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I always enjoy leaving my Southwestern abode to experience the seasons up in Minnesota. I spend a lot of time there, often times doing events like the “Explore the Evidence” event with FaithSearch international. We usually have over a hundred people come these vents every year and we great response. One of my topics was titled the The Magic of Christmas.

I wanted to take a moment to share how significant the work we are doing with FaithSearch is, by sharing a bit of background–my “ministry story” if I may–and how this great organization has been a privileged to learn from and serve with. 

God’s Call

I was raised in an “irreligious” home. An environment downright hostile to all things of faith. When I first came to faith in my later teens, I remember the reactions I received… they were unpleasant to say the least. I was not permitted to ask questions, to talk about spiritual things, to challenge assumptions… the works. It felt more closed than some of the closed countries I’ve been in as an adult.

On the one hand, I can’t blame people around me when I first believed as I was super energetic about my new-found faith and immediately had the need to share with every person I came into contact with, stranger or not. Let’s just say, I wasn’t perfectly tactful on every occasion. On the other hand, there was definitely some pain experienced by my family from their own upbringings which clearly led to an anti-Christian bias that I was never really given the chance to learn about. To this day, as far as I know, I remain one of the only evangelical followers of Jesus in my immediate family.

At that time, I was already competing as a stage illusionist. My faith challenged me to give my gifts and abilities to God, so for a short while, I put out of my mind the idea of being a professional magician (my dream).

Then I met Andre Kole, world renowned illusionist and ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru) and he graciously put me onto his touring team in summer of 1993, as his technical director (lights and sound) and a guest performer. I was still a teenager as our eight-member team traveled around the country with five tons of equipment doing about twenty performances every month.

During our off time, I was doing a one-man, anti-drug-and-alcohol school assembly show for K-12 audiences. I think I put fourteen thousand miles on my pick-up truck in one month as I did about 125 performances throughout the midwest, almost each in a different town!

A Vision Inspired

Through Andre’s stellar example, day in and day out on the road, and the discipleship of another road team member, one of my most cherished God-given friends (Dana Tison) I was taught how to walk with Christ, to share my faith, and to use the art of illusion as a tool to share Christ with those outside of the context of a local church.
After I had won the internationals at the World Magic Seminar in Las Vegas in 1994, I ventured out in faith with another great friend, comedian Rod Robison, along with Dana Tison, and other variety Christian artists to produce my very first variety arts outreach program in December of that year in my home church, Casas Church, in Tucson, AZ. Over 800 people came to witness the show, with me headlining the program. I shared my Gospel presentation which Andre Kole and Dana Tison so generously helped me develop. Granted, eighty percent of those present were probably from a church background, but out of that audience we had fifty-six people indicate commitments to Christ!

Upon completing the finale, I remember weeping as I ran off the stage, experiencing this sense in my heart that this is exactly what I needed to devote my life to: Sharing the Gospel with the lost… with an emphasis on those who have never heard. Andre Kole was instrumental in encouraging me to focus on unreached people groups internationally, and to keep my program versatile and easy to transport. Making me a part of his touring team was so vital to my spiritual growth and my performance.

As of today, I’ve now been on over forty-five missions all over the globe with hundreds of thousands in attendance, thousands coming to Christ, new churches started… in some of the most closed places on earth, yet opened wide simply because I showed up as an “entertainer.”

I have refined my mission and vision over the years. Being that most of my events have been on university campuses and high schools with my customary Q&A time afterwards… I quickly found that to reach the lost I could not simply share the Good News, but, also needed to provide a reasonable defense of it.  In other words, clearing every stumbling block (doubt) so that a person could have an unobstructed view of Christ. This became a core value and naturally, the majority of my studies has been in the area of apologetics and world-views.

A Mission Refined

Over time, however, I became somewhat disillusioned. Individuals who indicated a commitment to Christ were not always becoming disciples (Christ followers). There were times I would return to a country I had ministered in previously, to discover large stacks of response cards from students who had attended my programs before and even indicated commitments to Christ–and no one ever contacted them, or invited them to church or an on-campus Bible study! It seemed like I was doing all of this for nothing. I discovered another core value–that it wasn’t enough to simply share the Gospel… with evidence; I also needed an intentional strategy in place which would maximize our efforts to make disciples, not just “decisions”.

