I have been really excited about church lately. My first Sunday service in Berlin was really cool, one of the best "regular" services I have been to in a while. As I mentioned, Doug Arthur was preaching, which was definitely a treat, but also there was a baptism, too. But there was something a bit different about the service, let me share with you what it was like.
After the sermon (which was in English -- which kinda ruined me for last week's and this week's services... LOL), the sisters got up with Jessica, a student, and shared about her before they baptized her. Then came the baptism.... After Jessica got out of the water, what seemed to be the entire campus ministry stood up at the front of the hall and sang along with the rest of the church. There was such a pure sense of joy and of family. They didn't rush out to get dry or sing a couple verses of a song, no it was a real production almost, full song, people arm-in-arm. It's hard to describe, but it was so impacting! It was really amazing!
Today, we had a special service that went from 11am to about 3pm. There were lessons, sharing about some HOPE projects in town, etc, with about an hour lunch, where we all sat in our bible talk groups and ate our sack lunches we brought with us. Terry's sermon today was so impactful. It was on the Bible discussing God's heart for the poor. There were at least 20 scriptures, Old and New Testaments, and I was just convicted. One of the first things I wanted to do when I got to Berlin was get involved in volunteering, which I was hoping to do this coming week (frankly I don't think it was a big priority though, mostly because I was going to really hit the job search hard this week). Anyway, they shared that HOPE runs (?) a retirement home which just so happens to be very close to where I currently live. I've had the elderly on my heart for a long time, and this was the incentive that I needed to go encourage some older folks, hear their stories and just sit down with them and be their friends. I really do just love hearing all their stories!!! I feel bad that I never did that in Spokane....
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I thought here that I would share with everyone who is wondering, why I came to Berlin. Well, in August of 2011, a good friend and brother in the church told me he had a dream the previous night that I lived in Germany (I was thinking he was talking in the past, I wasn't even considering moving) and I thought, "that's cool, ha ha ha...." Just as he was saying that, Jermaine (who was leading our church at the time) walked out the door right behind him and looked at me and said excitedly "Did you hear that???". I said, "Yeah..." and at that moment something sparked with me. For a moment I asked myself what just happened there. I had to decide if this was maybe God speaking through this brother's dream (God did that quite a bit in the Bible actually, especially in the book of Daniel, but many other places as well). So because all the doors seemed to be closing for me in Spokane, I thought why not at least give it a try... God can always say no, and he's good at not allowing things to happen if they are not in his plan. I'm sure you all know what I mean. LOL.
For months afterward, I began getting a lot of advice and praying about it. I also prayed frequently that if this was NOT God's will, for him to make it very obvious and to stop it. There were certainly bumps along the way that had to be overcome, but there was never an obvious "no".
About a month and a half before I left Spokane, I was extremely broke. I had to make a credit card payment on the 15th of the month, and ON the 15th, I was 38 cents short... 38 CENTS! I did not have change in a jar, I had no change in my cars, and I could not produce anything out of the cushions of my couch. I was stuck. I was calling to take out a $5 loan from someone so I could pay it and to have a small buffer if something should go wrong (the month before I made the payment online, and even though I paid the amount showing, I was still $3 short, so I didn't want to chance it). So I started calling around and nobody was home and nobody answered their phones. It was so frustrating that I was so close to being able to make the payment. Finally I got hold of a neighbor a few hours later and was able to get $5 and made the payment on time. Phew!!!
After that, I began to sell some of my stuff. First went the '78 Civic, then I had my moving sale, then I sold the '72 Honda N600, then the van. By now, I actually had some money in the bank. But I had been pinching pennies to the point of insanity for so long, it occurred to me that I needed to buy my plane ticket. Gasp!!!! So I did some research, found the cheapest dates to fly and a reliable carrier with reasonable fares. By reasonable fairs, I mean $1500+ round-trip (they're actually cheaper than a one-way fare. If you don't believe me, try it out online...). So, I sat there at my computer and I just froze. I just sold most everything of value that I own and now I had to make the decision to spend FIFTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS on a plane ticket when I couldn't even afford to buy groceries for months before that. I had to pray about it and frankly, I had to just trust God. He had been so incredibly faithful with everything up to that point, I just put my trust in him and bought the tickets. It was so hard to push the "Purchase" button, I've gotta be honest....
