Noah

Today Noah is one week old. This cute, little girl already had a serious open-heart-surgery when she was 2 days old. It was a "three-steps" surgery and maybe two of those steps have to be redone this week. Please join me in prayer that she does not have to have it.
Her parents attend my church and I wish that through this we and all the world may see the power and glory of our living God.

--- click the titel (Noah) above to get to her parent's (Cass and Alex) blog entry about her birth. ---

church, where are you?

Today a week ago I started to prepare the lesson for tonight's bible class. We started a new series about the letters to the churches in the first chapters of Revelation and today was the first one, the letter to Ephesus.
During the last week by preparing it, I realized it is a really serious, I mean a deadly serious topic.
Jesus tells them, I know, you are good guys. You are patient (greek: cheerful endurance, constancy) and you work a lot for me. But you don't love me anymore as it was in the beginning (greek: when I was the number one in your life and everything you did was to please me and not the world). Repent (greek: think differently or afterwards, i.e. reconsider [morally, feel compunction]) and do the first works (= let me be your number one again with your WHOLE heart and your whole being) otherwise I will move your candlestick from its place - sweep you off - execpt thou repent. Note: the "repent" is mentioned twice. This message is not only for the churches, it is valid for each of us personally today.

When I was studying and praying about that whole stuff last week I recieved a "commercial" from tangle and there I found the following video. This guy puts it better than I can say it.



I tried to present the topic tonight but it seems anybody understood how serious this is. They know the right answers but I am missing the action.

One thing that cheered me up a little bit when I came home was an email from Sheritha. I had sent her the link to this above video without a comment. And she immediately draw the connection to the churches in Revelation. At least somebody grabbed the message and, what I like even more, the holy spirit has revealed it to her.

Bible in 90 Days

Last week I told Damaris that another dear friend, Frances, gave me a OneYearBible as a "Thanksgiving-gift" last year. I started immediately to read it because I had tried to read the entire Bible before but I always "failed".
Three days ago Damaris told me, she found another website biblein90days. She started to like that concept and created a blog, so that whoever knows german and is interested can join us (or the project). So we don't need to meet "physically" every week to encourage each other - our bible group is only one click away.
Isn't that a cool idea?

Hope we will find many who are interested! You can visit/join us at Bibel in 90 Tagen.

Fisher House Project

Last Sunday, we (Judy, Fran, Larry, Monika and Krisi) went to Landstuhl to serve some dinner we had fixed at home before. (ok, Larry just helped us by driving the car to get us there and left later)
“Supporting America's military in their time of need, we provide "a home away from home" that enables family members to be close to a loved one at the most stressful time -- during hospitalization for an illness, disease or injury” is what you can read on their homepage. As I know, it is an activity Judy started in our church (well, she asked if someone from church could come) but I read on a sign that the consulate was held responsible for the dinner that night. I just wanted to go, help and spread some love. All the people we met were so grateful and this in itself made me glad. I pray that they could feel God’s love even if I couldn’t talk to them very much. Just click the picture to see some more (I uploaded to my facebook).

PIZZA????

I just got this call...
Strange voice (from a machine/robot): Hello, this is Francesco from Pizzeria Alberti. Your Pizza will be at your place about 14 minutes later!
me [thinking about who of my funny friends is possibly playing tricks on me]: what pizza???
Strange Voice: Yes. I am sorry. I can't talk to the driver, he is on the way to bring you the Pizza.
me [again]: what pizza??????
S.V.:OK, then the pizza boy will leave it a your place and tell you it is from the neighbor.
me [puzzled and wondering why I am still talking to a machine]: I haven't ordered pizza.
SV: You ordered 3 pizzas, one with >>blahblah, one with blahblah and one with blahblah<<. (I forgot what kind of different things the machine voice said) What is your address?
me: Loreleiring
SV: hmmmm, yes. ok.
me: who placed the order?
SV: ok, byebye.
call ended.

While I was writing the last sentences, my door bell rang. I thought, hopefully this is not the pizza boy hehe.
I first pressed the button to open the main house door and waited for a moment. Nothing happened. After a while I opened my appartment door. The main house door was wide open and there was an orange paper on the floor.



It says: Order for Neumann, 1. Nr. 10 Noodles, 2. a coke and No. 5
Bill: 15,50 €
neighbor recieved the order, please pay the rest.
the rest of the order will be late. Alberti. Loreleiring. 20 min.

My number is not registered in a public register so it must be someone who knows me.
And they just wrote what I said: "Loreleiring". FAULT! If they want to be authentic, they should have written the whole address... plus, they shouldn't change "my order" from about "3 pizzas" into "noodles, a coke and #5".