In 1999, I met Dr. Don Bierle, president of FaithSearch International who has become another wonderful, like-minded/hearted mentor for the past fifteen years. He had also experienced some of the same frustrations I have in working with local ministries being responsible to follow up the fruit we started. Being a scientist and in ministry for nearly forty years, he developed the strategies, the curriculum, and the ministry philosophy to maximize our work as outreach specialists in a way I had never seen before.

I have worked with FaithSearch and Dr. Don Bierle off and on for the past fifteen years. I have implemented much of what I learned from this ministry. I was so touched witnessing one fruitful result of these strategies during my first tour in “name”-stan (several workers have been deported so I’m going to keep the name of the country off my blog) several years ago. I met a worker who came up to me at one of our programs on a university campus. This person shared that he/she had seen me at his/hers own university campus in his/her home country in East Asia 5 years prior. Keep in mind, this person’s home country was a completely closed one that I had toured in 3 times. Now, here he/she is, serving in another closed country! That’s the kind of fruit I wanted to see and experience. Multiplication! In 2012, Don began to challenge me to join full time with FaithSearch and I have been praying about making this move since.

A Partnership Comes Together

In the summer of 2015, I had several teaching opportunities to present what I now call, Unmasking the Masquerade … a presentation I’ve been refining since I met Dr. Bierle, which is a hybrid of his FaithSearch Discovery presentation I was trained to teach, and my own performance and teaching. Unmasking the Masquerade is the title of our recently published book too which you can learn all about here! All summer, the Lord had been really impressing upon me to do this presentation more and more. I have found it to be very effective in helping Muslims overcome the common misconceptions they hold about Jesus and the historicity of the gospels (the Gospel… with evidence).

As a result of the positive fruit I have seen working with FaithSearch over the years as well as several other life changing factors, I’ve accepted the challenge. Dr. Bierle recently presented a proposal to me and to the FaithSearch board of directors. They voted in favor of having me become the international and southwest regional director for FaithSearch International!

How will this change my mission? Not much will change. As you’ve probably read in years past, my mission has always been simple and clear:

The primary mission of Adrian Van Vactor International Ministries (AVVIM) is to utilize the art of illusion as a tool to bridge cultural and generational gaps and communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the distinctive combination of apologetics and entertainment.”

A Vision Recast

My new position will have some added responsibilities, all of which fit very well with the work I already do. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing what I have learned and have implemented in many ways already into my ministry work, but will now be much more intentional about in the years to come with FaithSearch.

To support Adrian’s new ministry with FaithSearch, BECOME A PARTNER TODAY!

The post My Story a New Direction appeared first on Adrian Van Vactor International Ministries.

The best laid schemes of Mice and Men, they say.

It’s easy to plan a long vacation or just a weekend family get-away and find Murphey’s law creating some good tests to your patience. When planning a mission, on the other hand, for some reason I tend to think, “I’m doing this for you God. Everything should go just as planned. Right Lord…. Lord?”

Unfortunately, even the most worthy of causes are not immune to the laws of human error and chance.  I might add, the closer you follow God’s way, the more of a threat you are to the enemy and his futile schemes.  So begins my fourth visit to Turkey.

There was nothing unusual about the long journey to Istanbul. In the over 40 missions I’ve been on, one thing I’ve been fortunate to rely on are those faithful men and women who handle and guide my equipment (insert sarcasm) from flight to flight. I’ve actually never missed a program due to a delayed bag and I’ve never had an airline tell me that they lost my luggage. I guess my time had come.

My flight landed at midnight. As the belts and gears stopped running, I thought to myself, surely my baggage is just one of the last bags to come out of the mouth of this metal luggage dragon (I was tired). Nope. Surely it will be on the next flight the following afternoon? Nope. Surely one of the 4 or 5 flights arriving that evening? Nope. How about the next morning after that… I digress.

