BBC Sweden Project: Lund

Today our team was in the historic city of Lund for the entire day. We began the morning finding a parking spot for the Mega-Van, which was a difficult task in a city with many walking areas, old and narrow cobblestone streets, and parking garages with 2.0 meter height limits. After a brief tour of Lund, we parked and met two sets of people outside the Lund Domkyrkan (the Lund Cathedral, which is a state church building that has been standing in Lund since the 11^th century). We met Bryan and Lindsey, who are part of the leadership staff for Agape Sverige. We also were joined by Daniel and Joel, who are children of an old friend of Paul and Karin, from their early days in Sweden. Daniel (22) and Joel (20) were with us for part of the day in Lund. They are college students from the U.S. with dual citizenship (U.S. and Sweden) who are playing baseball for an elite team in Sweden this summer; then, in August, they will be playing for the Swedish national team in the European Championships in Amsterdam.

After getting all the groups together, we walked to a local church, where the Agape Sverige staff hold bible studies for students at Lund University. We were given an overview of the effort that is ongoing with Agape. There are significant outcomes to be thankful for in their work in Lund: they have seen more students (8) become believers this year than any previous year; they have a strong student and staff leadership; the student believers are starting to disciple other students who are newer believers; they are expanding their outreach to the University in Malmö, which is a larger neighboring city. Specific prayer requests for this group include: approval of applications for visas to stay in Sweden; support raising for a group going on a summer project to Iceland; growth in believers at the University in Malmö; reaching more students through evangelism outreach on the campus in Lund.

Our group did a prayer walk across part of the campus in the afternoon. We prayed for the students and faculty within the specific buildings that we would pass by on our walk. We also had some good personal prayer time with three other members of the Agape staff (Emily, Rachel, and Thomas). We separated into small groups and had this prayer time within the walls of the medieval cathedral, which was a very moving experience.