Pondering Proverbs

"The way of life spirals upward for the wise, That he may turn away from the hell below." Proverbs 15:24

Home Safe in Nashville

It has been approximately 36 hours since I arrived back into "The Americas", as most Germans refer to it. I stepped off the plane, where Wesley was waiting to pick me up, went straight way to the WC (water closet), freshened up, and drove to the Franklin Classical School faculty/staff/board Christmas party. Melinda met me at the door with a hug and I was immediately thrust into a trip report mode, which I didn't mind at all. We left the party, headed home, unpacked my suitcases, and crashed. My body is still not sure where it is and I took my last antibiotic this morning. I'm not out of the woods yet and now, Melinda is coming down with something. So we are headed to the doctor. I must run for now, and I have many things to attend to since being gone for 12 days. I will be posting more frequently. I must say, I missed my fresh German bread and jam this morning with coffee :0( Thank you for upholding all of us in your prayers.

Final Stop-Northern Germany

Our ministry time in northern Germany started off with an evening meeting in Neumünster. After driving for many hours, we arrived at the church 20 minutes before the service started. I changed clothes in the van and rushed into the service.

This church has a very unique pastoral team. Pastor Raul is from Mexico and spent time in Spain as a missionary before moving to Germany where he met his wife Meike who is German. Together they operate a drug rehabilitation program. One of the requirements for the new participants in the program is to join the church services, as well as, working with an outreach ministry restoring furniture for sale. The profits from selling the restored pieces of furniture helps maintain the building and covers the costs of the rehab program. We had a wonderful service and the congregation was very responsive to the message and the ministry. I took several pictures and taped a video interview with the pastor after the service.

Later that night, we drove to Flensburg, our final place of ministry where we would spend the rest of the weekend. Flensburg is the northern most town in Germany near the Denmark border (10 minutes away), and the hometown of one of our team members. I learned that Flensburg was the capital of Germany for a few days. Also, the church building was probably used by Hitler and his officials for meetings!

Flensburg is an old city with rich history. The town was named after a knight called “Fleno” who in the earlier days was a hero for this city. In the downtown area you still find many old, small houses, cobblestone roads, and narrow streets from that time.

The church is located in one of the poorer areas Flensburg's. For over 11 years, homeless people from the streets and neighbors have come to the church every Wednesday for free clothing as well as coffee, cake and torte. This outreach has opened many doors for conversations, counseling and fellowship, as well as, led many to Christ.

We ministered on Friday evening, all day Saturday and Sunday. Saturday morning we had a Leadership Meeting at the pastor's home which was very encouraging as they were pressing through some hard transitions. We ran into spiritual opposition and almost overnight, I wrestled something like a bronchitis and struggled to breathe. My heart began to race and I felt as if I was being choked as I spoke. I made it through my first teaching session on Saturday while coughing the entire time. After the first session, I went downstairs to the youth room to get some rest. I was unable to minister in the evening session as chills and fever hit me. My voice was horrible and I couldn't even sit up. One of the team members brought me some hot tea, antibiotics and the team prayed over me. I felt a little better the next day and was able to minister in the Sunday morning service. I preached on The Kingdom of God.

I was able to connect with a man by the name of Manfred, one of the church members, who has a media production company and just recently acquired the rights to translate the entire “Veggie Tales” production in German. He had just been to Franklin, TN and will be back there in January for business. I am looking forward meeting with him again. “It's a small world”after all!

On Sunday evening we had our last service in Schleswig, the oldest European town in northern Europe, which was established in the 8th century. Pastor Burkhard welcomed our team and we were able to minister to every single person that night. In the video interview with Pastor Burkhard after the service, he expressed his appreciation to America and for the Assemblies of God denomination for establishing a bible college where he received his training for ministry many years ago. We concluded the service and the team gathered for a nice dinner in a restaurant. We got to bed at 1 am and left at 5 am in the morning. 

Right now we are on the road to Amsterdam where we will spend this last day before we fly  home Tuesday. Thank you for your patience with my delayed posts due to7-8 hr time difference, travel schedule, fatigue, sickness, and the fact my laptop died and had to be put to rest before I left for the trip. I had to borrow a computer each time I posted. All of these challenges made it difficult for me to update my blog more regularly. I wish I could have given you the latest news on a daily basis.  But thankfully, I was able to communicate the highlights of our amazing and very productive trip.  

