Going Home!

We are leaving tomorrow, the 15th, for Baltimore and we couldn't be more excited! We were really blessed to have help to pay for our tickets this year. Thank you JESUS! We'll be home for 3 weeks and then back to Berlin until this summer! WOOHOOO!

Church Christmas Party

We had an awesome Christmas party this past weekend with the church. We rented a room in a restaurant near the church and filled it with about 40-50 church members. Everyone had an awesome time! We ate, had a message from Pastor Gary, and exchanged gifts. The Yankee Swap is a HUGE hit over here. Last year we introduced the game to the church at Christmas, and people were asking us about it all year, wondering if we would do it again. There was a serious competition over (in my opinion) the best gift, a Starbucks gift card... in the end we ended up with it :)And as a side note, from Emily.... Matt organized the ENTIRE Christmas party, and did an amazing job. Just had to give a shout out for a job seriously well done.

These women are from the Phillipines and are new to our church. Huge fans of these 3!

Good times at the Teen Table!

Pastor Gary preached a brief message on Christ needing a place to lay his head, not only on the day He was born, but also in our hearts today

The Newleyweds! Stephan & Mindy

Church Christmas Decorating

We were blessed with a visit from Cliff, Micah, and Donna the weekend that we decided to decorate the tree. However, their real intensions for coming from Romania were to help us eat our massive Thanksgiving feast.

Our beloved Astrid getting a snowflake to hang on the tree. She is such a gift to the church here in Berlin. She is always around, with a huge smile on her face.

...The finished product... I know it's a little scarce on the top, but that's what we were given to work with.

Thanksgiving

We had an AWESOME Thanksgiving in Berlin. It was even quoted as "The best Thanksgiving ever". Kathie cooked up an obnoxious amount of food. All I'll say about the food is ... we had 3 turkeys. It was so much fun to spend time with Micah, Cliff and Donna. They arrived on Thanksgiving day just as all the food was finished getting ready. We also had Ann Margaret's mom here for 10 days. It was so much fun to spend time with Lesley, who is basically our second mom. It was such an time of relaxing and laughing and having a taste of America here in Berlin!

Oxford Conference

Some photos from a great Conference in Oxford. More to come!

Our Position in Christ

Notes from a Woman's Bible Study this past Saturday night that Ann Margaret shared:

The key to our life is being occupied with our position in Christ, so we see ourselves as God sees us. This gives us the desire to want to know God more.

6 Points on how God sees us:

1. Perfect Matt. 5:48 God sees us as perfect as our Father in heaven.

2. Beautiful Psalm 149:4

3. Sanctified (set apart) Heb. 10:10-12

4. Blameless Psalm 32:1-2

5. Enriched I Cor. 2:16

6. Receivers of grace

When we focus on how God sees us, it takes our eyes off ourselves. Our relationship with God is not focused on what we can get from God. My position motivates me to get to know God.

We get 1) quietness 2) rest 3) stillness when we live in our position. Is. 26:3 living in these three things in our position gives us perfect peace.

When we are occupied with our position in Christ we have perfect peace and that gives me security placed in my heavenly Father.

The only way we have authority over Satan is by knowing our position!

Amen!

The Apartment Search Continues...

Well, as many of you know we have been looking for a new apartment since we arrived back in Berlin almost 3 months ago. The search has been a row of one closed door after another. With a small budget, a need for space, and wanting to live in a good area... has become a pretty tall order. Just wanted to give you all a brief update on what we are praying for, so you could pray with us...

1. An apartment with a living room or a guest room. Most apartments so far that are in our price range are one room apartments. Not like you may think in America where one room means one bedroom and you have your living room area and kitchen... here it literally means one room and sometimes the kitchen is even in that one room. One of the biggest things we would love to be able to use our apartment for is housing guests that come to visit Berlin, or inviting people over during the course of a regular week... and that's a little challenging when they walk directly into your bedroom from the front door.

2. An apartment in the price range of 200-300 euros/month. That is usually the going price for apartments around here, however that does not include heat, electricity, and water.... which adds another 200 euros to the rent sometimes... so we are really asking for a lot when we give them our budget. With the dollar to euro current exchange rate we're not in a place where we can just barely have enough to pay rent... in the event that the dollar drops even more, we wouldn't be able to pay our rent... so we are trying to budget accordingly.

3. An apartment in the areas between Steglitz and Zehlendorf. Okay we don't expect your Berlin geography to be so great that you have any idea what this means, but that is our prayer. We want to live in an area that is close to the church but not right next to it (because it is not the best neighborhood) and we would like to be close to our team members (the Groenewolds, the Steins, and the Edlers) so this is really the best location for us... unfortunately it's in high demand so when apartments open up in this area we try to get in right away to check them out.

4. A provision for the security deposit. Most rentals here (well all that we've looked at) require a deposit that is the amount of 3 months rent... so for most apartments that means a 800-900 euro deposit (that's $1,200-$1,350)!

Thank you all for your prayers and thinking of us. We are fully confident that God has a plan for our housing here in Berlin, and that he has the perfect place waiting for us.

