Dear praying friends,

I will be honest - when I am biking home, my goal is usually to try to hit as many green lights as possible. On my normal route, I have figured out, for the most part, where I need to step hard on the pedals to get the next light.

Last night, coming off of a two-day cold, I had no interest in hitting the lights while they were green, and that meant that I was hitting most of the lights when they were red. As I pulled up to ANOTHER red light, I noticed an elderly lady standing on the sidewalk next to the stop-light. She looked exhausted. It had been a cold, rainy afternoon - and she was holding her purse (with some groceries inside), a pack of paper towels, and a small shopping bag. And she was just standing there, with people passing her on the right and the left.

I asked her if she was ok, and if she needed help - and in complete exhaustion, she nodded yes. I hopped off of my bike, walked it over to her, took her groceries and purse and hung them on my handlebars. As we walked (SO SLOWLY, and of course I had somewhere I thought I was supposed to go) to her house, she told me much of her life story. Born in 1938, she had lived through the bombing in Magdeburg - and she told me that she remembers the sky being blood red. She was 7 years old.

And then I heard about more of her life, and how it was hard to live in such a religionless city like Berlin, and about how she was catholic (and believed in God, she made sure to tell me.) She laughed when she learned I was a pastor.

What an interesting conversation, one of several I have had in the last weeks - especially in the moments where I stop and look to see what is happening around me. When we stop and listen, we often see what God is doing, don't we?

Here are two more renderings of our new space - this part the shared office space where we hope to bring Christian and non-Christian designers and creatives together!

The last bids came in this week, and we sit down with a contractor tomorrow to sign a contract. The numbers will be final then, but it looks like our rennovations our costs are going to be close to $75,000.00 for the rennovations. Can you please pray? Once the building starts, we will need the money quickly - so we are in the process of creating a video and letting people know about the need, but I really believe in a great God who will provide for His ministry, and I would love to be able to tell people about how I asked my prayer team to pray that God would provide resources - and He did!

I have some other requests - but have a short term team on the ground that is waiting for me for the next thing to do, so I need to run! So, in short - pray for health, pray for visas, pray for God's provision.

Blessings,

mike