Lisbon Free Baptist Church


Debbie Meroff Operation Mobilization

If you would like to reach Debbie, you can e-mail her at: Debbie.Meroff@ict.om.org
 


Debbie's personal web site

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Debbie travels to many parts of the world in her work for Operation Mobilization. 
Lisbon Free Baptist Church helps support her work.  Here is her message:

JOURNEY INTO EASTERN EUROPE



Almost 15 years ago I joined the first OM team of foreigners for an evangelistic 
outreach in little landlocked Moldova, newly liberated from the USSR. Since then 
our field leaders there, a young British couple, have built the work in partnership 
with the country’s evangelical churches. With their cooperation we’ve started a 
number of day centers for poor children, elderly feeding programs, and micro-enterprise 
loans to help people get on their feet financially. As a result, unbelievers are often 
so moved by the love evidenced by God’s people that they have opened their hearts to 
the message of salvation. 

Operation Mobililsation Moldova’s training base is in the capital and used practically 
non-stop. I arrived to find a football (soccer) coach clinic in full swing.--Reps from 
Ambassadors in Sport were showing 37 pastors and youth leaders how to grow effective 
sports ministries. As a Baptist pastor told me (through translation), “It’s a new field 
of mission for me, but our vision is to bring more teens into the church!”

OM runs 10-week “Challenge Into Mission” courses as well as a year-long “Delta” program 
for young people, arranging practical experience with churches doing a variety of 
ministries. Our goal is to encourage more Christians to serve God in Moldova and other 
countries. About 25% of the adult population migrate away to seek work in neighboring 
nations. This means vast numbers of children left behind in the care of grandparents. 
Families are falling apart.  

The destitute situation of this poorest country in Europe tore at my heart. People are 
terrified of getting sick because they have no money to pay the necessary bribe to get 
doctors and hospitals to help them. Joining the “Bus4Life” (OM’s mobile ministry in 
Eastern Europe) in a typical village I saw that things haven’t really changed much. 
People are often forced to live without running water, indoor plumbing or toilets, and 
much of the population in the countryside survive by growing vegetables and fruits and 
keeping poultry or livestock. 

During that first outreach all those years ago we visited a school where 15-year-old 
Tamara quietly prayed to Jesus and accepted Him into her life. For most of her 
childhood this girl was abused by her drunken father, and when Tamara told her 
family she had become a Christian she was thrown out. But the precious seed planted 
that day took root. What a thrill to meet her again, and see the amazing ministries 
she has begun! With the help of OM teams sent to work alongside her, this one young 
woman has made a major impact on her own small village and surrounding villages. 

A church built in the last few years not only provides spiritual nourishment on Sundays, 
but a good daily meal for old people—probably the only one they have. Children also go 
to the church hall after school for homework help, a snack, Bible stories and games. I 
slept in the unfinished second floor of the building, which doesn’t yet have running 
water or a bathroom, and Tamara eagerly told me her hopes to make it available one day 
to neglected old people and children, who need a place to bathe and get clean clothes. 

Seeing such wholehearted dedication and, earlier, sharing the humble home of the 
Dutch OM woman leading our team in the north really challenged me. Living among 
their neighbours without the basics we take for granted, it is small wonder that 
they are so loved and so effective in their ministry.   

ROMANIA

Arriving in Bucharest airport the next week I looked in vain for the OM Romania couple 
(originally from Chile) who were supposed to meet me.  After 2 hours I learned that they 
were caught up in an emergency situation with their visas, and another team member would 
come. 

Praise the Lord, Dani did eventually turn up, and we caught public transport to the 
town where OM’s Bus4Life was having a 2-day outreach. I learned later that Dani had 
once been the local secretary of the Communist Party in the 80’s. OM was then 
transporting thousands of Bibles into Romania. She found a copy, wrapped it in 
newspaper and carried it with her wherever she went for ‘good luck’! Since then 
Dani has truly found new life in Jesus and she and her sister both now serve with OM.

As always, the bus proved a magnet for all ages. Set up in the town park, folks 
from 3 local churches set up tables and chairs outside and invited visitors for 
free drinks, snacks, and chat about life. Most locals also went inside to 
investigate the books on sale, while children got their faces painted or enjoyed 
sports, games and songs. Church youth presented open-air evangelistic dramas and 
others gave short challenges. I noticed one man in his 60’s kept coming back over 
the two days. At the end, as we were packing up, he told one of the pastors that 
he would see him in church that Sunday!

