Dear Friends,
I first met Cocke three years ago in a warehouse where my band was playing in Santiago, Chile. He was searching for God, but he didn't know who Jesus was yet. He was in a secular Chilean metal band and was helping us with our sound. Download pdf
We had just finished playing and my translator was preparing to translate when Cocke suddenly started to translate from the sound board. This made my translator upset because he wondered why I invited him to come if I already had someone to translate!
Afterwards, I went up to Cocke and asked him why he did this. He then explained, "I didn't want to translate, but when you started speaking I started shaking and sweating and the words were forced out of my mouth".
The next day Cocke fell on his knees after one of our meetings and gave his life to Jesus because he saw that Jesus was not just a bunch of words, but that he was powerful! Since then his life has been totally transformed and he and his wife Paulina have just been baptized in a church in Santiago where he now plays in a worship band.
This August Cocke will join us on tour with No Longer Music in Lebanon, Croatia, and Finland. After the tour, we hope to have a plan in place to begin a new full time Steiger work in Santiago as well as develop a Chilean version of No Longer Music that would bring the cross in the clubs all over South America. So we plan to send a team there sometime in the next year to help with this.
Other exciting news
Towards the end of May, my son Aaron and I will be meeting with key contacts in a city in the Middle East to plan our upcoming Evangelistic Tour in August. After the tour, we hope to rent a space in the center of that city that we can invite people to after the concerts where they can learn more about Jesus. This will become a new underground church led by a local team in that city and it will also serve as a full time Steiger base where we can send out church planting teams all over the Middle East.
In Minneapolis, USA a new Steiger team is working on the West bank by the University of Minnesota. They hope to plant a church to reach that diverse multicultural neighborhood for Jesus. Molly Waggoner a Steiger missionary is leading this project.
Also another new ministry team in Minneapolis - led by my sons Aaron and Ben Pierce - is reaching the secular music scene by going to the various clubs and music venues around Minneapolis and befriending the musicians, club owners and the young people at these clubs several times a week. They are also preparing evangelistic bands to go to these clubs and share the gospel using music/art.
The Radical Missions School on the Kapiti Coast, New Zealand is underway. We have 33 students and 8 staff from Canada, USA, Poland, Germany, Finland, Croatia, Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland. Pray that God moves powerfully and that many are strengthened in their faith so they can be bold witnesses for Jesus wherever God calls them.
David & Jodi Pierce
Steiger International
Prayer requests:
1. Please pray for our upcoming evangelistic tour in the Middle East, Finland and Croatia. Also the underground church we hope to establish after the tour. Consider if you could help sponsor some of these tour costs:
- $50,000 for flights, local transportation, shipping and food & lodging of 15 team members
- $25,000 for evangelistic concerts in the Middle East (Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq)
- $25,000 for emergency/contingency fund
2. We urgently need a van and trailer at our base in Karlsruhe, Germany. Our van has finally died and is no longer worth fixing anymore. Our poor old van was new in 1991 and has 254,000 kilometers on the clock so she has done well!
This van was used almost every day to drive students around to various events and outreaches, other ministries, airport runs, pick up things for the community, etc. The van is a vital part of our operation and the not having one has created significant headaches and disruptions to what we believe God is calling us to do.
We therefore would like to purchase another van (second hand but newer), and also a covered in trailer to help us transport gear around. Please pray for the $24,000US dollars for this need.