So back to service today... As I was in fellowship afterward, I told a sister in the church my story (see above) and I was really surprised at the answer she gave me. Now, one of the things I have seriously had to consider while doing all of these things over the past months, is where do I draw the line between being "responsible" (which I believe is *extremely* important) and being "faithful". Think about this for a minute. None of what I'm doing makes much sense in the American culture... What? Sell all your stuff and move to a foreign country with no housing and no job? Seems irresponsible, doesn't it? Well, I agree. Unless you consider what I believe with all my heart to be open doors and green lights from God... So the sister told me that someone had the exact same story as me, but wasn't able to find work and had to return to the states. I felt like someone let the air out of me. I thought, "well that was discouraging".
I've been thinking this over all day long and at first I was really upset at the sister for not having faith. (I think I'm still working on that too) I think you have to be really careful what you say and how you say it to someone that has worked insanely hard, given up everything, and I believe is putting his faith into action... and so forth. But the more I ponder this, I think it was really just a reminder that as much as I believe God will bless this effort, I still need to be making every effort on my end. This wasn't an accident this sister said this to me. I think I just need to take a very sober assessment of what I'm doing every day and not let the old Spokane habits creep back in. **Please pray for me to be diligent in finding a good job where they are willing to get me a work permit so that I can also get a resident's permit as well.** If I don't have these within 90 days of arriving in country, I have to leave for at least 90 more days...
Also, I may have to move out of the room I rented two weeks ago. There was a misunderstanding and now I have to try to make some things right. There is a possibility that I won't be able to do that and still be above reproach before God and the powers that be. The situation is that I have been asked to lie about something. We had a discussion about these things and I was just in shock on Friday. It was never my intent to deceive anyone about anything, but I've had some time to think it over and be open with some people at church about the situation and if it means I have to move out, then so be it. It would be so much more convenient to just tell the lie and move on, but it just isn't the right thing to do... Not to mention the fact that lying could jeopardize my status here. I've agonized a bit over this and have brought it before God, so I'm at peace about it for now, but please pray for me to be courageous when we sit down to discuss this week. Either way, God is in control. Sounds like they are trying to get some new households set up among the single and campus men in the church, which would be fantastic!
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So on to a lighter subject... LOL I had a really fun weekend the last couple days. Friday night, Matthias invited me to his friends' house for a game night. He was very vague as to what we would be playing, but he said to trust him, I will love it. His friend's wife works at the Mexican Embassy here and he is Canadian. They were a lot of fun and the game we played was called "Rhetoric". It's a game where everyone has to give 1-minute speeches about different subjects and every other player rates your speech on a 1-10 scale. At first I thought it was ridiculous, how do you do a speech every 15 minutes??? Actually, it was a lot of fun. First of all, some of these guys belonged to "Toastmasters", so they had a LOT more experience at speeches than I do, but I like to talk so I figured that should help, right? LOL!! At the very end, we each gave our critiques (good and bad) about every other person. I was told I'm a very good story-teller (not lies, actual stories!) but essentially I came in last because they were judging on Toastmasters standards. They also said they were impressed that I had no training (whatsoever!) and that I agreed to play the game at all! LOL Anyway, a good time was had by all and we headed home about midnight.
Last night, the singles had a pizza-making party. There was probably 15 people there or so (apartments here are kind of small) so it was a good amount of people. Anyway, we just baked and ate pizza and sat around and talked. I spoke with a Slovakian sister who knows two people that were in my bible talk back in 1993 in Seattle. They both moved to Prague in 1995 to help start the church there, and she knew both, one of them she was roommates with! SMALL WORLD!!! (again). Anyway, I had so much fun talking to people and getting to know them all. Ooh, I almost forgot. The sister that was hosting the party Skyped her boyfriend who lives in Ghana, where she is from also. So they were having some technical difficulties, but finally they got them worked out. Well, her friend, a brother in the church in Accra Ghana, on Skype and in front of a room full of witnesses asked her to "be his special friend". Which I guess is how they ask someone in Ghana to be their girlfriend. LOL. I don't know, but she was super surprised and it was really cool to be there for it. And she said yes....
Well, it's 11pm and I'm starting to fade. I think I will try to share the lesson from today with you on God's heart for us to serve the poor and needy. I'll try to do that tomorrow, but hopefully soon either way. Thanks for taking time to catch up with me. Please be praying for me with the room situation and to find a job soon! Best regards!!!
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