Travelling north on the bus to our OM Romania base we passed through the stunning 
Carpathian Mountains. The medieval city of Brasov is surrounded by these snow-
covered peaks and I fell in love with it. During the next days I talked with team 
members and saw some of their ministries first-hand. OM owns a 100-year-old building 
that needs a lot of work but offers huge potential, with space for dormitories and 
meeting rooms as well as offices. Please pray with me that they will find the money 
for the renovations so this base can be fully activated for kingdom-building in 
Romania!

One of the groups that OM focuses on is gypsies, or Roma. The Roma are Europe’s most 
hated people, and Romania has the biggest population of them in the world, an estimated 
2 million. I visited one village and learned that girls as young as 8 are given away in 
marriage, and many are trafficked to other countries. Often gypsy children are refused 
attendance in public schools.—Sadly, even many churches do not welcome these people.  

While countries everywhere are hurting financially, let’s give thanks that our 
families don’t have to manage on $100-a-month (or less), as many Romanians must. 
Now the government has announced that in June it will cut public sector salaries 
by 25%, and pensions and social benefits by 15%. Residents are in despair. Huge 
numbers are lost to drink, and to cut down on mouths to feed abortions have 
reached epidemic proportions. In fact, Romania’s abortion rate is the highest 
in the world with 75% of pregnancies—3 out of 4 babies--deliberately terminated. 

I know…This report was a bit longer than usual but I had so much to share. If 
you didn’t feel like reading it all I understand.--Consider yourself hugged, 
anyway! Each of you is so important to me. I’m sure it was thanks to your prayers 
that I didn’t get my usual cold, and although there were headaches they weren’t 
crippling. Travelling calamities were avoided, and most of the things that needed 
to be covered were done. I got lots of valuable input for the book! So we make a 
good team.

I’d like to leave you with a poem by Amy Carmichael that’s found an echo in my 
own heart as I travel through this hurting world:

‘Because of little children soiled,

And disinherited, despoiled,
 

Because of hurt things, feathered, furred,

Tormented beast, imprisoned bird,
 

Because of many-folded grief,

Beyond redress, beyond belief,
 

Because the word is true that saith,

The whole creation travaileth –

 
Of all our prayers this is the sum:

O come, Lord Jesus, come.’

 
Sending my love your way! HAPPY SUMMER! --Debbie


EARTHQUAKE IN CHILE—TEAM “SHAKEN BUT SAFE”

A massive 8.8 magnitude quake hit Concepcion, Chile, on Saturday 27 February, 
which has claimed over 700 lives and devastated the coastline. Many people are 
still missing. This message is from our OM Chile team’s new field leader, Carlos 
Correa, in Santiago, who asks for your prayers as they try to create a network 
to help destroyed churches and homes of believers. --Debbie

“This morning [Saturday]  around 3:00 a.m. we woke up to the noise of breaking 
glass and people crying out for help in anguished fashion. The whole building 
was shaking like a swing, going back and forth, and seemed like it was going 
to collapse. We are living on the 19th floor of an apartment building and what 
we felt is difficult to explain. Our neighbor went into a panic attack and we 
did not know if we should evacuate the building or stay. Many people were in 
the streets and we understood that the earthquake was very strong. More than 
a hundred people are dead and thousands disappeared. A church in the vicinity 
of Santiago collapsed completely and part of the city is on the ground. Maipu, 
a community close to Santiago is the most needy community. People are in shelters 
because their houses are gone. The epicenter of the earthquake was in Concepcion, 
500 km from Santiago, and we can imagine how it was in that area. The airport is 
closed. The government is asking the people not to leave their houses and we can 
still feel some small quakes.

Our team is all well, shaken but safe. We all felt the quakes. Things are broken 
in the house, but nothing major. The Intensive Training Team was scheduled to 
travel to the south, but we do not know if it will be possible. I was going to 
travel to Valparaiso, but the news that is not advisable to take the road made 
us cancel the trip.

We need your prayers. Internet connection is working in part of the city so I 
could send you this email. Please, pray for us as we face this time in Chile. 
We need God’s guidance and wisdom to be able to go through this time. Pray for 
those who are involved in outreach programs that they will be able to share the 
power of the gospel to those in need. We could see how the Lord has kept us from 
harm and given us peace during this time, and we want the people to have the same 
faith and hope that we do. Praises be to the Lord, almighty.”



