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.

If this is Tuesday . . .

Hey there loyal blog followers -

If this is Lorrach, it must be Tuesday morning in Germany. We had a great flight. We were originally seated about 4 rows apart in the cheap seats. We asked for seats closer together. Even though we had to pay for an upgrade to Economy Plus, we got 5 extra inches of legroom and got to sit side by side!

Our landing in Lorrach has been better than anything we could have hoped or imagined. We have an apartment, a car, a three minute walk to the train. The weather was described to us the other day as being Tuscany-like with cool mornings and warm days . . . I guess that explains the vineyards we can see from our apartment window on the the hillside just to our northwest.

We are getting settled, quiet nicely. We have made several trips into the city of Lorrach to go shopping. We have even been to the main train staition in Lorrach to discuss what is the cheapest fare to get us to Freiburg for language school. We have found ALDI, and several other "discount" grocery stores. We have also been to a couple that remind us of large American supermarkets. We have found a small cafe, bakery and pastryshop where we plan to eat breakfast 2 Saturdays a month - the koffee ist stark und die brotchen sind Himmlisch! There is a pedestrian zone downtown with lots of shops and restaurants.

God has provided our apartment. We have 2 bedrooms, bath, toilette, kitchen and living room. There are windows galore and we have a rather large balcony. We live on the first level of the three story building. Our neighborhood is very quiet even when the train goes by. That is one of the joys of electric trains. We are about 5 minutes walk from the Swiss border and we plan to visit Basel soon. God has also provided a car for us. It is a late model VW Passat. We drove over to Rheinfelden yesterday evening and found one of the DIY homestores that have become as prevalent in Germany as in the US. At the Haupteingang (main entrance) there is even a small eatery tucked into the "foyer".

Please pray for us over the next couple of days.We are excited about the next part of our missionary journey.

• We will go to register at the Lorrach city hall on Thursday. We must take care of that not so minor detail before we can open a bank account, get our cell phones and home phone and internet.
• More importantly, we also need to register to get our residence permit and our VISAs to be in Germany.
• We will begin language school next Tuesday at the Goethe Institute in Freiburg. We wanted to get the best language school we could to learn our language correctly.
• If we are to reach the lady that lives next door for Christ, we're going to have to do so in the language that she laughs and crys in. AND it has got to be correct.

Thanks for dropping by. We really appreciate your prayers and support through CP and LMCO. We'll do our best to not let you down.

The house is on fire!! NOT!

The fire alarm went off at exactly 1:43 AND 3:14 AM this morning! There was no fire. But twice we all gathered outside in the soft glow of the lights from our building. Twice the alarm continued; and twice the ILC security responded and we waited for the fire department to come and silence the alarm – what a way to begin our missionary journey ;~{b)

We are now done with our orientation. The Commissioning service yesterday afternoon had the highest attendance ever – I think because we were the largest class that has come though the ILC. We have grown deeper spiritually in the past eight weeks than we have ever thought we could. The question that keeps coming up is this: “Are you ready?” I suppose we would have to answer that we are as ready as we can be to go and answer the call that God has placed upon our lives. In our own strength, we are ill prepared to get out of bed in the morning. But in God’s strength we rise early to meet Him, just to sit at His feet and allow Him to fill us up.

In just a few hours we will take the next step in our journey. This part has become routine for us over the years. It will be just one more trip, another long day of traveling. Even as we are going, though, we want to be BOLD witnesses for the Lord . . . why should we wait until we get there? Yesterday morning, that was our prayer request as we took part in one of the FPO closing ceremonies. Please join us in this prayer. We are not able to do it without YOUR prayer support. Also, pray for us as we travel. It will take us about 21 hours to get from Virginia to our new home in Germany. We leave the ILC at 11 AM Sept 24 and arrive in Lorrach, Germany at about 2 PM on Friday, Sept 25!

We already have an apartment in Lorrach. Our supervisor wrote to us the other day and told us that they would even have some basic groceries there when we arrive. Once we arrive, we’ll get signed up for telephone and internet service. WARNING! This process takes longer than it does in the US, so it may be a while before we are able to get back on line. Please pray for us about getting our household and routine established quickly. We begin our language school on Oct 6 in a town about an hour away. Even though we will have a car when we arrive, we will ride the train to and from language school. Since Lorrach is a small city, we will also be walking more than we will be driving.

Please pray for us that we would kindle afresh the gift of God which is in us;
Please pray that we will realize that God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline;
Please pray that we will not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord but boldly share the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity. (2 Tim 1:6-9)

Deja vu or Gnade des Herrn

One of the great theologians of all time - Yogi Berra - is reputed to have said, "Well, it is just deja vu all over again!" That is sort of how I feel tonight as I am writing this. We have spent the better part of all day packing, re-packing and then packing again. We went and got a really nifty scale to weigh our bags. When the first of the big ones went over 75 pounds . . . This is the next in a long series of moves for us. Since we got married 36 years ago, I think we have moved over 30 times. That doesn't count the trips I took to Bahgdad.

We are now under a week until we will be in Germany. We are as prepared as we will get, save the next couple of days here at ILC. We have already got maps from our apartment to the grocery store, a major German department store and, of course, to church on Sunday. We will worship with the Evangelisch-Freikirchliche Gemeinde (Baptisten). We belonged to an EFG congregation in Memmingen when we lived there. We are really looking forward to it.

We had a great trip to Washington DC this past Monday. As you can see, we went to the White House, but the fence was a close as we could get. On the way there from Union Station, we walked up Pennsylvania Avenue, praying for the various government offices along the way. We had lunch in the Food Court at the IRS Building and then walked back up to the Capitol. More Prayer! Paula had the chance to talk with a group of German tourists while we sat in the shade just outside the Capitol Building. We did get our ice cream when we got back to Union Station. (O, boy, did we get ice cream!!!) One of the folks on our team had the opportunity to talk at length about Christ with an international college student at the end of our stay in DC.

