Gary & Tina BarrowLife and Ministry

Feb 18th What are you actually doing?

I was very happy with the feed back we received from our last update. Many people wrote e-mails of support and encouragement to continue to press on in the Lord even though we were facing so many hardships in the form of spiritual, financial and physical trials.

One of the e-mails we received was from a friend of mine who pastors a church in Oregon. He is one of the pastors in my life that I have the utmost respect for. He wrote, “I wonder if giving us a clear picture of your goals and what it is you actually do might not help raise your level of support.” He said, ” I probably should know this, so forgive me, but I am not exactly sure what it is you do. Are you pastoring? Teaching at a bible school? Assisting other ministries?”

I must confess that I have a serious fault. I think that everyone knows what I know. Because of this, I probably fail to communicate well and I may not have ever explained what it is that we are doing here in Germany. I was reminded of this picture:

By way of clarification, I know that I’m not a Moses and that I am not parting the Red Sea. However, God has opened the door for us to serve Him here in the rocky ground of Germany.

After a year at the Bible College in Hungary, the Lord moved us to Esztergom to help with a church there. The pastor told me that he was tired and overwhelmed, and needed help. From there the Lord opened many doors for us to help other pastors and churches, being part of a few church plants, and teaching English is schools in Slovakia and Hungary. The Lord also opened doors for us to share Christ in Bible/English camps across the UK for many fruitful years.

About two years before we left Hungary, it became clear that what the Lord had brought us there to accomplish was coming to an end. We began to seek the Lord for our next step. We were very open to the Lord leading us back to the states, but didn’t feel like that was what He had for us. So we continued to pray.

The Lord gave us a vision of an American soldier in Germany, 20 years old, Christian, first time away from home and his church, in need of solid Bible teaching and fellowship. We shared this vision with the Calvary Chapel leadership in Hungary and Germany and they gave us their overwhelming support. They encouraged us to go forward. They were confident that the Lord was in it. We didn’t know what we were to do specifically, so we stepped out in faith knowing we were to reach out to a war weary military with the love of Christ and the word of God.

Shortly after we moved, literally days after moving in, we met a German girl who said she just became a Christian and had lots of questions. I felt it was the Lord telling me that even though He used the image of a soldier to get us to Germany, we were not to neglect the German people. Just over six years ago we began our first Bible study with her.

From those early days, I felt that the Lord would have us plant a Calvary Chapel here, reaching out to the American military and their families along with the German people. So Calvary Chapel Ansbach was started.

In short, our goal and purpose in being here is to bring glory to our Savior, Jesus Christ, to share the gospel with the lost, to point people to Jesus, to win souls, to stir believers for a closer walk with Jesus and to wet their appetites for a greater hunger for Him, to help believers develop and discover the joys of a devotional and prayer life, to encourage them to become men and women of the Word, to equip them for the work of the ministry, to raise them up and send them out into their communities to share their faith with others, and to step out in faith in service to Him.

We do this through friendship evangelism, opening our home to everyone we meet, inviting them to share meals with us; through working a high profile job on the army post, looking, waiting and praying for opportunites to share Christ with those I meet and those I work with; through mid week and Sunday morning Bible studies; through one on one personal discipleship; through meeting people for coffee and through visiting others in their home, praying with them and standing with them in the trials and tribulations that they are encountering; through counseling and encouragement; through example and through transparency in the difficulties we face while clinging to Jesus. All this and more in the hopes to win others to Christ and strengthen the body of believers the Lord brings our way.

Our heart felt desire and great need is the support of the church and individual believers back home. We need your prayers. I believe the Lord moves when His people pray. We need your prayers. I can’t tell you how important it is to us, to our family, our health and our personal walks with the Lord. We need the strength and wisdom, the vision and direction, the boldness and anointing of the Lord that comes through the prayers of His saints.

Years ago our pastor shared a vision he had. It was of a battleship lobbing shells from a distance onto the shore, softening up the defenses of the enemy prior to and in support of the ground attack. He shared with me that the prayers of the saints were like the battleship, shelling the enemy shores from a distance.

We are in need of that offensive support. We need people who share our vision for winning others to Christ, bringing glory to the Lord, who’s hearts resonate with what we are doing; those who would like to go but can not. We need them to come alongside us, to be in the trenches with us, to partner with us through prayer and support. We need you to have our backs.

As always, we are so thankful for those that are currently teamed with us. We thank you for your prayers, your encouragement, your love and friendship. We continue to pray for you. For those who recently have decided to come on board and be part of planting a church here, we thank you for your support. Please pray that the Lord would stir others to support the work here. May God raise up a healthy, thriving body of believers here, bringing glory to His name and fruit to your account.

God bless,

Gary and Tina

Posted in Update by Mike Thiemann with comments disabled.

Jan 14th A Cry For Help

There is verse in Nehemiah that has held a special place in my heart and it’s a frequently quoted verse. It’s Nehemiah 4:19-20, “…The work is great and extensive, and we are separated far from one another on the wall. Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us.”

Nehemiah was faced with discouraging and difficult circumstances. It’s interesting to me because He clearly trusted the Lord to work on behalf of His people, but Nehemiah also alerted others to the need and asked others to rush to the aid of those being overwhelmed on the wall when the need arose. He trusted God but also took practical steps.

I’m sounding the trumpet! We are being overwhelmed! I trust the Lord is working, and will work, but I also want to alert others to our need. (Please read on and hear my heart.)

Eleven years ago when we were getting ready to move to Europe as missionaries there was a lot for us to think through, pray through and organize. One of the things that I struggled with was how to go about raising support. One of our very good friends, Pastor John Hwang, shared something very profound with me.

He told me about George Muller. He related how George Muller never told anyone at all of the difficulties and needs that he and his ministry was facing. He purposed in his heart to only take those needs to the Lord in prayer.

John then told me about D. L. Moody. He said that D. L. Moody, when faced with needs in his ministry, told everyone everything. He had no problem asking people to give to the ministry because it was a worthy work he was engaged in.

Then John said, “Gary, God isn’t calling you to be a George Muller and He isn’t calling you to be a D. L. Moody, He is calling you to be Gary Barrow.”

What John was saying is that God has a way He wants us to go, it’s not the way George Muller went and it would not necessarily the way D. L. Moody went. The Lord wants me to seek and follow Him and He wants me to be His man.

Since we have been here in Europe we have seen out support drop dramatically. We have long struggled financially and have been willing to scrimp and squeaked by. The truth of the matter is we are receiving less then a quarter of what we need to live in Europe. We have been told by many people we need to share our need so that people can be aware of it and givers can give. I’ve tried but I have never felt comfortable it.

Today, I need to sound the trumpet. We need help desperately. I’m not asking you to give to us financially, I don’t want people to think that we are always asking people to give to us and to the ministry God has entrusted to us, but I am asking you to please, please pray. We have a handful of supporters who have stood by us through the years. We’re so thankful for them too. But we need God to raise up people who will commit to standing with us through regular monthly support.

I would like you to know, I have really struggled with writing this. I wrestle with what is the right thing to do. I know we have been bought with a price and we are the Lord’s and desire to glorify Him. If it wasn’t for the Lord I would have thrown my life away a thousand different times and in a thousand different ways. We trust that He is at work and will see us through. Yet I wonder, if we don’t see people rally to us, wether we need to consider leaving Europe and the work that has begun here. It doesn’t appear that we can continue with our current level of support.

Thank you in advance for your prayers.

God bless,

Gary and Tina

Posted in Update by Mike Thiemann with 1 comment.