After keeping my ride, whom I’ve never met, waiting for over 2 hours as I made my way through immigration, lost luggage claims, and customs, I was surprised to see him still there as I exited the customs area. He was so tired (it’s now after 2 am) he got us on the wrong bus going in the opposite direction for, what should have been, an hour or so long journey to his uncle’s house.

Exhausted from being up for over 35 hours without a full night’s sleep, as soon as I walked in, uncle Safak said in his broken English, “ok, we leave in one hour for airport to meet team and fly.”  “No equipment!” I replied.  Both exhausted, we shrugged it off and went to bed and I didn’t meet the team. But, there was still time to catch a later flight alone and not miss any programs since that next day was just a travel and debrief day.

Anxious and truly anticipating to find my luggage, I made my way back to the airport thinking to myself, well, surely they at least know where my luggage is? And once again… Nope. “We lost your luggage sir”, said the metal dragon keeper with his thick Turkish accent.  “Okay God… no props, no show, no tour.” My thoughts naturally wandered to suppose that I needed to confess some sin. And maybe I didn’t pray enough before I left and instead spent too much time rushing to have everything ready. Whatever the case may be, this is obviously not God’s will, so, “Lord, I come before you right now….” And on goes my feeble attempt to appeal to the Lord to send his metal airport dragon slaying angels to come and subdue the greedy tin beast to relinquish the treasure that is my show… to no avail.

The next two days were all but debriefing and performing as planned. Instead I sat, alone, tired and discouraged at the airport Starbucks or Popeye’s chicken. Yep, they have those here.

Tragedy  Strikes

Meanwhile, in a galax… err, city, far, far away (about a 3 hour flight), called Diyabakir, the rest of the team had been forced to retreat and remain indoors. You can read about that story and update here.  Needless to say, the city was on edge, and the host community of believers thought it wise to cancel the two days of events we had scheduled.  This gave me more time to retrieve my luggage!

Back in Istanbul, after two days of sitting in the airport, my equipment finally arrived! I honestly thought it was gone for good. I kicked the luggage dragon in the head and headed for the domestic airport terminal.

Wait a sec, “how am I going to pay for another airline ticket?” I recalled the night I was with uncle Safak when I asked him what would happen to the ticket they had already purchased for me. He simply blew into his hand and said “it flies away”.

At this VERY SAME time, a dear brother in Germany whom I’ve known for many years (he has even hosted tours for me there) sent me a gift via paypal in Euro’s that more than exceeded the cost of the extra plane ticket. I jumped on the next flight at 1 am to meet the team in Diyarbakir from where we continued our journey to the next schedule city of Mardin. I didn’t miss a thing, except the fellowship I would have had, had I been with the team since the start. I was exhausted and hadn’t had a real night’s sleep in about 4 days.

Just before I got on the plane, I received this message from a dear brother from my home church who was completely unaware of my situation at the time he sent it:

“Adrian… I’m praying for you and wanted to remind you that we serve a God who works at His own pace. He’s never in a hurry even in the times we’d like Him to be, and yet always accomplishes the things He wants to do. And knowing both His pacing and patience in equal measure it’s important to know the things He’s doing in our lives aren’t being delayed.  Just like the things He’s created grow at a very gradual pace and the trees He made produce fruit very slowly, He does this to remind us of how patient He truly is. Not only proving His mercy toward our mistakes, but the assurance of knowing the good and beautiful things He started in our lives will be worth the wait to see when finally in bloom. All we have to do is trust Him and preserve those crops”.

Needless to say, I was encouraged and heard exactly what I already sensed in my heart.

Now that we’ve been on tour, looking back, my situation was trivial and pretty much had little to no bearing on the tour, or at least nothing I could change, anyway.  I was on time, all my needs were met, and we are sharing the gospel with those who truly have never heard.

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“All my life I’ve lived in fear. Finally I now know I do not have to fear. For the first time in my life I have peace. Thank you!”

Those were the words of a high school student shortly after a program I did standing in the back of a pick up truck as my stage (one of the images above). In Africa, superstition and ancestral spirit worship is at the very heart of the many cultures there. South Africa is no exception.