The handwriting looks like kid's handwriting (two different ones btw) and I am quite sure that a certain girl from my neighborhood and her friend played that trick on me. I know those kids because they used to come to our friday afternoon childrens outreach ministry from church. Those kids are really "poor", their social level is pretty down and even if they come it is very hard to talk to them about God etc. They have such a dirty talk and are mean to each other. We know most of them (especially this girl who I think played that trick) since they're 8 years old (now they're 11 or 12). They tell bad stories about each other, like this girl is lying, that girl use to steal things from others and we actually found (a couple of weeks ago) that some of them were hiding in the church building and waited until the rest were gone... afterwards we were missing some stuff.
If you feel like, please pray for those kids.

Philippians 4:8 - Poem

Brothers and sisters I want you to put,

all things in your mind that are true and good.

Keep to your thoughts what is worthy of praise,

and with things that are honorable fill your days.

If you stay in the ways that are pure and right

the Lord will help you to win the fight.

(Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious--the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.)

While cleaning up I found a note with the above poem. I have already blogged it almost 2 years ago, but I think a little reminder of that is never bad.

stop worrying and enjoy your life

is part of a message on busses wheeling all along since October 2008 in London and since January 6th in Madrid and maybe soon all over in Europe.
What happened to us christians that atheists think with God you can't enjoy your life and you have to worry?
First something Jesus said about worrying:

"If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds. Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion--do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers--most of which are never even seen--don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes." (Matthew 6:25-34)

What more could God call to us like "don't fuss", "relax" and "don't worry"? Just one scripture (out of many more):

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me--watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. (Matt. 11:28)

And now about enjoying life. Jesus said:

John came fasting and they called him crazy.
I came feasting and they called me a lush, a friend of the riff-raff. (Matthew 11:18+19)

So - Jesus knew how to feast (aka enjoy life) but even so it wasn't right for people.
It is pointless to discuss if God exists or not, you have to try out to live with God. I did and I can tell you, God literally gave me some bread when I had no money to buy some and also he did with clothing! So far I love the "probably" in the bus-commercial - it makes people think. How about the other way around?

THERE IS PROBABLY A GOD.

NOW STOP WORRYING AND ENJOY YOUR LIFE.

It's worth trying!

(thoughts from the Sunday sermon yesterday by Dieter)

Thanksgiving in Germany

Last Sunday we had a holiday in Germany (Erntedankfest) on which people traditionally take harvested products/food products to church services, offer thanks for the good harvest, have the food blessed, followed by the parish breakfasting on blessed food.

For this reason we had an outreach service and extra decoration. We as church had met early to have the Lord's Supper in an extra room and the activities started at 10:00 a.m.
Ruth Kreusel had prepared the tree you can see in the background and had apple-shaped paper and pens put on the tables.

Later, people were asked to write something, they are thankful for, on the "apples" and then go to the front and pin the apples to the tree.

When everybody was done we had a beautiful tree with many apples up there!
The theme of the event was like "Thoughts about giving Thanks" (in German it is "Gedanken zum Danken" which better shows the likeness of think and thank) and after we heard some really good thoughts about how to give thanks we had a brunch together.

When everything was over, people were asked to make a small donation and take the "decoration food" home.


A special surprise that Sunday was, that JR showed up, telling us he will be in Germany for another 10 months period. Thank you. :-)

Wiesbaden Church News etc

Last week Monday Uli Walker called from Arkansas and told me, that her husband James Jr. (who is deployed to Iraq) suddenly had major physical problems in his left arm and they brought him to a hospital where they couldn't help him (only to find out it was NOT a heart attack) and flew him to another hospital in Iraq where they again couldn't help him. Finally they flew him out to Landstuhl (Kaiserslautern Area) where he is since a couple of days. He has to undergo a lot of tests. He thinks now that they will fly him home to the U.S. because the options for diagnose are better over there.
Klaus, Sigi, Ricardo and I went yesterday to visit with him after church and had lunch together. We had a wonderful day, as it was Klaus' birthday yesterday, too.

We also had a new family in church, the have two boys and they were so super friendly. Klaus and Sigi had prepared a quick coffe brake - to "celebrate" Klaus' birthday - right after church with German chocolate-cream cake (yumm!) and they stayed for awhile. But I think they will look out for another church because of the boys - I don't know how old they are but the smaller one I would guess is about 5 years old and the older one looks like seven years. They would be the only kids there and I think they will try to find a chuch that has a kids programm... But we will see! We had some really good conversations and it seemed they felt comfortable.
We still meet together (English and German) for worship and lessons and it turns out to be quite professional with translating and stuff. Yesterday we had Brother Klinke over for the lesson, he translated himself. This is sometimes a bit confusing but as I know both languages I didn't miss the message.

We also heard the Harker baby is born, her name is Shelby Grace. Judy had prepared a neat card that we signed for the Harker family, because they moved back to the US this summer.