My flight leaves at 12:35 pm Tuesday, December 9.  Please pray for safe traveling. I hope to give a stateside update within the next few days.  I am eternally grateful for all your prayers and interest in my trip abroad.  This is has a life-changing experience in many way.  I will look forward to sharing more with you soon.  

Concentration Camp Ravensbrück, Germany

The Concentration Camp, Ravensbrück, was primarily for women where approximately 80,000 women worked in the textile factory making the prison uniforms. This was also the camp were Corrie Ten Boom and her sister were imprisoned. It was a very cold and dreary place. We saw pictures of experiential surgeries, women were bit to death by guard dogs, and the gas chambers and gas machines. We toured the building where the matrons lived. These were the female prison guards that supervised the women and did cruel acts to the imprisoned women in the camp. The interesting thing is that most of the matrons volunteered for this position. We saw a short film where some of the former imprisoned women told their stories of surviving Ravensbrück.  It is very difficult to describe what I witnessed.

Herrnhut, Germany

The Moravian Church in Herrnhut, Germany was the birthplace of a continious 100-year prayer revival beginning August 27, 1727 until 1827. Count Zinzendorf gave refuge to the Moravian church from the persecution they received and called a special meeting where he prayed and publicly confessed his sins. At that point, the Holy Spirit began to fall and more and more people began to confess their sins as well. Many other people from different backgrounds were drawn into prayer. Christian David wrote: "It is truly a miracle of God that out of so many kinds and sects as Catholics, Lutheran, Reformed, Separatist, Gichtelian and the like, we could have been melted together into one." "From that time on", said David Nitschmann, "Herrnhut became a living Congregation of Christ." "Then were we baptized by the Holy Spirit Himself to one love," said Spangenberg. Zinzendorf concluded, "was a day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Congregation", it was it´s Pentecost." From this Moravian church the modern movement of Missions was birthed. To think that there was a 24 hour prayer meeting where they devoted day and night to intercede is mind blowing. In one of the craft lessons the missionary kids were given, the teachers wanted to increase their ability to count in mathematics. The end result was the "Moravian Star", which is still a famous symbol until today, and found in many households, especially during Christmas time. Please note the picture of the star at the top of this post.

Before leaving, we visited the cemetery where we saw the graves of Count Zinzendorf´s and Christian David on the way to the Watchtower of Prayer. This place of prayer overlooked the city and was founded by Zinzendorf over 200 years ago where he built a little prayer shack.
Finally, we stopped to visit Count Zinzendorf´s castle which is under construction right now, but we were able to sneak in for a peak. 

The Concentration Camp Térezin

When we left Prague early the next morning, our first stop was Térezin, a German Concentration Camp in the Czech Republic. It was reported that when the International Red Cross confronted the SS about Térezin, they said it was a "Jewish town". But it was anything but a Jewish town. It was a cruel place of humiliation and death. We witnessed the shooting stations where the German soldiers laid on the ground and executed the prisoners. To the right was also a gallows station where others were hung to to their death.  Upon exiting we observed thousands of graves for Jews and Gentiles with a huge cross as well as the Jewish star marking the sacred site.

We drove the rest of the day to reach our last stop. I was not able to get to bed before 1 am because of all the images that lingered in my mind.

Prague

After just 4 hours of sleep, we met in the lobby to start our day in Prague, still thinking about our crazy drive from Dresden, Germany to Prague and the GPS that didn´t receive any signal once we crossed the border to the Czech Republic. Because of our fatigue, we decided to start the day with a sightseeing tour on a bus which helped us to get a general overview over the most important parts of the city. It was a 2-hour tour and we saw so many interesting things that I had trouble keeping up with pictures. However, I was able to snap more shots once we got off the bus and entered the marketplace in the downtown area. During the entire tour we were provided with a lot of information about culture and living in Prague. One thing that really stood out to me was the fact that the average monthly income of a household is a $350, the rent alone about $120. The architecture and the Christmas decorations everywhere were all very impressive. Much more could be said, but it is difficult to describe Prague´s beauty into words. I am going to put some pictures online so you will be able to get a better idea of this historic city. We grabbed lunch in a quaint restaurant on the market square where I had my first "Kolz", a Czech dark beer.

