When Tent International turned 20 in November last year, the organization embarked on a 20-week prayer journey. More than 100 people got to hear powerful testimonies from around the world when the end of the campaign was celebrated just before Easter.

“As direct answers to your prayers, God has opened doors for the Gospel during the campaign,” shared a tentmaker from the Caribbean who studies in Eastern Europe. 

“In this time of prayer, God put me in touch with a young lady. Even if I did not get to share much about Jesus with her, she got a desire to come to my church. Not much later she accepted Christ,” shared the student who was the first one to go as a tentmaker from her nation. She now has a strong desire to start a Tent branch in the country that God has led her to.

An online seminar on tentmaking unites people from nearly all Latin-American nations. “We believe this seminar will help more Latin-Americans to take the Gospel to the world,” says Gustavo Borges, one of the main persons behind the online event.

The seminar is run every Thursday in February and covers basic information and encouraging insights for people who consider serving God through working, doing business or studying cross-culturally. 

“Many Christians from Latin America move abroad as expat workers, entrepreneurs and post-graduate students. The seminar gives us a great opportunity to share the tentmaking vision with such people. We want to help the Christians who go to be more intentional in sharing the Gospel,” says Gustavo Borges. He serves as the director for Tent Brazil. Among the others who have taken part in planning the seminar, are Mirka Peña, director of Tent Dominicana and Phill Sandahl, director of Global Intent. 

The job opportunities are many, but the Christians who are willing to go, are few. Nowhere in the world is this truer than in the Middle East.  In order to honor one of those who decided to serve in the Middle East, we share the story of Jany Haddad who worked as a medical doctor in Syria. He finished his race six months ago.  

More than 250.000 Christians left Aleppo during the war in Syria. Despite being shot at by snipers and having to hide during numerous bomb attacks, the surgeon Jany Haddad decided to stay and operate for Christ. 

“If we all leave, who will then give people the Gospel,” said Jany Haddad when TMT spoke to him at a conference in Budapest in 2016. If he had wanted to, the Syrian-Armenian surgeon could have moved out of Aleppo and Syria both before and during the war. As a dual citizen of Syria and Armenia he was free to travel. In Armenia he had a home waiting for him, and he was offered well-paid positions in UK and Cyprus. He did however feel that he could not leave.

Tent International aims at recruiting 20 new tentmakers in 20 weeks as the organization celebrates its 20-year anniversary.

“The Covid pandemic has slowed down the global job market. We still aim at having 20 new tentmakers ready to go before Easter next year. God is calling people to move despite Covid 19, and he can open doors when needed,” says Tent International’s co-founder and director Steinar Opheim.

Celebration

Tent celebrated its 20-year anniversary at an online gathering last Saturday with participants from 27 nations on five continents.