My arm is a little bit worse, I've got some more pain because all the muscles are gone and so everything is very weak around my shoulder... If you can not move a joint like the shoulder which is usually the part of the body that is the most mobile (it has the highest radius) it causes a lot of pain. But the six weeks that I was supposed to not move it are almost over and I will start my rehab programm next Wednesday and I am really excited about!

how I started to plan a singles' retreat

I can not forget the moment at the very end of the 2007 Spring ESR (European Singles' Retreat), when Karen - who was kind of the head of the current organizing team - challenged us (the attendants) because she wanted to transfer that special business to somebody else.

Karen and her team had wonderfully planned and organized the retreat twice after Allison and Amy had done their great job for three times and then either got married (Allison) or went back to the U.S. (Amy).
We still miss you!

After Karens request moments of silence passed (for me it was like eternity) - and I noticed everybody's eyes (like mine!) trying to look any other way except toward Karen - when I suddenly heard MY VOICE speak up and say something like: "Oh, if Frances would help me, I could try." (Actually I am really not somebody who wants to "usurp crown & reign" and it was such a weird situation for me that I ask your forgiveness that I can't remember the exact words I said that moment.)

Frances agreed and so Karen swiftly came over and - with a great relief as it seemed to me - thrusted "the box" into my hands.

"The box" containes all the important stuff you need to organize a retreat: the cash box, pens, crayons and pencils, paper, glue and whatever you can think of. Not to forget the blue folder, full of helpful advices, addresses, former retreat-schedules etc (THANKS A LOT to whoever put that stuff together...!).

Now I (or better we) had "the box" and the business...
But I don't want to extend a yet long story by telling you in details how I struggled with organizing the 2007 Fall ESR. I met with Fran several times to check out what we could do and how we could set up a great retreat which leaves a wish to each single one to come back next time again. Not to forget the prime reason: To set up a scenery that draws one nearer to the Lord.

Fran had a lot of great ideas but we could not realize all of it.
One thing that at least I wanted to realize at all costs was to have Allison and Grady again with us at the retreat. I had met them at the very first ESR I attended in April 2005. I can tell you there are very few moments in my life that I meet somebody I really want to befriend. But it happened when I met Allison and Grady that weekend back in April 2005.

And how cool was it when Allison told me later that the exact same weekend was also something special to her, because it was the first time she started "to see more in Grady"... And finally they got married! What a joy!

And when I found they were about to move (back) to the U.S. I wanted to have them for a last time at the place where all the stories started...

But how can you get a married couple to be at a singles retreat?!?
Well, ask the husband to be a speaker!

The retreat finally worked out great (Grady, supported by Bill Wilson, did a great job as a speaker) and I am still glad that everything went for us "planning-newcomers" well so far.


But nevertheless I left the retreat with a long, long list in my head filled with things that I could have done much better. But Fran (who again was so kind to not leave me alone with that stuff) and I still had a second chance to go for the 2008 Spring ESR and I actually started praying for that one right on the way home after this one was over.


But the 2008 Spring ESR planning is the story for the next post ;-)

more impressions of the retreat

What I really miss at home is to step out of the house and standing in front of a forest - like I did in Gemünden. I' m a morning person and so I went out walking between 7 and 8 before breakfast and I took my bible, had a little break (I found a bank where I could sit down) and had a real quiet time. Only "disturbed" by twitter of the birds. That I can't do at home - in a big city...

Something else:

• walking through the fields, the only sound you can hear is the wind or a small sporting airplane
• discovering water lillies on a little pond
• a dead looking toad in the same pond
• a dragonfly passing my head (some wouldn't like that part...)
• foxgloves beside the path
• a swimmingpool in front of the house and not to forget:
• having a great time with real friends from the christian family - fellowship

Clip: Walk

Erster Eintrag, Letzter Versuch - First Entry, Last Try

english: Well, I have to admit: I am not a blogger, who will find a lot of time and/or famous causes to publish every day, but I think it is a good way to stay in contact with those friends, who are far away or left the country... like my sister and her family :-(
Also time to shout HELLO to the Walker's, the Hughes' and finally Roger & Didi, who left our Church-of-Christ-Wiesbaden-Family this past twelve months... Hope you are all doing fine!
Anyway - thank you for passing by and taking a look at what I have to tell... enjoy... and feel free to leave a comment... :-)

deutsch: Okay, ich gebe zu, ich bin nicht wirklich ein regelmäßiger Blogger und so richtig viel oder wahnsinnig Spannendes passiert auch nicht immer, dass es jeden tag einen Eintrag wert wäre... doch mittlerweile verziehen sich immer mehr gute Freunde in die Ferne (weshalb ich versuchen werde, diesen Blog auf englisch zu führen) - vor allem meine Schwester mit Familie - und vielleicht hilft dies doch ein bißchen, in Kontakt zu bleiben...
Wie auch immer - vielen Dank für's vorbeischauen und viel Spaß beim Lesen... und fühlt Euch frei, Kommentare zu hinterlassen, wenn ihr wollt... :-)