The gifts of Christmas...

This Christmas the church in Berlin has wrapped hundreds of presents to give to the people of Berlin on the streets. In the present is a gospel of John, with a personal insert. The insert tells the reader how to get to heaven and how to read through the gospel of John. It shows them what Christmas is really celebrating, why God sent His Son, and what that means for them. It also has an invitation inside for the Candlelight Service here in Berlin on Christmas Eve. The gifts were all wrapped by people in the church and tied with a candle. To see the looks on people's faces as we handed out gifts on the streets was unforgettable. The people in this city are not accustomed to having received something for free, and to get a Christmas gift from a total strange came as quite the shock. Many people would respond with, "This is the only gift I've gotten so far" or "This will probably be my only Christmas present". 

Please pray for the response of these gifts that are given out. Hundreds have already been given out within the past few days. Last Sunday we had a new visitor come to church as a result of receiving one. God loves the city of Berlin!

Berlin Christmas Party

Christmas is here and we had the privilege to celebrate with the church here in Berlin for their annual Christmas party. The party was a total success. We volunteered to run the Christmas party this year, and could not have had more fun doing so. Matt organized the night, and Emily decorated. We also sang "O Holy Night" with Paul and Nick playing on the guitar. The night ended with introducing the German's to the "Yankee Swap" gift exchange. It was a total hit. It was such a great night of fellowship and joy in the body here in Berlin. God is doing great and mighty things in the hearts of people here. 

Teens in Berlin Strike Again...

We had our second teen meeting tonight at the ever popular Starbucks. It was a great turnout with us and four teens... OKAY that doesn't sound like an earth shattering turnout, but to get teens out on a Friday night for a Bible study that is just taking off... it's a GREAT turnout. We had so much fun with them! We laughed over coffee, talked about school, and had a great time in the word. Matt shared from Ephesians about how our lives are just for a moment (using a Starbucks straw wrapper to demonstrate the span of our lives). But God's grace and mercy operates in eternity, that is above the span of our lives, and it is new everday. I can access God's grace and mercy every day and it is brand new for me. It was a great thought, and a great time with the teens. Please keep the youth here in prayer! They are the coolest teens around. Pray for more good times around the Word with them and a fire in their hearts for God. 

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas!

The church was decorated for Christmas this weekend! It was a great time with the body, all getting together for lunch and working together making the church beautiful for Christmas! Our tree was provided by a family who owns a tree stand and they insist every year on providing the church with the best tree in the lot. They also donate all of the extra branches for decorating around the church.

 

Weekend with the Romanians

We had a great opportunity to spend the weekend after thanksgiving with Micah, Kim & Corey. The day after Thanksgiving we hit two universities in Berlin: Humboldt University & T.U. which is a technical university here in the city. Matt lead Verticalink on Johns Hopkins University back in Baltimore for about 5 years, and is anxious to get started on campus ministry here in Berlin as well. There are 3 main campus's here in the city- the two we visited and Friday and third one named Frye University. We passed out tracts at Humboldt and T.U. Friday with a challenging question on the front. There were different questions on different tracts, but they would say something like "Do you know that God created you for a purpose?" and then on the back said, call this number tonight to talk about this question. The number was Pastor Gary's home phone line and he printed stacks of tracts. There was also information for the church here in Berlin and for Verticalink's website (verticalink.org). Micah, Kim, Paul Lipsett, Pastor Gary and his son Nick, Ulli (a man here in the church in Berlin), and us all passed out as many of these tracts to everyone on campus that we saw. We did this for about 1 hour at Humboldt before moving on to T.U. 

That Sunday both Kim and Micah shared in church. They both had awesome introductions. It was such a blessing to have the guys from Romania here with us for a few days. To anyone who is thinking of visiting, know that you will be such an encouragement to the body here!

Micah & Kim sharing in Sunday morning service

Matt passing out tracts in front of Humboldt University. The campus has an outside book fair everyday so it is a high traffic area.

Thank You All For Your Continued Support...

We are so blessed by our friends and family in the body of Christ as we continue to receive faithful support from you. We cannot tell you the prayers that your support answers and the things that it allows us to do on a daily basis. Your support helps with travel (we pay to ride to church, ride to outreach, train rides to cities such as Heidelberg, etc...), it helps with our rent, it helps with church activities (food expenses and miscellaneous expenses for teen ministry), and helps put food on our table when we get home at the end of the day. God has been so faithful to us, and we can confidently say He will continue to be, because that's the kind of God we serve. Thank you so much everyone for your gifts, support and prayers. Please keep us in prayer for the New Year, as we believe God will continue in His faithfulness for our financial support. 

Thanksgiving in Berlin!

We just celebrated our first Thanksgiving in Europe this past Thursday. It was such an awesome day as we had a full house at the Groenewold's. Kathie & Emily cooked the Thanksgiving feast... three turkeys, mashed potatoes, squash, green beans, corn, two kinds of stuffing, pumpkin pie, chocolate cookies, apple crisp, irish soda bread, and the biggest pecan pie you've ever seen. It was a day of eating. The May's & the Groenewold's were joined by three guys from Romania who are missionaries there. Two of them are from the Greater Grace church in Baltimore (Micah Stambo & Kim Shibley) and the other one, Corey, was connected to Romania through his parents who used to be missionaries to that country. The three guys are all teachers in Romania at an international day school. We also had Adrian & Olessya, the Wollenberg's and Marianna Zsabo, all members of the church here in Berlin.