Celebration of the Nations: October 7th 2012
Last night we saw history being made during the Celebration of the Nations  at the Cathedral of Lausanne. This is the biggest church building in Switzerland and it’s foundation was laid in 1170. In the beginning of the evening I was thinking of how Christianity shaped Switzerland and Europe and how it impacted many nations with God’s word, including my country, South Africa. Today this nation is in need of an awakening and Europe’s only hope is to be re-evangelized. What was about to happen could not have been imagined in any one’s wildest dreams; nations from Africa, the South Pacific, Asia and Latin America worshiping in unity and crying out to God, in this ancient place with their European brothers and sisters, for a mighty revival to come and for a new wave of missionaries to be sent to the nations.
The cathedral was filled to capacity with some people standing on the sides. While the drums were beating many young people walked in with the flags from different nations and offered up prayers in many different languages. The place was lit up when our Island Breeze team made their appearance in their full Polynesian indigenous outfits dancing and offering up their songs and rhythms to Jesus. The cameras and videos came out to capture these moments where East met West, North met South, Indigenous met Modern, Young met Old and where Ancient met Contemporary. A Reformed Pastor friend of mine summarized it afterwards when he said that never in the history of this 800 plus year old cathedral have the feet of Polynesians trodden the floors of this cathedral and worshiped the Lord. The worship was incredible and the call to release 1000 Swiss French missionaries to go and be a blessing was powerful.
The evening concluded with people weeping as they prayed for the nations in many languages on a world map of 20 meters by 15 meters. For many it was for the first time to walk on such a large map and to go from one nation to the next and pray for God’s kingdom to come. This was such a a demonstration of unity in diversity and the impact of this Celebration will be seen in Switzerland and the nations … from the nations to the nations.
The next Nations2Nations celebrations will be in Geneva November 12th-16th. Can you please continue to pray that many will be raised up to love the nations as God loves them and become ministers of reconciliation.