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"Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow..."this is my hope,"
Dear Ministry Partner,
These were the words of born again, founder and ex-President of “Natural Born Killers” Lauri Johansson, his voice trembling as he looked directly into the camera. Lauri Johansson is currently serving a life-sentence for triple murders.
Late's words and images flashed through the TV camera lens to countless TV sets from Helsinki, Finland all the way to Rovaniemi, a city located on the Arctic Circle.
Two of the largest daily newspapers in Finland, Helsingin Sanomat (similar to The Globe and Mail) and the largest daily tabloid, Iltälehti, each devoted a whole page to Lauri’s story. Online editions linked the stories to the campaign website. The online versions draw 1.3 million unique visits each day.
The tabloid, Iltalehti linked their story to the campaign Youtube site where thousands online watched the testimony of Johanssson.
The buzz created by the media has been historic in Finnish Christian life. Below you'll find the latest report on response from phone calls, SMS messages, chats, internet visits, one-on-one contacts, etc.
Response recorded at campaign center
3,302 book orders by phone; 4,674 book orders through website; 1,906 book orders by SMS messages; 141 online chat calls; 63,000 online life-changing videos watched; 112,000 unique visits on campaign website – each visit was almost 4minutes in length; 185,023 total contacts (to date)
More than 185,000 total contacts have been made in the first 30 days of the campaign. This is quite remarkable considering it is a western country.
The biggest surprise for us has been the incredible amount of traffic on our website as well as downloaded videos of life-changing stories on the Power to Change website (www.p2c.fi).
Mega city outreach in eastern Siberia
Finland's second significant city, Turku, is in line for its own media campaign.
As the Helsinki campaign unfolded representatives from GCM representatives traveled to Turku on a fact finding mission and shared with Church leaders on plans to reach the city.
Simultaneously, an evangelistic mega city campaign is under way in eastern Siberia with the goal of reaching over a million people with the Gospel. Please pray for this campaign in Siberia as the political climate there is making it more and more difficult to hold such campaigns in Russia. Because of the political turbulence Russia's evangelical churches are facing diminishing opportunities to proclaim the Gospel.
Mega order for one million books
Recently GCM Ministries received a monumental order to print one million special evangelistic campaign books in the Russian language. 2,500 churches want to use the book as an evangelistic tool to reach people with the gospel message in cities and villages from the Baltic Sea to the eastern shores of the Pacific Ocean. We pray for funding to make this giant undertaking a reality.
Nepal and India
I write these lines in Kathmandu, Nepal in the majestic Himalayan mountains. It's been nine months since the Kathmandu city campaign was held in the month of January. The call center has logged 10,000 calls since the campaign ended. More than 12,000 people have visited the Nepalese campaign website. Partnering churches have distributed over 70,000 campaign books and the results are becoming evident.
The church in Kathmandu where Pastor Lasarus Thulung serves has been actively handing out these books. Yesterday the pastor told me he had encouraged his congregation to bring one friend of each member along to a church service. The 60 members of the church brought in 160 people who had no previous knowledge about faith in God!
"This media campaign in Nepal is the most effective tool for evangelism that I have ever known," says Pastor Lasarus.
At GCM Ministries we have started planning and preparing two megacity campaigns in Hyderabad and Mumbai, India. Mumbai is one of the most populous cities on earth with a population of 20 million.
Thank you
From my heart and on behalf of the whole GCM Ministries team, thank-you to you our prayer partners and supporters for your crucial and much appreciated support in the Helsinki campaign as well as other campaigns this year. We move forward in faith and thank you in advance for partnering with us in the days ahead.
Let us work together in fulfilling the Great Commission in this age of ever increasingly spiritual darkness.
Wishing you and your loved ones God's richest blessings,
Dr. Hannu Haukka
Great Commission Media Ministries
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