He is Risen! Jesus ist auferstanden!

Easter Weekend in Europe is a huge holiday. They celebrate Good Friday, Sunday and Easter Monday. Which means no one has work, nothing is opened, the whole city is practically shutdown for about 4 days. It's a great opportunity to get together with people in the church that normally would have little free time. We had a picnic on Good Friday with about 25 people, an amazing time on outreach Saturday and our first "Sunrise Service" with a great group of about 20 of us. I put Sunrise Service in quotes because we met about 30 min. after the sun actually rose, when planning around train schedules we all agreed that 7:00 was early enough for everyone!

Just to share really quickly about outreach, we went on Saturday thinking that it would be an easy opportunity to share with people about Christ since everyone is very aware that it was Easter Weekend. We were out for about an hour with not so much response when one man from China walked up to us, and said "What is the difference between God and Jesus?" And we got the opportunity to share with him the entire gospel, the finished work, and the importance of the shed blood of Christ. He told us that his grandmother had just passed away about a month ago and she had become a Christian right before she died. He was raised a Buddhist and was so intrigued by what made his grandmother change right before she passed. He said, "I can't believe that I met you guys, I have been looking for answers to my questions and not knowing where to go." It was amazing to get the opportunity to really share the gospel message this weekend for us and have it fall on open ears. In Germany that is not a conversation that happens on a regular basis, and it was really a gift from God that encouraged us hopefully as much as it encouraged him.

Here's a video of our weekend as a church.

Of course any holiday reminds us just how far away from home we are. We love and miss our family, friends and home church and are looking forward to seeing everyone in about a month and a half!

Matt & Emily

Proclaim It From The Roofs

There is a beautiful verse in Matthew 10 that I stumbled upon today.

"What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs" Matt. 10:27

We have been really encouraged by this thought lately of "the closet life". Pastor Schaller preached on this principle in Leadership class from last fall, and this spring we have been auditing the class online. The closet life is my personal private life with God. But even though my relationship with God is private and there are things in my life and emotions I have that I only communicate to God; I have gained something in the closet, and I am compelled to share it with others. This seed thought of the closet life has stirred up many thoughts and conversations among us, as individuals, as a team, and as a church. But this verse in Matthew coupled with this thought of having a closet life is what missions is all about. Whether it's in Germany, America, Africa, or South America; God speaks to us in the dark, He whispers it to us, and we are compelled to shout it from the rooftops. This message, God's grace, God's mercy, and God's loving friendship in our lives. How can we not tell the world...

By His grace we keep walking forward.

~Matt & Emily

God is with us in everything we do...

This is just a quick post with lots of photos from this past week. Sometimes as we go through the motions of our days and our week we forget that God has sent us, He keeps us, He leads us and He uses us. The little things we do every day don't seem like much sometimes, but when we are together with the body and doing things for our church here on Eberstrasse in Berlin we are left at the end of the day so edified.

We did a little spring cleaning at the church recently.

Fresh coats of paint, lots of scrubbing and some fresh flowers out front made a huge difference.

We had a great time on outreach Saturday. Because the weather was so nice we went to the nearest park, played some songs and invited people to church.

Also for the first time ever we had a woman's cooking night. This is a new thing that we are going to start doing once a month. This first month we learned how to make traditional German food. We have so many amazing international women in our church and we were all really excited about this new tradition!

Rosie up above cooked Kassler (roasted pork filet), sauerkraut & potatoes. It doesn't get more German than that meal!