Jehovahjireh - The Lord will provide

The Lord will see to it! This morning, once again I went to the names of God for part of my time alone with Him. Paula and I have been inundated with language learning and there doesn't seem to be enough time or space in our brains for all that we are trying to learn. But God will see to it. A long time ago, a really old dad took his not so young son on a trip to worship the Lord. They took everything they needed to worship. They even had their offering - the son didn't know it, but he was to be the offering! On the way to the place of worship, the son asked his dad where was the offering. His aged father replied, " . . . the Lord will see to it." The really great part of the story is that the Lord did provide an offering instead of the son, but not before it was time. God will see to our language learning and He will provide the time, the rest, the brain capacity, everything that we need to do what He has called us to do. In the meantime, we went to Paris last weekend instead of staying home and filling our time with the mundane stuff of life - like studying and doing laundry and writing for our BLOG. We went with the Cultural Program from the Goethe Institute in Freiburg where we are learning German. Really, all we got was a taste of Paris, just enough to whet our appetite and make us want to go back in the Springtime. Having now been to Paris in the fall, I can understand why folks would want to go in the Spring. We went to the majority of the places one would want to visit in Paris. They included, the Eifel Tower, the Louvre, Notre Dame and Sacre Couer, the Place de Concorde and the Arc de Triumph, the Sorbonne and enough other places to take up the entire weekend.
We know that God was in Paris, long before we got there, but we saw little if any of the evidence. There are over 11 million folks who live there. Please pray that God would provide a beacon of light for them to find their way home to Him.

When we came home form school today we were met on the parkplatz by one of the workman cleaning up the vacant lot next to our apartment building. He was speaking a strange language: Swietzer Duetch or Allemanisch or one he had learned by speaking with Kermit the Frog’s friend, the Swedish Chef. We had a great little conversation about his need for a broom, our being newcomers in Germany, Swuietzer Deutch and the two Americans who could understand nary a word of the “Guten Tag. Wohnen Sie hier? Haben Sie eine Besen?” because it was spoken in the local dialect. We went inside and I thought that there must be a broom in the building somewhere. I looked downstairs and found one in the Hausmeister’s closet. As I was taking it out to the workers , I was met at the front door by our landlady, Frau Vortisch. I explained to her what was going on as she took the broom and handed it to the fellow with whom I had just spoken. She told me that she thought it had been clever of me to look for a broom and then to bring it out once I had found it. Yea, verily, the Lord will see to it.

The stuff of which sentences are made

Yesterday, we turned on the radiators in the living room. This may not sound very momentus, but when one is paying 1 1/2 times as much for everything AND you have to pay for your heat AND the temperature outside has become "Fall-ish" with highs in the 40's - 50's and low temps that make the Iceman smile - well, I think you get the picture!
Actually, we have had a pretty good week (or so since our last post). Grammar - not the fellow that used to play a psychiatrist on TV; the stuff with which sentences are made has not been very kind to us this week. When I learned German in school, I didn't like grammar very much and learned it only to pass a test - that was a mistake. When Paula learned German, it was "by ear" while we lived in Trunkelsburg and there were no grammar lessons. One of the things that they do at the Goethe Institute is stress GRAMMAR! We have spent every afternoon (save the weekends) since we began at Goethe sitting across the table from one another working on our homework. It takes us hours - why? We are having to learn GRAMMAR from the bottom up! I have likened it to dressing ourselves in our school clothes, putting on hip waders and a heavy woolen overcoat and then jumping into the deep-end of the pool. Just about the time we get our heads above water the teachers turn on the 3 inch firehose and offer us a drink! This is only the end of our first full week! Paula has opted to move down a level from the B1.1 level so that she can learn the grammar more effectively. I, on the other hand, will be working on grammar exercises in addition to my homework.
We have had some pretty awesome quiet-times this week. We are still getting up and meeting God the first thing. I have been studying the names of God as a part of my time with God in the mornings. The other morning I found the lyrics to "My Deliver is Coming" by Rich Mullins. I went searching in my E-Bible and found that Jesus is our deliverer - He will get us through the grammar of language learning. Paula is walking VERY slowly through the book of Ephesians and discovering (again) the power that we already possess IN Christ Jesus!
We are also randomly selecting prayer cards from the stack we acquired before we left Virginia and praying for the folks on the cards - a byproduct is that we also will send an email, if we have the address, to the folks we pray for so that we can stay connected. A cord of three strands is not easily broken!

Please Pray for us:

• We have both had colds this past week. While mine has been pretty mild, Paula has had a really tough time with hers.
• We had our first prayer time at Goethe on Friday. There is a group of us who have decided to gather and pray on Friday afternoons – pray that we will be faithful and bold in our prayers for our fellow students and Goethe staff. (Dr and Mrs C, Vimal, R&P [J took the Picture)
• We are in need of your Prayers for our language study. Our lack of grammar effects our speaking and our writing.
• We are going to Paris with the Kultural Program at Goethe Institute on 23-25 Oct. Pray for our leading a small worship service on Sunday morning in Paris before our return trip.

