The 25th year anniversary of the mission organization, ‘Team in theNorth.’

On Saturday August 15^th, 2015, we gathered in Rosvik, Sweden to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of ‘Team in the North.’

With ‘we,’ I mean, some of those who have been involved in Team in the North during the years. Some of us, have been involved directly by working as missionaries on the different fields, others have been giving money, while others have been praying. There were also people who where there only to rejoice together with us. Unfortunately, not everyone could be there with us, since some of them have gone to be with the Lord, others couldn’t come.

Some facts about ‘Team in the North.’

1.     Pastor Jan Zetterlund founded it in 1990.

2.     In the beginning, TiN was working in Sweden, Russia, and Finland but later it grew to have ministry in Greece, Macedonia, Italy, China and Iran.

3.     The Bible passage TiN is built upon is Matthew 9:35-38, “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

4.     TiN is focusing to reach the Muslim world and especially the Iranian and Afghan people, but is still continuing work in Sweden, Finland and Russia. The work in Macedonia, Greece and Italy is given over to locals.

The Program

We came to the Bethel church where the mission organization has its base and office. Some of us hadn’t seen each other in several years so we hugged and were mingling for a while, eating snacks and drinking soft drinks.

After maybe fifteen minutes, Jan Zetterlund welcomed everyone and we prayed. After that, the ‘old’ worship team with both Swedes and Russians were leading us in worship.

When we had been worshiping for a while, then Jan took the microphone once more and reminding us about some of the things God has been doing through TiN during the years. Jan, who already when he was a teenager received a calling to Russia, told us about how he went to Murmansk, Kola Peninsula and he even couldn’t say that he was a Christian for the KGB following him. During this time, you could travel to Murmansk if you had a visa to Russia but you couldn’t go south of Murmansk without permission. God spoke to Jan that TiN needed to go to the cities south of Murmansk, so he told two of the church members to just take the car and go down south without a permission to try to get an invitation from these cities. They went and God opened a way for them to receive an invitation and short after this a church was started in three of these cities.

I don’t have the place here to write about everything that happened during these years. But I will let you get to understand some of the things that have happened during the years:

-       Between 1990-98 we planted five churches on the Kola Peninsula and in 1998 we had given over the churches to local pastors.

-       We had a 2-year Bible school in one of these cities where hundreds of new believers graduated.

-       We had taken tons of humanitarian help to the different cities and this had given us open doors for our evangelical ministry.

-       Several of our church members had gone to other places to work for mission agencies, i.e., Word of Life and YWAM for example.

-       The partnership with these churches is still continuing.

After Jan had been speaking for a while, four of us went up to speak about the work.

Richard Hultmar, who was with the team from the beginning, reminded us about things that had happened during the first time. How they were traveling from town to town, village to village to testify about Jesus and praying for people.

Lena Tougomova, who was in the first team that lived in Russia, was emphasizing how grateful she was to TiN. All of us who were working with the organization were young men and women, and we had never done this before but anyhow, Jan and the leadership trusted that God could use us. We made many mistakes but God used us to plant five strong churches where thousand of people met Jesus and had their lives changed.

After this, I went up to speak about the work in Russia and China and because it is sensitive, I can’t write so much about it, except some short notes:

-       We were taking 3 containers of Chinese literature and Bibles into China.

-       We planted one Chinese church in the town in the Far East of Russia where we lived. After half a year, we gave the church over to a Chinese pastor.

-       We had 5 mission schools where we trained Russian and Ukrainian missionaries. Some of the graduates went back home to their churches after they graduated while some of them stayed to work with us.

-       We facilitated many trips to China for Russian, Swedish and American pastors and teachers to conduct pastoral/leaders conferences in house churches.

-       We planted a Russian church in a Chinese town.

We had also a lady from a Muslim state telling us about the work going on in some Muslim countries but as you understand, I cannot write about this in this blog.

There were much more that were said, but as you understand I don’t have the space to write more. It was a great day that made us grateful to God for everything that He has been doing over the years.

There were many people who reminded us that God is not finished. He wants to use TiN to continue to preach the Gospel until Jesus comes back. One gave TiN the words from Isaiah 54:2-3 “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.”

God is still rising up missionaries to go to the unreached areas of our world. I think that many of us who were participating on this day were encouraged and challenged to continue to do everything to see Matthew 24:14 fulfilled.