and found Kate, my translator for the evening. There were a lot of people at the
 front, and she said we should probably go to the entrance. We walked out to the entrance and looked for people who were not from the church. There weren't very many and I wasn't sure if we would find anyone. Then a girl came over with a CD and asked if I would sign it and my translator said "Oh, she is not from the church. I've never seen her before."
So I asked her about the concert and what had been shared and she seemed very interested. I explained about having a personal relationship with God and the problem of sin and how Jesus died on the cross to take the penalty for our sins. I asked if she was interested in having a personal relationship with God like this and she said "Yes". I explained how I had prayed to God and asked him to forgive me and to come into my life and that I wanted to live for him and then said "sometimes after a concert there are people who want to start this relationship right away and we pray a prayer like this together. Are you interested in doing this?" And right away she said "Yes". She said she already prayed the Lord's prayer often, but wanted to pray this prayer.
I suggested we find a quieter room, so we went off to a side room and talked a little more. She shared that she was one of four sisters in her family, that her father had abandoned the family and she never knew him, and that now her mother was working abroad to try and earn money to support the family. She wanted to ask God to protect them and care for them. I said that the bible says that we can tell God all of our problems and he wants to take care of us.
I had been a little surprised about how quickly and enthusiastically she had said that she wanted to pray to receive Christ, I also told her that the prayer to ask Jesus in her heart was not a prayer that you can just read or repeat many times or pray just to feel good, that it was very serious and was a prayer that you only prayed if you wanted to give your life to God and live for him. I asked if she was really sure she wanted to do this and she said Yes.
So we prayed, with me praying one sentence at a time in english, and Kate (my
 translator) repeating in Romanian. It was a simple prayer "God I know you exist and I believe in you. I know that I am a sinner and have done things against you and have bad things in my heart. I also know that you sent your son Jesus to earth to die on the cross to take the penalty for my sins. Right now I ask you to come into my life, forgive me of my sins, and I want to life for you for the rest of my life. Thank you that you forgive me and that you will help me to live for you. Amen."
At the end, Juliana and Kate were both smiling very broadly. Juliana said that she had actually attended a pentecostal church for quite a while, over a year, but had never prayed to accept Christ, but that tonight, hearing the music, seeing the words to the songs, and hearing us share our lives, she knew that tonight was the night she wanted to pray this prayer.
I told Juliana that when you pray a prayer like that and enter into a personal relationship with God, the Bible says that you become part of God's family, so even if she was living at home with only her three sisters, now she had a whole bunch of other sisters, brothers, uncles and aunts in the Lord, and that Kate was now another one of her sisters. I also told Kate that it would be a good idea to maybe exchange phone numbers or addresses and to invite her to some youth events or something, which they did.
We walked out of the room and I said good-bye and God bless you and left them to get better acquainted, as it will be Kate and the church that will continue to help Juliana to grow. Later I learned that the next person who walked up was Dominique, a guitar player in the band. He said hello started talking to the two of them, and Juliana told him that she had prayed to accept Christ. Dominique said "That's great. When was that?" And she said "Just now, five minutes ago, with Russ." And Dominique said "Really?!? That's wonderful! Now you are part of God's family and I am your brother!" Which was really neat because he had not known at all what I had shared with her.
 A few minutes later, Juliana and Kate came over and Juliana asked if she could take a picture on her cell phone with me, her and Kate, which of course we did. Bob McIntyre also took a picture with his camera, so that is a nice memory.
As they were leaving Kate said "Thanks so much for what you did and for the concert, it really means a lot. I very much liked the music and how you played the keyboard. We have had problems in the church with people who have preconceptions about these styles of music, but I think with this concert you have really helped us."
A wonderful evening.
|
News 
In October, Russ left for a PROCLAIM! International tour in Moldova with a new Proclaim band called Outlanders. We try and always do trips and ministry events as a couple, but the decision to do the tour was actually taken a bit late in the game and Marjorie's sister had already scheduled a visit, so it didn't work for the two of us to leave together this time. (Click on the images to see a larger version)
effective to help the local organizers reach out to the people around them. Considerations like the target audiences, the types of venues available, and the time of year all come into play. For this tour in Moldova, it was determined that there should be a special emphasis on reaching the university crowd, which is why we went in October, just after the school season started, and the best type of music to use would be pop/rock, a style and demographic that the Outlanders band was specially created for.
We ended up doing 12 concerts for audiences ranging from about 200 to over 600, in venues that varied from a very old town hall where we had to bypass the entire electrical installation for the building and tie in directly to the mains to a brand new cinema that featured a 15,000watt surround sound system from JBL. One of the best concerts we had was in a technical school were virtually the entire school jammed into school's theater and stayed on the edge of their seats for the entire concert. The director of the school afterwards said she had never seen anything close to the quality of our concert in her building before and was very thankful for our concert.
