Perfect Provision for Freie Christengemeinde, Linz am Danube, Austria

During 1966 Fritz and I visited Linz, Austria, his birth place. Amongst other things, we visited the Freie Christengemeinde (Austrian for congregation), where the fact that female attendance far outweighed male attendance caught our attention. Pastor Griesfelder, the minister at that time, invited us over, giving us the opportunity to enquire about the odd gender balance we noticed. He explained that in the strict & formal Austrian culture one could not just pop in to visit but needed formal invitations. For this reason the youth from the church would go around to homes and invite people to church. Most women accepted, came to church and would end up accepting Jesus and becoming members of the church.

Once back home, as I one morning was spending time in prayer, I got the clear message from the Holy Spirit that I needed to send some money to this specific church. I thought of our monthly tithe but God said that I should raise money to send to them. I decided to be obedient but asked God’s Spirit to go ahead of me and to work in the hearts of people, making them willing to donate. I started doing the fundraising and soon had enough money to send to the Freie Christengemeinde in Linz. I wrote to Pastor Griesfelder to let him know that I will be sending some money to his church. After paying the postage I could send more that R200 (a lot of money in those years).

After a while I received a message from Pastor Griesfelder. The church have received an invitation from the neighbouring town of Wels to erect an Evangelism tent in Wels for two weeks. This was a miracle as town municipalities hardly ever allowed one week, let alone two weeks for Evangelism. After discussing the matter the church council realised that they only had enough money to run a one week Evangelism campaign but decided to go ahead and accept the invitation from Wels, trusting God for the rest of the money!

At the exact right time God moved me to collect and send money, exactly the right amount to afford the second week of Evangelism in Wels. The money reached the church at the exact right time too!

All glory to God for His perfect provision.

Helena

 

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