 One of my main stops while I was in Prague was to visit the John Amos Comenius Museum. I was very disappointed when I arrived to see that it was closed because of renovation and wouldn´t be open before February 2009. I broke away from the group and did some brief shopping before rushing back to the hotel for a video interview with the author of a new book on the life of Comenius. For the sake of time please Google John Amos Comenius and find out more about his rich influence about our current classical educational system and culture. He lived from 1592-1670 and was a Czech teacher, scientist, educator and writer and an early champion of universal education. He was known as the teacher of nations and is considered the father of modern education.

I concluded the evening by having fellowship with Pastor Dan Lee.  It was a full and wonderful day.  

Black Coffee in Berlin

This is Thursday morning at the "Quentin Design Hotel Berlin". Much has happened since my Monday morning post. The 9-hour drive to the city of Kamenz in East Germany turned out to be a 13- hour drive! We had two minor detours due to poor navigation -one of them on my part because of my lack of knowledge with the German signs such as "Stubenrauchstrasse". Once we found the right highway, we found ourselves in a major traffic jam. Our first stop was the "Wartburg Castle" in Eichenach where Martin Luther translated the New Testament. I am not sure about the elevation, but as soon as we reached the town it began to snow. We needed to take a van to get to the top of the mountain where the castle was which was about 5-min ute ride on narrow roads. We entered the castle through massive wooden door with metal hinges and a smaller door within the door. The sidewalks were all unique cobblestone and the whole castle compound was huge with small little houses as well.

Due to our time schedule, we had to join a tour through the castle in German speaking group. We toured the Knights Hall, the dining room, and the beautiful concert hall which is still in use today due to the amazing acoustics. The tour did not include Martin Luther's room so we snuck off to rush there before we had to get back to our van. Martin Luther's room was a small room with a wooden desk and a chair, not the originals from his time, but a later period. However, there was a large "whale bone " sitting on the floor by his desk that was the original furniture. A very old ceramic fireplace/radiator was a large fixture in the room. The attendant told us that during the 17th century many people came to take pieces of the fireplace and the wall behind it as souvenirs. We asked the attendant about Martin Luther's reported encounter with an evil spirit and the famous ink stains on the wall. She said that story was just a legend and that he simply was experiencing hallucinations caused by his loneliness. We asked further questions and she stated that there were definite encounters with the "evil one". There was a demon figure as a symbol/ornament hanging on the wall over his desk to remind visitors of those encounters. I hope the picture I took of it will turn out. To think that one man's conviction and courage was able to take the Word of God, make it available to the ordinary man, and change the world in such a profound way, is inspiring to me. May God grant me the grace and courage to influence my world in such a way.I took many pictures of the castle upon our departure. The snow already began to fall heavier and made it challenging to get back down the mountain.

The evening meeting in Kamenz (East Germany) was scheduled for 7 pm. Due to the heavy snow and two close calls with potential accidents, we arrived at the church at 9.30 pm where about 20 hungry souls were waiting patiently and praying for our safe arrival. It was a powerful evening of ministry. The people were strengthened and encouraged by the whole team and the Word of God that was spoken to the individuals. I was able to interview the pastor who, interesting enough, is a Kurd. He said God directed him to move to East Germany and plant a church there. After the meeting, the church refused to let us go without having dinner with them. They had prepared an awesome meal, even though I discovered some strange food items on the table such as some kind of raw hamburger with onions...

Finally we left the church around 1 am, heading towards Prague, where we booked our hotel rooms. The expected two and a half hour drive to the Czech Republic and Prague turned out to be a 4 hour drive. We arrived at 4:45 am at the hotel Da Vinci very exhausted and just wanting to go to bed.

I must run now. My update from Prague and what happened after that will be posted tomorrow.  Thank you for praying with me for this trip. It has been powerful, fruitful and fulfilling already, but we expect so much more for the next couple days.. Ciao !

Late Nights, Little Sleep, On the Road Again!

It's Monday morning and this is going to be brief because I'm on the road in a van with the team. I will give more details when I get to our destination. We had a late night of ministry and barely slept. We got up at 4 am this morning and hit the road before 6 am headed to East Germany to the city of Kamenz near Dresden Germany--it's about a 9 hour drive. After we arrive, we will minister in a local church, then pack up and drive down to Prague arriving late tonight. Things are going well....will update soon with more info. Thank you, thank you for your prayers.