Admitably it's been hard getting back into the habit of keeping up our blog since the Christmas break. After going through pictures on my phone from the last month it inspired me to share with you all a little bit of what we've been up and how the church is doing.
Sunday School is continuing to grow. Whether it be families in the church that are growing, or more people coming to church with children we seem to be getting more young ones every Sunday morning. The boy third from the left leaning forward actually wanted to sit in Bible school after service on Sunday afternoon and sat in the class for the full hour and half listening completely still. He walks into church every Sunday with his Bible and will gladly tell you about it and how he frequently reads it at home if you ask. These kids all speak only German but it is amazing to see them soak up the Word of God. I guess that's why they call it child like faith!
As we mentioned we have started Bible School on Sundays after service. This is "Old Testament Survey". Taught by Matt and Adrien, and they rotate every week on teaching the class. We have had great turn outs by doing class after services. It seems to be the most difficult thing to get people to come out on a weeknight, after their day is over. And the response we have been getting by moving the class to Sunday afternoon has been great. People have been really enjoying spending time with each other after services and waiting for classes to start. For the past 3 weeks we have been consistently getting around 10 people.
We took a trip to the Uckermark region of Germany. This is East Germany. This is as east as you get before hitting Poland. Many of you may remember the unreached areas where we did concerts a few years back. Well we have recently started a new outreach program called "Love Brandenburg" (inspired by Baltimore's "Love Maryland" outreaches). It is to keep us all remembering the people that we have met in these areas and to not forget them in our prayers and outreach. The place feels as cold and as isolated as you can imagine. And it is easy to go there and come back with a sense of empty handedness, but that doesn't negate the fact that they need God and these towns need His Word. This picture of this one building I think will give you an idea of the area that we are trying to describe. We stopped a few people on the street and tried to speak with them about the gospel and encourage them.
Lastly, we recently celebrated Valentines Day! Valentines Day is no where near as popular here as it is in the States. In the States we are constantly reminded of it the day after New Years, but here it is easily skipped over. So, I decided to make some Valentines Day cookies and bring them to church this last Sunday and they were a huge hit. We also celebrated Valentines Day together by going out for breakfast, something we realized we never do. Our American friends here wanted to celebrate Valentines Day by going out to dinner, which inspired us to celebrate somehow. On Valentines night we had Bible school at the church (which is why we went out for breakfast) and having a little cash in our pockets from babysitting for our American friends while they celebrated, we decided to spend it on our own celebration.
Our Valentines Day breakfast.
Also, Emily has started to teach English classes at the church. It is a free class that we are offering to the church and hoping it will also be used as a form of outreach to draw people in. Tonight is actually the first class she will teach so you can be keeping it in prayer!
-Matt & Emily
