We arrived back from a 2-month medical leave (for my injured knee) on Wednesday evening at 7PM local Berlin time. Before 8AM on Thursday, we were on the train heading down to the Lighthouse. There was a lot of housekeeping to catch up on. Looked like there hadn't been a woman's hand in the operation for awhile! I raced around inside, cleaning and reorganizing while Darrell cleaned up outside and did a bunch of minor repairs. There was a steady stream of people coming by all day long and we had a good time of talking to them and debriefing with Geryes, our Syrian partner. Friday we headed back to the Lighthouse mid-morning and began to prepare for the Family game night to take place later that evening. I shopped and baked and arranged furniture. When our partners arrived later that afternoon, we flew around getting sandwiches ready, cutting vegetables and fruit and preparing for the games. A huge crowd showed up, including over 20 children. It was chaos at its' best! Needless to say, we realize that we must now begin to prepare a special program for the kids and pray for extra hands to help! The evening was a huge success with several new families coming, all with horrific stories of their journey across the seas to eventually arrive in Germany. After everyone left, we stayed to clean up the cyclone that went through, arriving back home around 10PM, exhausted. We are still operating on jet lag which has been a challenge.
Today was our Bible Study day and it was even more thrilling. There were 9 people present along with Darrel and I. The participation was great and the spirit of God was so visibly present. There was a couple that came who have an unbelievable story. We have heard of the guy before. In fact, he's famous in this country and wanted by extremists who would like to see him dead. He converted to Christianity 18 months ago and immediately got on fire for the Lord, going on TV and preaching against his former religion and witnessing to everyone he met. When his life became endangered, he had to go into hiding and dyed his hair blond, trying to disguise himself. He witnessed to a young Iraqi girl who was very religious and horrified that he had left his birth religion. This man continued to meet with her and eventually convinced her that Jesus was the one and only way. They later fell in love and got married 6 months ago. They are a stunning couple, obviously full of the spirit of God. I was mesmerized as she told me her story. She is the only believer in her family and says that if her mother found out, she would literally have a stroke and die. No one in her family knows about her faith. We exchanged phone numbers and she wants to get together for coffee and talk more. It was an invigorating day, to say the least. The guy has a vision to sing the scriptures in the manner that the Koran is sung. (he used to sing the Koran in the mosque) He has a beautiful voice! We got out our loud speaker system and he "sang" some of the psalms in this manner. It gave me chills. This way of chanting/singing would be a very powerful way of drawing Mus. in and getting them to listen to scripture. Today's meeting gave us great hope for the future and the planting of a church.
Today was our Bible Study day and it was even more thrilling. There were 9 people present along with Darrel and I. The participation was great and the spirit of God was so visibly present. There was a couple that came who have an unbelievable story. We have heard of the guy before. In fact, he's famous in this country and wanted by extremists who would like to see him dead. He converted to Christianity 18 months ago and immediately got on fire for the Lord, going on TV and preaching against his former religion and witnessing to everyone he met. When his life became endangered, he had to go into hiding and dyed his hair blond, trying to disguise himself. He witnessed to a young Iraqi girl who was very religious and horrified that he had left his birth religion. This man continued to meet with her and eventually convinced her that Jesus was the one and only way. They later fell in love and got married 6 months ago. They are a stunning couple, obviously full of the spirit of God. I was mesmerized as she told me her story. She is the only believer in her family and says that if her mother found out, she would literally have a stroke and die. No one in her family knows about her faith. We exchanged phone numbers and she wants to get together for coffee and talk more. It was an invigorating day, to say the least. The guy has a vision to sing the scriptures in the manner that the Koran is sung. (he used to sing the Koran in the mosque) He has a beautiful voice! We got out our loud speaker system and he "sang" some of the psalms in this manner. It gave me chills. This way of chanting/singing would be a very powerful way of drawing Mus. in and getting them to listen to scripture. Today's meeting gave us great hope for the future and the planting of a church.