Fire On Ice

If you ever wondered, can you really build a fire on a frozen lake? This post is for you. We performed our own Mythbusters test, and yes it's true. You really can....... 

Just a small update...

To those of you who follow our blog regularly you may have noticed that there haven't been any posts for over one month now! You may be wondering, who are these slackers that we follow so diligently? And what have they been doing? Well the answer is we have been working on giving the church here in Berlin a makeover. Top to bottom, new paint, new curtains, new seats, even a new coffee bar area. We are heading up the makeover, deciding on paint colors, wood colors, curtain fabrics, etc... and then the fun part... DOING the work. It has been a lot of trips to Ikea & Obi (the European version of Home Depot) and a lot of long days and nights painting the tall church walls. 

Please keep this church makeover in your prayers and we will be posting before and after pictures soon!!! 

Thanks for following,

Matt & Emily

Baby Dedication!

The church here is growing! If it's not new people coming in the door, it's new babies being brought up in the body here! We had a baby dedication this past Sunday service and 4 babies were dedicated. Please keep in prayer the parents of these awesome kids. Also please keep in prayer our Sunday School which is taking on a new form and filling up more and more every week. Pray for the teachers, for the helpers, and also that we would be able to renovate the children's Sunday School room down in the church basement.

Angermünde & Uckermarke

We recently took a trip to the small village of Angermunde. It is one of several villages that make up the area of Uckermarke. It is about 20 minutes outside of Poland and is completely isolated. These villages are completely void of the gospel. There are no churches in any of these villages, no evangelical preaching, no missionaries... nothing. There is one Pastor who is in charge of 7 areas, and his advise to us was that this area is very closed off and there is very little hope of reaching people. He said our best bet was to reach the children, and hope that they will grow up with a belief in God. During the Catholic reformation, Catholicism was forced upon these people, only to be followed by the rise of communism which left them void of any religion at all. These people now live an existence, without any God or any form of religion. Other German's who visit these areas cannot believe that they are still in Germany because of how desolate these areas are.

We spent the day meeting with the areas Pastor, and soul winning near the train station. The station becomes very busy in late afternoon as children and teens leave from school and go back to their villages. Angermunde has the area's only school, so all of the other villages bus their children in to Angermunde every day. When you talk to the teens in groups they become very harsh (to say the least) against the gospel. The name of Jesus, the blood of Christ... these are all things that they've never had to hear before. But when these kids are alone, standing, waiting for the bus... they soften up. This one girl Jessica, said right away "I've never thought of God before" and the more we talked to her she said "I do think about those things sometime" and she took our tract and our numbers. Please pray for the hearts of these teens. They're only hope in life is to do well in school and get out of the Uckermarke, but most end up staying there unemployed and living off the government as they grow up.

Pastor Gary has ordered about a dozen copies of the Cross and the Switchblade, by Pastor David Wilkerson, written in German to give to these kids. A few teens who had a positive response to the message of Christ and His grace, were given a book to read and to call us if they have any questions. Pray for the people in these villages, that their hearts will be softened towards the Word and that God will show us what to do as we try to start outreach and Bible Studies in these areas.

Vertical Link reaching Berlin...

Keep TU (the Technical University) in your prayers. We go evangelizing on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the main cafeteria on campus. We would love to hold a Bible study there with students every week. God has given us great, provoking conversations with students from all around the world. This Tuesday we spoke with a Muslim from Turkey who was very open and interested to hear the gospel. He plans on meeting us again to talk more about Christ, and he wants to bring some friends of his also. Wednesday we met a student from Thailand who was also interested in the gospel. He was a Buddhist, but very intrigued by the mystery of God and His Son. So please keep our Turkish friend Valcon, and our Thai friend Kwang in your prayers. We believe that God will continue to do great things on this campus.

Pray for EuroCon

We are planning to be in Budapest from March 17-March 21st for EuroCon. Please pray for support to come in that month that can get us there. Here are our needs below for you to please keep in your prayer:

Flight to Budapest: 130 euros round trip for both of us

Hotel in Budapest: 224 euros for 4 nights

That's a total of 354 euros not including the registration fees for the conference and food for the week. 

Please keep these needs in prayer as we are planning on going BY FAITH!

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee" Isaiah 26:3

HOME FOR CHRISTMAS!

We were blessed beyond words to fly home for Christmas. It was about two weeks before Christmas day when we started praying for a miracle and an opportunity to be home with our families at Christmas time. It was only a few days later that we got an email from someone saying that they would like to pay for our trip home for Christmas!! We picked out our flights and snuck in the back door of Baltimore. We were home for two weeks that flew by faster then we had imagined. We had the opportunity to see all our friends and family and be in Baltimore for the Fitly Framed Conference and New Years Eve service. Thank you Jesus for this gift and for amazing friends and family to come home to!