 
THE OLD SHIP DOULOS

Most of us were really hoping there would be an opportunity for the ship to 
continue in some kind of ministry from a fixed berth. We have been in negotiations 
with several groups to this end, but they have come to the conclusion that it would 
be technically and financially too challenging. This leaves us only, with heavy 
hearts, to accept one of the other offers to purchase the ship for scrap. The 
Doulos is currently in a shipyard in Singapore where we are unloading the books 
and equipment that we plan to keep or give to others. 70 of the crew have transferred 
to the Logos Hope and others are going to different OM fields. The ship office has 
asked me to write a final tribute for media distribution.

OM IN HAITI

The focus of Operation Mobilization’s disaster relief efforts is now a network of 
orphanages concentrated in the southern areas of Port-au-Prince. We have been able 
to help 3 of them at this point (see photo) and have made contact with 2 others 
that are totally destroyed. A few more people and shipment of supplies are 
scheduled to arrive this week, and we are setting up systems for the receiving, 
storing and delivery of relief supplies.


  
Haiti child with emergency team member!

An immediate need is to provide shelter so the children will no longer have to 
sleep on the ground, as Haiti’s rainy season will begin soon. Structural engineers 
must inspect remaining buildings to determine what is necessary for stabilizing 
them for future use. Thank you for your ongoing prayers for these desperate folks!

EUROPE BOOK        

As I mentioned a few months ago, OM’s European area leaders have asked me for a book 
to help “put Europe back on the missions map.” I’m still on the foothills looking up 
at this mountain-size project, but I thought I’d keep you in the loop by including a 
feature I wrote after visiting Greece. I hope the situation will affect you as much 
as it did me, and that you’ll join me in asking God to mobilize more Christians to 
help combat the worldwide plague of human trafficking. 

SEX AND THE CITY

I shifted uneasily as my companion and I stood outside the row of brothels. The dark 
streets of this rundown section of Athens were lit only by the lights above the doorways. 
In most cities the lights are red but Greece has its own rules. The two of us prayed with 
our eyes open, careful to make sure the team members who had gone inside emerged within a 
reasonable length of time. 

Now and then a man came along and proceeded to go in and out of several houses. -- 
“Window shopping,” I was told; inspecting the goods on sale before making his choice. 
I felt a rush of anger. What went through the girls’ minds when their bodies were 
surveyed and rejected?

After more orientation it was my turn to follow a veteran volunteer into one of the 
brothels. Fortunately the interior was so dark I could see very little. And my Romanian-
speaking companion did all the talking, after presenting her New Life card to the madam 
in charge.      

International Teams’ New Life ministry has been working on the streets of Athens for 
about ten years. Prostitution is legal in Greece, and the skin trade has increased 
tenfold during the last decade. 1 in 4 Greek men regularly pay for sex and a visit 
costs only 15 Euros. The great majority of women involved, however, are not Greek. 
According to estimates, there are 13,000-14,000 trafficking victims in the country 
at any given time, including 1,000 between the ages of 13 to 15, mostly from Eastern 
Europe—Russia, Moldova, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania—and Nigeria. 

Traffickers typically lure their victims to the city with false promises of jobs. Others 
are entrapped by “lover boys,” pimps who talk of marriage to vulnerable females, grooming 
them before they’re pushed into prostitution. Perhaps 40% of women are saddled with 
massive debts. And then there are the ones kept under lock and key, slaves controlled 
by violence.

The EU’s invisible borders have made it easy for traffickers to move girls around. And 
Nigeria has its own powerful—and highly lucrative--criminal ring. Although it may cost 
1000 Euros to transport girls to their destination cities, recruits will be forced to 
pay back their traffickers up to 80,000 Euros. And girls are kept from rebelling by the 
strong hold of voodoo oaths –and threats to their families.

New Life’s goal is to support and restore individuals involved in prostitution by 
addressing their physical, emotional and spiritual needs. Staff and volunteers offer 
friendship along with practical help to develop exit strategies, cooperating with 
local officials and partnering with the local church.  

