I’m so happy

I am so happy!!! My wife found me some Nacho Cheese Doritos today. Now if only I could find a Dr Pepper and my US junk food cravings would be satisifed for a couple of months (well, maybe weeks).

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.

Mariastein with Friends

Last Friday we went on an adventure with some of our German Language classmates (Titiana from Russia and Yoyok from Indonesia) to a place called Maraistein. This is a Catholic church built where they say a boy fell off a cliff only to be saved by Mary who placed him safely in a cave under the cliff. There is a beautiful church above and they have even made the cave into a sanctuary. Its very impressive.

Check out the photos in the Photo Album Area

True Love (Princess Bride Style)

Princess Bride (Bubba Mix)

Sometimes I just feel like there’s something within me that must come out. Sometimes I think it should be in the form of music (however I am musically inept). So electronic music where you don’t have to have a sense of rhythem but can “program” your sounds works for me.

This song was the result of our “Family Time” where we watched “The Princess Bride” (Alex had never seen it). An awesome film that me and a bunch of friends long ago would quote from on a continuous basis. I hope you enjoy it. If you didn’t, keep it to yourself as I am not ready for critics just yet in my musical adventures. Thanks.

This link uses QuickTime. If you do not have QuickTime, click here

Missio Dei

This is a video produced by our sending church, Lake Forest Church in Huntersville, NC that was the preface to this last weeks sermon. I hope this jumps in your heart just as it jumped in mine.

To hear the sermon (which is part of a series on Love), be sure to click here

Do you speak English?

This is so funny (at least for those of us trying to speak to others in a foreign language) but we feel like this a lot.

Daily Prayer requests from Europe

Are you an RSS freak like me? (RSS – Real Simple Syndication) I look at a ton of different websites and I don’t have to go through my favorites to get to them. I use RSS to read them. I use a RSS Aggrigator to read them all (see my post about using these from a while back to learn more)

One of my recent adds is a new feed from Greater Europe Mission that gives daily prayer requests from all around Europe. To view the daily feed, check it out here or if you just want to get the feed, use http://www.gemission.org/praying/RSSFeed.asp.

Another great thing is to sign up for eDOT’s monthly newsletter – eDOT Connect! It’s delivered monthly to your email box and keeps you up-to-date on what is happening with our ministry eDOT. Click here to sign up or go here to view some past issues of eDOT Connect!

Wochende in Köln

This last weekend we did a little get away and visited some friends of ours who are now living in Köln (also known as Cologne). They moved there in December and are still getting everything set up but it was great to hang out with them. They are a part of a church planting team called Cologne In Motion.

There is definitely a difference from rural Germany (which is where we live) and urban Germany. Even how they speak German is very different however it was awesome to see the sights. The Dom (Cologne’s huge cathedral) was spectacular and even just hanging out in the park and letting the kids splash in the fountains was very relaxing. A highlight for us was that they have a Mexican restaurant (not something we have found in our area) and so we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

But probably the most memorable time in the weekend was on our way to the restaurant. After we parked our cars and were trying to figure out if we needed to pay for parking (of course, the signs are in German), several men were yelling to us that parking was free as it was after 3 PM on a Saturday. My friend approached them and started conversing with them in his limited German. Our wives and kids went on to the restaurant but he and I stayed just for a few minutes talking with them. On Saturday nights (and from what I could tell, other nights as well), these gentlemen hung out at this coffee shop (owned by a man from Tunisia) and played Rummy (but not for money, they insisted). All of these men were from Algeria (over 30% of Cologne are immigrants). They invited my friend to come hang out with them any time he wanted and he could play cards and work on his German (they all had to learn German when they moved here too). We introduced ourselves and then were going to introduce our families when we realized they had already left and decided we had better get moving ourselves.

We walked away from that experience pumped. Not only were we able to speak with these men in German, but also to be invited to hang out with them is just the opportunity that my friend is looking for in his ministry. Lives are changed when relationships are built and in those relationships, people see God’s Work in our lives as Christians. That doesn’t mean being perfect, it just means that they can see the Hope we have and how that moves us.

Please check out our photo album with all of the pictures from Cologne.