In Him,

Matt & Emily

Videos from the Concerts

"Here I am to Worship"... in Finnish

Joonas breaking it down on the drums

This Little Light of Mine

Visit from Helsinki Teens

We had an amazing time with the teens from Helsinki for 6 days. Their youth group and a few leaders came. For a lot of them it was their first "missions trip" and for some of them it was their first time leaving the country. We were just as excited as they were to get to take them around Berlin and into East Germany.

We spent 3 days with the group in Polssen, the same location where we had a concert with the Power Surge group. The group had a day of soul winning and practice on Thursday. It was awesome to see the family who owns this property just loving having their home filled with Christian young people. The family came to all the practices and were just so available to serve. This family has been praying for years for God to move in their village of Polssen, and now they had two concerts filled with the gospel and Christian music in two weeks.

The night of the concert was great. The teens did an amazing job, they had awesome stage presence and their music sounded amazing. These guys are seriously talented! A lot of them have parents that have graduated from the most prestigious music school in Finland, and now they have mastered 2-3 instruments on their own. We would laugh because someone would be great at the drums, and then find out that that is really their 3rd instrument, the teens would all jump around from bass to guitar to piano and played everything. The group complimented each other so well.

The second concert we had was in our church on Saturday night. Our hope was to fill the chapel with teens and God really answered our prayer because people were squeezing in the back and standing in the doorway. All of our teens here really did an awesome job and invited lots of friends and handed out flyers at their schools. We had a full house of teens and it was great for the band to perform for people their age. That night at the end Pastor Gary gave an alter call and a few people raised their hands to get saved.

"Our Calling" was the theme these past few days with the Finns. It was so encouraging for us to see how the Finnish teens gathered around the Word. Every time we were together as a group they would share the Word. We had lots of raps, morning sessions, evening sessions and they were all so happy to hear more. We talked about how our calling is in Spirit and in Truth. How we have to hold up the Spirit and the Truth as we walk through life. The temptation is to lift up one more then the other... to exalt Truth and live a life unto the law and doing, doing, doing... the other temptation is to exalt the Spirit, and live a life of emotionalism. We also had a beautiful message on grace on Sunday... Pastor Gary talked about how Abraham is the Father of our faith, but how any of us could be the Father of our faith... we will get to heaven and see that someone who you don't notice in a crowd as much could be the Father of our faith... because of grace, God's grace takes a nobody and makes them the Father of our faith who can move mountains.

We were so happy to have met all of the Finns and gotten to have known them for these 6 days. Now we are praying for an opportunity to visit them in Helsinki... especially since we promised we would!

Where we stayed in Polssen

Prayer with Pastor Gary before the concert

Emily & Ann Margret with the girls

Miia & Tekno, two awesome Bible College students in Helsinki

The Finns singing in Polssen

Matt & Jaako

Youth concert in our church... packed with teenagers!

Our teens from Berlin had a great time with the teens from Finland

The group doing some songs on the streets of downtown Berlin

Tomi and his sister Ester

Miia who visited in August came back with all her Finns!

Showing the Finns through the city somehow became the job of Emily & Ann Margret

Power Surge Concert Photos

Guests arriving for the concert in Pinnow

First concert night in Pinnow

Team from Berlin in Pinnow

Us in Polssen

The way to the concert in Polssen

Concert in Polssen- Andy, an Apologist, giving a salvation call after his message.

Crowd in Polssen

The Power Surge Band and us.

Awesomeness

We had two concerts these past two days in Pinnow and Polssen and it was awesome. The Power Surge band did a great job, lots of Germans came out to the concerts and we made some great contacts. Tonight in Polssen we had seven salvations and one German man even came up on stage to give a testimony that what we were saying was real... very unconventional and very not German like! Will post pictures and more of a detailed update later. Thank you for your prayers!

East German Outreaches

We have been going on many day trips into the East German villages. We are planning for two weeks of upcoming concerts. In one week we have a group called Power Surge coming with a group from Florida to do 4 days of concerts, trying to reach these unreached villages of Germany. We have come up to some serious opposition planning these concerts. This territory has been untouched by the name of God and the message of the gospel of Jesus for so long that to come in with force: evangelizing, inviting, getting to know people... has also come with some extreme opposition. Our prayer is that through these concerts, through these invitations, that some would be saved to Christ. That some might even be interested in something more. That some might go home and pray for a Bible Study in their village. That doors would be open that no man can shut. That the Lord would move so mightily in that area that people would fall to their knees and see that God is God. Please pray for these concerts. Please pray for all of the details. For the advertising, the set up, the equipment, the health and strength and safety of everyone involved, for great turn outs, for new contacts to be made, and for souls to be saved.

Our first concert starts next Sunday, so we will update you in a week and let you know how it goes! Thank you for your prayers!

The Uckermark borders Poland, it is about an hour and a half train ride out of Berlin

The building on the left is a barn where we will have one of our concerts in a week, it is in a small village called Pinnow

Outreach team to Pinnow

We came to do outreach and knock on doors but there was a festival in Pinnow that day and everyone was out in the center of the village, just waiting for us to invite them.