“What we hope for is that girls will see their real value,” explains New Life team 
leader Emma Skjonsby-Manousaridis. She downplays what they do, however, saying that 
it’s only God who transforms. “We care for the people He brings into our lives, but 
really we’re just called to be faithful.—To show up! And sometimes we’re witnesses 
to a miracle.”

Some girls who receive New Life cards keep them as long as a year or two before going 
for help. Volunteers speak a variety of East European languages. Young Bulgarian Dena 
tells of meeting a girl with an evangelical church background who had been trafficked 
to Athens. Dena was able to help her find a safe place and, eventually, a job. But 
such happy endings are rare. When a Greek 15-year-old we’ll call Lila was sexually 
abused by her aunt and uncle, she told her parents. They didn’t believe her and threw 
her out. Lila met a man who gave her a baby and then left her. She met another man who 
put her in a brothel. Her earnings bought him a house and a motorcycle. But after 
getting infected with an STD, Lila called Dena to ask for help. 

Finding other jobs for girls who have been involved in prostitution is difficult, but 
Dena managed to get her cleaning work. Failure to appear for a court hearing, however, 
landed Lila in jail for four months. Her boyfriend never visited, and Dena’s attempts 
to see her failed. Lila cut her wrists twice after being abused by women inmates. When 
she got out she was bitter against God and men. By this time she was 24. With no place 
to go Lila went back to work at a brothel. “She told me it would only be temporary,” 
sighed Dena. “But that’s what they all say.”   

OMers are addressing the darkness in several of Europe’s major cities. Zurich’s Global 
Action team has been active since 2000. During the last year, Marcel and Ase Georgel 
in France have begun working with an outreach group in Nantes. And since 2007, a team 
member in Vienna has joined volunteers visiting her city’s red light area, another big 
trafficking centre. Prostitution is legal in Austria and because the capital city borders 
other countries, many women travel there by train just to solicit customers in the 
underground overnight. Some are single mothers working to feed their families. 

The irony is, says OMer Margrit, East Europeans can come and live in Germany and Austria, 
but they can’t legally work there—except in prostitution. They can go on the streets 
because there’s a special category that allows sex workers. So the system gives them few 
choices. And, she adds, the city sees nothing wrong with including brothel visits as part 
of the package for businessmen travelling to Vienna. 

Police have recently advised her team to be on the watch for increasing numbers of boys 
being trafficked from the Czech Republic for the sex trade. And as in Greece, large 
quantities of Nigerian girls are being exploited. Christian workers are startled to 
meet many with evangelical backgrounds. In fact, they have held Bible studies with 
them in a van before they go off to ply their trade! 

“I’ve never given out so many Bibles in different languages in my life!” muses Margrit, 
saying that some sex workers ask her to put the Book into their bag; they do not want 
to touch it themselves until they can go home and shower.  

Emma of New Life believes the logical place to attack this ever-growing criminal 
industry is in the countries of origin, raising awareness and reaching out there 
to the abused and vulnerable, the children at risk, the minorities. Deal with 
problems at the root, she points out, and there would be no need to clear up the 
mess at the other end.  

Education is certainly critical. HIV/AIDS isn’t much talked about in the ‘shame’ 
culture of Greece, for instance. Many Greeks actually believe that only African 
people can contract the disease! But the fact that cities and even their officials 
sometimes profit from the sex business, and are therefore unwilling to act, makes 
it mandatory that more Christians take up the challenge. 

“We hear them all the time exclaiming, ‘I could never do that!’” say mission workers.  
“They can’t imagine what to say to people on the streets. But when they try it, they 
realise they can do it.”Perhaps a deeper question is whether churches are ready to 
open their doors to the marginalised—the homeless, the trans-gender, the druggies 
and prostitutes. Emma thinks that’s a problem in every country. “They expect people 
to change overnight when they get saved. But people who have struggles don’t suddenly 
change. So how will they find Christ? And if they do find Him where can they go to 
grow as a Christian, if not the church?”  

OMer Marcel Georgel in France agrees emphatically that Christians can no longer sit 
on the sidelines. “I believe that the Church must once again become God's hands, His 
feet, His voice.--Because the Church alone has a message that can transform and change 
man during his earthly existence, and for eternity.”

Thanks again for your partnership!

In His Majesty’s Service, With My Love,

Debbie

  
If you would like to reach Debbie, you can e-mail her at: debbie.meroff@ict.om.org 







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