I remember the first time I toured in South Africa during Operation Sunrise Africa in 2002. Many thought that to bring an illusionist there was a bad idea. “People here are too superstitious,” some would say. “They’ll think you’re a witch doctor”, others said.

On the contrary, my experience has shown me that this is one of the best ways to reach students living in these more superstitious cultures. I performed at several South Africa universities that first tour. When the national campus director for Campus Crusade for Christ, who was a bit skeptical, saw the program for the first time, his response was, “We need to have this program in every college in the country!” Why…?

This year has been one of the busiest. I’m currently in route for the last segment of a seven country tour. I began the year in Kyrgyzstan, then Albania, Turkey, Israel, and most recently completed my 4th tour in South Africa. I can’t wait to begin assembling all the images, video’s and stories to share for you! Please pray for the hundreds and thousands of individuals that we’ve been privileged to reach with the Gospel. Pray for the local follow-up teams who are continuing the work with those individuals who have responded to Christ in faith.

Exposing the Lie
In my program, you might assume I need to keep the effects simple enough so as not to reinforce any beliefs in the power of the local witch doctors (also called songoma in South Africa). In my years of experience performing in so many “superstitious” cultures I have found the opposite to be most effective. I do the most “magical”, mind blowing effects that I can. At home in the USA its just good show. In South Africa however, I had students running for the door thinking I just performed miracles!

As much as my colleagues in the art of illusion would frown on it, after I present these effects, I would always take my audience through a simplistic explanation of the how I (and the SONGOMA!) create these effects. Then, the most amazing thing happens. It’s almost as if my entire audience and I were sitting in a pitch black room when all of a sudden the lights are switched on illuminating every person sitting there.

It’s so powerful… words do not even begin to capture what I see in their eyes or read on their faces and body language. It’s that total “ah ha” moment of realization that they have been getting duped their entire lives.

In much of Africa there is a tremendous sense of fear in many people’s lives. Especially those who have ceded power to witchdoctors who have deceived them for their entire lives. As I would say in each program, “if a person (i.e. witchdoctor) tells you a lie and you believe it, does he not have power over you?” Usually I would get lots of yes nods. “If he has power over you, do you not have reason to fear that person?” Again, yes nods.

“But… once you know the truth, and a person lies to you, do they now have power over you?”

Keep in mind, I’ve just presented several “effects” that would give the illusion that I have great power. Greater than perhaps anything they have ever seen or perhaps even heard. And I’ve just explained how those effects can be done using science, slight of hand, and trickery.

As the audience nods “NO” to that last question… I finish the segment by asking, “Do you have any reason to fear a witchdoctor who lies to you now that you know the truth?” Again, a resounding no as they audience begins to vocalize with great enthusiasm their confident answer.

Sharing the Truth
This would all be a nice humanitarian effort if I stopped right there. But, at this point, I’m only about half way through the program. The next segment, I perform some “for fun” effects and then begin to transition to ask and answer the question that is already on all of our minds… why do we search for the supernatural?

Clearly, in each of us is written upon our hearts to seek what nature has made plain… that which is beyond what we can see, hear, taste, touch, and smell… the invisible, the divine… the one true creator God. In a fallen state and with the father of lies prowling about, how can anyone know Him personally unless we go and tell them the truth?

What a privilege and thrill it is to conclude the program by sharing God’s love and plan for the life of every human being as well as the active demonstration of that love in history through the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Meeting students afterwards, hearing how the Gospel has touched them brings a whole new dynamic to Jesus’ words, “you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free…”.

Next Mission
Saturday, I’ll begin my first day of programs in Egypt. Next I’ll move on to Bulgaria to work with Operation Mobilization once again on a street evangelism tour primarily focusing on Turkish communities. And finally, due to the response from the tour earlier this year, I will be returning to Albania for the remainder of my time before returning.

The post Outreach “Operation Sunrise Africa”… continues. appeared first on Adrian Van Vactor International Ministries.

