I have just come back to Norway from a great mission tour to Egypt. I was teaching in a conference for leaders and evangelists that had a burden for bringing Jesus to new people. The conference took place in a town called Safaga, a town along the Red Sea, almost an hour drive south from Hurghada. It was a great joy for me to see all these men and women, most of them young, with a strong burden on their life to share Jesus with people in Egypt and other countries.

Jan Ernst Gabrielsen was part of founding the large church movement, ”Sudan Pentecostal Churches”, at the end of the 70's and has been following the development very closely during the latest years. Before the 20-year-long civil war started in 1983, he had been to the country 15 times in order to preach and inspire the new church leaders and preachers there. He also helped them to have the movement registered by the authorities. Now there are more than 400 local churches there and they are experiencing strong growth in the work.

The last 6 years he has been visiting the country many times a year, teaching, equipping and training many hundreds of preachers and Christian leaders both from this movement and from the whole range of evangelical churches in the country. After the cease-fire between the north and south took place, Gabrielsen travelled to the capital of Sudan, Khartoum, in order to meet some of the leaders of Sudan Pentecostal Churches. He met many that he had known from the time before the civil war started, and many who came there afterwards. The seed that had been planted had brought rich fruit!