Dear Friends,Germany is soccer-crazed! You can’t help but get caught up in the excitement. It is fun to see how the Germans have shed their patriotic inhibitions and are flying their flag proudly. There are literally 10’s of thousands of soccer tourists from all over the world to be seen and with a few minor exceptions Germany has been a great host to them.
There has also been much going on in our lives since our last letter. Sue’s surgery went well and she has been recovering slowly but surely. We are thankful to God for his provision and healing. Thank you for praying. Sam and his girlfriend, Heidi, came to visit us. We drove down to the Black Forest together for Roy’s Graduation. Roy graduated with honors and we are very
proud of him. He has been accepted at Juniata College in PA and received a nice merit scholarship from them. Please praise the Lord with us for Roy’s achievement. Pray for us in the provision of the daunting remaining tuition cost that needs to be paid. Please pray for Sam and Heidi as they consider their future. Pray that they would draw near to the Lord and that He would protect and guide them.Now that we are back home we have hit the final stretch of preparing for our furlough in North America from July-December. We will be based in Colorado Springs but doing some extensive traveling in Sep-Oct. We are looking forward to seeing friends and family but truthfully are not looking forward to being away from “home” in Germany.
Here is an update on our current church planting projects:
COLOGNE
Pastor Michael Hoering has been extremely involved heading up the regional cooperation of evangelistic World Cup outreaches. He has been running from one appointment to the next in addition to his regular pastoral duties. The church plant has therefore taken a back seat. I met Dirk, one of the elders committed to the church plant at one of my recent SPARK presentations. He was encouraged by SPARK but had to admit that he is frustrated with the lack of movement in the church plant project. I will be meeting with him and a couple of others involved on June 25. We hope to meet at a café on bikes and then tour the potential target area of the church plant. Please continue to pray for Dirk. His job situation is still completely up in the air. And please continue to pray for the actual launch of this church plant.
COLOGNE-IN-MOTION
These guys are awesome. They recently signed a short-term rental contract for their “World Cup Café” – a recently vacated grocery store where they are showing all the games on a big screen plus offering other events and holding worship services on Sundays. The weeks before the World Cup were spent painting, cleaning, and running around trying to find everything (furniture, refrigerators, food and drink, decoration, publicity, etc.) they needed to set-up a café. On the opening Friday evening between 70 and 80 people were in the café when the opening whistle blew (Germany beat Costa Rica 4:2). Others came throughout the evening. They probably had close to 100 people in all! A number of 10-12 year-olds have been coming consistently and they keep bringing more and more of their friends. Please pray that many of these contacts will translate into decisions for the Lord and then members of the new church being planted. Pray for strength as they all work very hard day after day at the café. Praise God with us that their team members, Jared and Lori Bridges, finally received their visas. That was a huge concern and now they can fully focus on the ministry.
HENNEF
We have been asking you to pray for Wolfgang and Petra for quite some time; for steadfast hearts and long-windedness! Please don’t stop. For the time being the church plant in Hennef is on hold. After much consternation every single team member has left the group. It is amazing to us what damage one divisive person can inflict. I know she didn’t mean to, but as a result of her constant challenge of Wolfgang’s leadership, one woman caused the team to fall like dominoes as they all became disillusioned with the endless discussions and arguments. Wolfgang and Petra are holding on to their vision of a new church in Hennef. They are planning on holding several special prayer meetings in the coming months to seek the Lord’s guidance and help.
MONHEIM
Our work with the church plant in Monheim is basically finished. It is exciting to see how things are moving along. They have recently rented permanent space in the heart of town. They are planning to move in the beginning of August after renovations. In conjunction with this they will start having their services at 11:30 instead of late afternoon as they have been – and weekly instead of twice a month. These are major changes. Please pray for them. Pray for unity among the founders and growth in their two cell groups. Pray also for increased inroads into the community and good contact with seekers.
SPARK
I have had multiple opportunities to present SPARK in the last couple of months. Being a motivational presentation – it is difficult to measure the impact but it seems that God is using this as a tipping point in some people’s hearts. I am especially thankful for the opportunity to be a part of the national convention of the Evangelical Free Church of Germany – presenting SPARK in two workshops to a total of about 80 people who expressly came because of their interest in church planting. Erhard Michel, the director of the Ev. Free Inland Mission, saw SPARK for the first time there and has requested that I make some technical changes so that it can be put in the hands of workers around the country. I also recently showed SPARK to the German Baptist board for Inland Mission in Berlin. These men greeted SPARK wholeheartedly and have challenged me to consider working on a version geared more toward youth. Please pray that the seeds sown through SPARK would flourish and bear fruit. Pray that Germans would begin catching the vision for reaching their country through the planting of many more witnessing, reproducing churches.
Thank you for standing with us in prayer.
Your servants in Germany,
Jason (and Sue)