Turkey anyone?  Did you know that Turkey (the country not that bird we love to gorge ourselves on once a year) has the largest un-evangelized population in the world (www.abountmissions.org)? It was surprising to me as well. Yet, over the last decade, it has become increasingly easier and freer to share the gospel in Turkey. In fact, you have more freedom to express your faith than to suppress someone who is sharing their faith. So why is there nearly 35 million Turkish people who have never heard a clear presentation of the gospel?

I was told that Turks have a saying, “To be a Turk is to be a Muslim.” Turkey is considered one of the main centers (or protectors) for Islam. Islam is the Turkish identity, not just a predominant religion. In the 80’s, you could probably find only 50 Muslim background believers (MBB’s) in the whole country. Today, with a population of about 70 million, there are only about 5,000 MBB’s. With such freedom, I’m honestly astonished that there isn’t more evangelism taking place here. In fact, I feel somewhat ashamed I didn’t become more aware of the situation here sooner and involved myself however I could.

During my first tour we did open air programs in one of Istanbul’s busiest boardwalks. It was amazing to see how quickly crowds would gather. I of course thought that as soon as I began to share my testimony, people would quickly leave. Not at all! In fact about 90% of the crowd stayed for the entire gospel message!

Please pass the gravy. I’m not sure what the crowds will be like or what the response will be like when I return to Turkey this Spring. One thing I am sure of is that Turkey has a tremendous amount of freedom to share the gospel yet, I’ve been warned that the Turkish people have an apathy and disinterest in the gospel. They predominantly believe that there is no relevance to the Gospel because, quite frankly, there are no records concerning Jesus’ life to the average persons understanding. Any records of Jesus’ life have all been lost or changed (corrupted).

That’s ok, I have a secret sauce. I not only feel blessed to be here at such time as this, but also blessed to be in partnership with Faith Search International (www.faithsearch.org) a ministry wholly dedicated to not only spreading the gospel but, sharing it with evidence.

I remember back when I first began my training by President of Faith Search, Dr. Don Bierle, in the late 90’s. I was immediately impressed by how quickly and easily my understanding and ability on how to defend the Gospel’s historicity and authenticity (and I already thought myself to be exceedingly proficient in this area of my ministry!). I hope that my dialogue with local people in Istanbul during my next tour will provide opportunities to share those life changing truths and facts… the records concerning Jesus’ life have indeed been preserved and are absolutely trustworthy to know who Jesus really is!

As I continue my journey around the world, check out one of the organizations I’m working with. TACO www.tacoteam.org in reaching people with the Gospel throughout the Muslim world boldly using creative performing arts. If you would be interested in joining me on my next tour and be featured using your performing gifts and talents, let us know!

If you can’t, at the very least, take some time to pray for open hearts, strategic opportunities, and or course, new relationships in this part of the world that will assist in advancing the Kingdom of our Lord. Pray we increase that 5,000 MBB’s to 5,001, or 5,010 or even 6,000!

The post Street Performing in Turkey appeared first on Adrian Van Vactor International Ministries.

Thank you to all my team members for your continued support! Your investment of time and resources, and—most importantly—prayer and encouragement have affected the lives of thousands of people all over the world.

In partnership with Campus Crusade for Christ International (Now called Cru only in the US) as well as several other organizations and ministries, I’ve had exciting tours – one such tour was over 100 outreach and teaching events in the US and in 3 countries with over 40,000 men, women, and youth in attendance! A highlight of this tour was working throughout the country of South Africa in about 5 cities and many rural townships.  Audiences were very receptive and we had 15,000 students in attendance over the five week tour!

Since 1997 I’ve been privileged to be sent by my team (my partners) on 40 missions in 22 countries, giving hundreds of thousands of individuals an opportunity to hear the gospel for the very first time. When you think about investing in kingdom work, my guess is you want every dollar you sow to reach as many people for Christ as possible.  I can promise you that the vision the Lord has been putting to use over the past 15 years in using the art of illusion to reach the masses in difficult to reach places of the world will be one of the most fruitful partnerships you can be a part of.

Just a few moments of your time right now will impact thousands of lives for eternity.  If you have been blessed so far this year and are in a position to support my work with Cru, I hope you will prayerfully consider making gift online right now. It’s easy, quick, secure and fully tax deductible.

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