www.PrayEurope.com
What does prayer mean to you? Is it a ritual performed before a untouchable being or an intimate conversation between you and your Best Friend (who also happens to be the all powerful and holy God)? Over this past year, prayer has evolved in my life from presenting a list of wants and needs before God to a conversation about the things that matter most in my life where He has listened and told me what’s important and revealed even more things.
Beginning Ash Wednesday, February 17th, I will be joining with people from around the globe to pray for Europe for the 40 days leading up to Easter. We want to use this opportunity to engage our own prayer partners and your networks to pray with us and for our work here.
Think of how you have experienced God’s response in your life as a result of answered prayer. We are anxious to see God move in Europe, North Africa and Eurasia – areas where we have seen great need for people to experience living examples of Christ’s love.
This focused time of prayer for Europe is being called 40-40-40. It highlights over 40 countries of Europe for prayer for the 40 days of Lent (starting Ash Wednesday, Feb 17) for at least 40 seconds of prayer each day.
Want to participate? Go to www.prayeurope.com and
Would also be so kind as to let us know you’ll be participating by filling out this quick form?
Barn (before construction)
EMC (pieced together from multiple pictures)
For those of you that have kept track, you’ll know that we’ve been working on our “new” offices for about 3 years now. We took a 100 year old, 3-story barn in the middle of town and converted it into an office complex and apartments. The bottom floor has 4 apartments (2 of which we house short term to mid term people in) and the top two floors house various ministries (8 ministries that work throughout Europe & North Africa) that are based here in Kandern, Germany. It’s been a long, tiring process as we did most of the work ourselves from demolition to tiling to installing network cabling to roofing to insulating to water proofing the foundation to everything.
There just the parking lot left to be done (scheduled for this May/June – want to come help?) and some odds and ends but for the most part – its done!! We’ve already seen some things come out of having the building from various groups in the area using our conference room (it’s the largest in town outside of classrooms) to the German classes that are being held here (which brings in immigrants from parts of Eastern Europe and the Middle East). While its only a building, it has been built with the intention of being a tool for God’s work here.
Please celebrate with us and check out more photos at http://www.euro-team.org/SMGconstBarn45.htm
3 Years. That’s how long we’ve been living in Germany now. It’s a very surreal kind of thing to think about. While we feel like we’re still newbies living here, living in the US seems so distant and kind of long ago. Even Alex, who has the memory of an elephant, is forgetting things about life in the US. We are truly beginning to call and think about Germany as our home.
While in Kenya, I was wearing a “North Carolina” t-shirt, that a short-term mission team had brought me, and a family walked by and yelled, “North Carolina! We’re from North Carolina too!” Weirdly, I answered in German out of habit and they gave some really strange looks as they continued on past me. The German man who I was talking with at the time (which is why I probably responded in German) just laughed and asked me, “When was the last time you were there?” (referring to North Carolina). It’s been a year and a half – the only time we’ve been stateside in the last 3 years.
Things have really changed in so many ways. We know that the town we used to live in is very different with new shopping centers, restaurants and stuff since we left. Our home church has doubled or more in size since we left. Alex’s friends are 3 years older (which is a huge difference at their ages). Our friend’s kids are 3 years older. People have changed jobs, graduated from schools, gotten married, moved away, etc. Friends have new friends who we don’t know. People have changed. We have changed. Alex is 3 years older (now 9 years old). He’s reading and has an awesome sense of humor. Krista and I have grown in our relationship, in our spiritual lives, and in our perspectives of how to look at this world we live in.
Even my computer skills have expanded greatly with the different challenges before us. Even technology is in a very different place than 3 years ago. One shocker for me is to see my mom sending me emails and to hear that she has a Kindle (electronic book reader) now. As technology expands and changes, people are trying to keep up. Churches and ministries are trying to keep up with the people and that’s where we come in. We keep up with the technology so that we can help churches and ministries keep up with the people they are trying to serve and reach. It’s all about using technology to connect people to people for the sake of making God known.
Ok, let me tell you about the guy in the picture to the right. This picture was not taken with a zoom lens. He literally was that close. As we drove up to him he didn’t pay any attention to us and we were admiring how long his horn is. Then I realized that that horn was long enough to go through the door of the car we were in and at that point, he turned his head (that’s when I got the picture) and moved his back feet. That’s when my father-in-law (thinking the same thing about the horn as I was) said “Time to go!”
Kenya was a once-in-a-lifetime adventure that I’m so glad I got to do and take Alex with me. The people there are great and the scenery is spectacular. The pictures I’ve uploaded are my favorites from my personal collection. When I get a few moments to go through my brother-in-law’s and father-in-law’s pictures, I may upload some of those as well.
Check out the photos of Kenya in my two photo sets in the Photo Album!
