Ich bin ein Berliner!!! (© John F. Kennedy)

So, here we are. We finally arrived. After an excruciatingly cramped flight over the ocean, followed by 4 hours at London Heathrow, another 1.5 hour cramped flight to Berlin, and a cramped baggage pick-up lounge we made it to the home of the local missionaries, the Pritzkaus and evenutally to the church yesterday where we are living now. Let me inform you right from the get go that this church is very cool in more ways then one. For starters, its was built by the commies, then used as community center and I believe eventually as a club. Now it is being rebuilt as a church and has undergone massive changes and is yet to undergo many more, some of which we hope to be part of. It is also cool, because its cool - quite literally. The building is dilapidated, most windows dont have glass anymore and are either boarded shut, or covered with sheet metal. Oh, and the most crucial part to any building in a country that has a signifcant temperature drop in the winter is missing... Yes, you guessed it, no heating!!! Now, dont get me wrong, as much as the lack of heat can get to the average person every once in a while (try about every half hour) we are not complaining. I was realizing today as I was looking at the places team Thailand has stayed at and is staying at now that our accomodations are less luxurious and it makes me almost proud. I have seen the numerous looks when I say to people that we are going on missions to Germany. Somehow, as soon as you mention a Western country the less than exotic destination seems to take away from the purpose of what we are trying to do. So here it is, thats the place we live in, and as much as our human desires are often derived from the evident wishes for a warmer climate inside of our living place we are proud of where we are and we love it. A little cold has hurted no one and after all we did not come to live in luxury but to serve on one hand and to participate in the life of this congregation. Needless to say we do have some heaters in our rooms and that is good enough for now.

I was reminded today of little booklet that Gay (our cook/pastor/everything to everybody at TREk training) gave us at the end of training. In it, the author was describing how God is making his home in us. Beeing at this church I am being lead to make a somewhat cheesy, and far fetched analogy, but I feel that God taking up residence with us (John 14) and in us, seems somewhat like us living at this church. In order for him to live with us he has already changed us considerably, but he is not done. And I do believe it can get rather chilly in our hearts at times. But above all, it is God's grace after all that he makes do with what is there already and moves on to make something better and more beautiful. As we see by this church it is hard work for everyone involved, but the end-result is what will matter in the end.

The Prizkaus are talking about moving us out of the church by the end of the week, as new windows are going to be installed, which should eventually lead to a warmer church experience for everyone involved. Part of me is glad, and part of me is wishing we could tough it out and be that kind of people who does not just complain about the place we stay at but that rejoice at the opportunity of not having to sleep outside. Regardless, we will be happy. Today we did some construction, we installed a water heater so we can shower with warm water, we removed screws from the windows and removed some fiberglass. As well, yesterday we explored Germany by going smack-downtown to look for a money exchange place, and today we finally got some monthly passes for the 4-tier public transportation system (let me tell you that North-America could learn from how Europeans do it). Tomorrow we have a meeting to plan out the week. We are so glad to be here and are looking forward to an amazing 7 months in which we hope God will work in, through and with us in all we do.


Phillipians 2:14-15 Do all things without murmuring and arguing, so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God iwthout blemish in the mids of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world.