Gordon Fort spoke with us from his heart and with great passion the other day about the call of Christ on ALL of our lives . . . not just those of us who are going to the field. Wouldn't it be great to have a MILLION missionaries on the field? Only when we get serious and truly seek to follow Christ is that going to happen.

We will get our tickets to Germany on Monday or Tuesday of next week. The schedule for transportation to the airport has already been posted - we leave the ILC at 11:00 on Thursday to catch our 2:25 flight from Richmond to Dulles. We'll have the opportunity to wait there until almost 10 PM before we leave for Germany. Here is a MAJOR prayer request - Please pray for us while we are at Dulles that we will, even in transit, be BOLD witnesses for Jesus.

Also, please share our prayer concerns from Philippians 1:2-6:

Pray that God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give Paula and me grace and peace as we get on the airplane on Thursday to fly to Germany;
Pray that when we make our requests before God with joy that God will supply us with many partners in spreading the Good News about Christ;
Pray that God, who began the good work within us, will continue His work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.

We are planning to have internet access next week to put out our blog. So, tune in again then to here our hero say, "Herzlich wilkommen ins Deutschland. Wir wuenchen dir viel gluck und gnade des Herrn!"

Ordnung muss sein!

Ordnung! Ordnung muss sein! (There must be order!) This past week we met with our Affinity Group. We had opportunity to learn new stuff from our Member Care team about how to better get along in our new setting. Our Affinity Group Trainer - who just happens to be our new supervisor while we get started being real live missionaries spoke with us on the topic of "iWitness". From those discussions, we'll be working out our family core values. David will also be our mentor and guide. Sounds like a lot for one person to handle . . . but he seems like a pretty capable guy in the Lord. As a group, we shared with each other about how our people group (in our case, the Germans) view their world - when we get to the field, we'll have the opportunity to test out our research and see if we were correct. We will be a part of an online community after we get to the field so that we continue the training process together as a "small group." We also discussed several issues that we will face on the field. It is better to know them up front as opposed to waking up one morning with them slapping you in the face!
It was a great time to grow Spiritually and in the knowledge of what we are going to be doing once we finally land. Speaking of which, once we get to Lorrach, we'll have about a week to get our feet on the ground before we start language school. We'll be attending the Goethe Institute in Freiburg im Breisgau . . . a tough school, but then we NEED to be correct in our language. We'll ride the train to get there and back which if we are disciplined will be a great opportunity to get our homework done before we even get home.
Our apartment is waiting for us to arrive. We'll even have visitors. Some of our teammates from Munich will be in the area for training and will stop by and see us before they leave to go and do other stuff.

I looked online this morning to check on our flight information to Germany. From what I could see on the TWO websites I looked at, the booking for our flight to Germany may have been canceled! Please join us in prayer that it will get straightened out in the next couple of days - we are supposed to fly on Sept 24.

We are going to Washington DC this week on a field trip to practice the stuff that we have been learning. Please pray for a great trip for all of us here at FPO.

Please share the following prayer requests praying God’s Word from Philippians 2:14-16
Pray for us that we will do all things without grumbling or disputing.
Pray for us that we will prove ourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.
Pray for us that we will appear among the German People as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life so that in the day of Christ you will have reason to glory because we did not run in vain nor toil in vain.

Tune in again next time when you will hear our hero, say, "Gollybobhowdy folks did we ever have an exciting adventure in Missions in the Washington DC metro area . . ."

So, how was your week?

In the past, Paula and I have enjoyed listening to "A Prarie Home Companion" on the radio. Every week, the host would tell long, rambling stories about an imaginary place in central Minnesota that would always begin with pretty much the same way with a comment about his hometown. Well, it been a great week here at ILC, our hometown (of the moment). We have just completed our extended quiet times with the Lord. On Saturdays we spend about an 1 1/2 to 2 hours alone with God working on our relationship with Him. This morning, for example, I spent a lot of time looking at Bible verses and talking with Him about the words we use to describe Him; I spent time finding verses that include "Bless the Lord" and I spent time confessing several attitudes I have held onto for far too long. By that time, I had spent nearly the entire time I had planned to spend with the Lord . . . but God. I spent a long time in prayer for my supervisors and teammates.

Our week was filled to almost overflowing with adminstrative things. We had sessions on payroll and taxes and our personality types and how to work as a team. We learned that our first term on the field "could be challenging." We even had interviews about how we can use our spiritual gifts and and the way God made us to work better on a team. In our small group, we have been practicing how we can relate stories to life and God with the folks we will encounter on the field as a means of bringing God to them and them to faith in God.

We learned a lot about faith and praying without ceasing during the final class of the week. This particular session was longer than several of our other sessions combined. All of the presenters during this last class were caring, knowledgable and passionate about what they were presenting. Their varied use of different learning and teaching styles easily made their class one of the best we have had. We had 2 practical tests as a group during the class. One was sort of a pre test and the other was a post test. The results of the post test validated not only that we had we had remained awake during the class but that we had REALLY learned the material
;~{b)

Please Pray for us from 2 Timothy 1:6-9:

Pray that Paula and I will fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave us for God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. Pray that we will never be ashamed to tell others about our Lord. Pray that with the strength God gives us, that we will be prepared to suffer, if necessary, for the sake of the Good News. Pray that we will live a holy life for which God saved us and to which God called us; not because we deserved it, but because that was His plan from before the beginning of time—to show us His grace through Christ Jesus.

Stay tuned to this channel for our next exciting episode.