Doors don't swing so well on just ONE hinge

What a great time with the Lord this morning. I found and read the Foreword and Introduction to Tom Eliff’s book, "What Should I Tell My Friend". I wanted to begin reading it and I can do it on the computer. Who would have thought that learning doctrine as part of my time with the Lord could have been so wonderful.
This morning we went to the Evagelisch Stadtmissionsgemeinde for church. We walked from our house in Stetten downtown to the gemeindehaus. Yesterday it rained most of the morning so we didn't get much of a walk. We took our time and had a wonderful stroll on a most beautiful Sunday morning. Stephan Hees, the pastor, preached on 1 John 4:19-21 tying it rather skillfully to Mark 12: 29-31. He had a rather interesting illustration. Most of the doors in Germany have two hinges. In the middle of his serman, Stephan walked to the back of the room in which we were having church and opened one of the double doors. He explained that what Jesus was talking about turns on TWO points and procedes to lift the door of of its hinges! To demonstrate that the teaching requires both points (you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, your soul, your mind and your strength AND you shall love your neighbor as yourself) he rehung the door on only the TOP hinge. What a visual - the door didn't work right. It was a sort of "oh, Duh" moment. He tried to rehang the 12 foot door on both hinges, but in the interest of continuing the message, gave up after the second attemp and got help from one of the men in the back o f the congregation.
After church we walked on downtown for lunch. The second day of the Lorracher Herbstfest was in full swing when we arrived. They were no longer roasting an ox by the big grocery store downtown, so we opted for wildscheinegoulash with spaetzle for Paula and I had gegrilltkalbsbratwurst with broetchen from the stand on the Marktplatz - eaten at the fest tables under a partly cloudy Baden-Wurtenburger sky in the middle of the fest!
We spent the rest of the afternoon walking through the fest and around the center of Lorrach. As we were walking home, we took a short detour and found that Stetten has a castle and that the little community has been here since about 650!!
We are past the three day mark in our language school at Goethe Institute! We know that we are in the right places at school, but to say the least, it is challenging. When (perhaps I should say IF) we get done with this eight weeks, I will be at the B1-2 level and Paula will be at the B1-1 level. But we will be nowhere near done. Paula is now having to learn German for the ground up. She speaks pretty well, but has never had any formal German language study. Although I have had formal training, most of it has gone down the large gapping hole of forgetfulness that is in my brain. So while Paula is leaning to conjugate German verbs, I am trying to recall them. I had an exercise the other day that I recognized as German words on a page, but for the life of me I couldn't understand any more than my name at the top of the paper.

Please pray about:
Our language learning - not only that we will be good students, but that we will good LEARNERS;

The new contacts that we are making at Goethe Institute, specifically:
Dr and Mrs Chilluwa from Nigeria
Peter Vimalasekaren - a missionary who works with refugees
Jason - a college student from Indiana. He has asked me if I would be interested in teaching "something" during a Bible study he wants to start;

That we would be faithful in the small things of being here in Germany - our quiet time alone with the Father, finding a church home, learning the culture, etc;

That we would not get so busy doing the stuff that we have to do that we will not have time to care for the people that we are here to serve.

Der Mensch lebt nicht allein von Brot, sondern von allem , was Gott ihm zusagt! *

Sunday was Erntedankfest (Thanksgiving) at church. We went to the City Mission Church's monthly service at the "mall" in Lorrach. We were invited by a couple who lives close to us here in Stetten. They called us Thursday night and let us know that they would not be at the service as they had to go out of town. We managed to do church all by ourselves. It was a great service, complete with praise band, a wonderful altar decoration that would make great soup, (according to the pastor) for those who wanted to help themselves after the service. The songs that the praise band led added to the worship instead of just being part of a performance. We were able to follow the sermon - pretty well. The youth pastor from the City Mission Church preached on Matt 4:4. After service we went upstairs for Gemeindekaffe (coffee and cake) and got to talk with a number of the folks who had come to the service. We got a visitors' packet with information about the church.

This past week has been terrific. We spent the better part of it on our own just getting settled and acquainted with the local area. We has found two of the local DIY stores. The one in Lorrach is a Home Depot on steroids! We have been to IKEA in Basel, Switzerland along with all of the rest of the Germans on the Day of German Unity (a German not a Swiss holiday). We are officially registered in Germany - the first step toward our VISA and Residence Permit. We bought our monthly pass for the train to Freiburg all by ourselves.

We have secured a bank account at the one of the banks in the local area. We were able to do the majority of our banking business in German, even though Herr Fooken spoke to us in VERY RAPID Bank-speak and 30 year old "schule-Englisch". We have gotten signed up to pay our electric bill and we have been to the Deutsche Telecom (T-Mobile) office to get in line for our home telefon und internet. We finished our school shopping today and will start at the Goethe Institute in Freiburg on Wednesday. Sadly, we didn't get a "tootie" for our first day of school.

WE are soooooo thankful for all of the blessings God has heaped upon us. Everyday we wake up and get to go and spend some quality time with the Lord, before anything else happens. We get to live in Germany. We get to learn the German language and culture. We get to practice our language everyday. The best part is that one day we WILL get to share Jesus with our neighbors in the same language in which they laugh and in which they cry. That God has blessed us with some material stuff pales in comparison the to Spiritual things with which He has blessed us. What Bernhard Kohlman said yesterday at the StadtMissions Gemeinde is absolutely true - *we do not live by bread alone, but by EVERY word that comes from the mouth of God.

Please join us in praying from Psalms 119:9-16

• Pray that we will stay pure by obeying God's Word;
• Pray that we will try hard to find God and that He would not allow us to wander from His commands;
• Pray that we will hide His Word in our hearts so that we will not sin against Him;
• Pray that we will praise the Lord and that He will teach us His decrees;
• Pray that we will be bold witnesses, reciting aloud all that God has given us;
• Pray that we will rejoice in God's Word and that we will delight in what the Lord declares and that we will not forget His word

Next time, I will try to be more punctual in our posting. For some reason, the "borrowed" internet connection we are currently using went "piffffft' over the weekend and we were complete cut off from internet connecting. Paula's new iPhone 3G(s) has a GPS on it and kept us along the straight and narrow all the way to IKEA in Basel, Switzerland and back. Tune in again next time for more of Paula and Ray in Germany.