Dear praying friends,

We are still feeling a little like we jumped into a river right at the rapids as we re-enter Berlin. To some degree, we knew it was going to be like this! We have welcomed new teammates 2 weeks after landing before - and it is just a lot. This week I have had only a couple of hours where I have been able to sit at my desk in the middle of a week full of meetings, mostly onboarding, but also short-term-team prep and a few other things. Tomorrow I will finally have some time to catch up on the bookkeeping. Please keep praying for our new teammates, Joel and Kate, as well as for our team as we work hard to get ready for what we hope is a good Q4 push.

I really want to tell you about my (our) Saturday, though! Last Saturday, my morning started with my normal Saturday routine of shopping and visiting the local weekly market. This has been one of those weekly "connecting points" for me, not only with the people who work at the market, but also the other people who come at the same general time each year.

My time there was a little rushed on Saturday, because an event called "Drawing and Coffee" was taking place at Envision Berlin. This event was started by one of our residents, and is now being run by a local German artist. I wanted to be there to support him, but honestly was so tired, I was a little grumpy about feeling rushed to get there. I was glad I went, though - 6 people came (not including the 4 of our Envision Berlin people), from a wide variety of international backgrounds!

I left a little early because our community gardening initiative, which I have written about several times over the years, was gardening at 1:00 PM. It was great to see familiar faces and be seen back in the community again. I heard often, "We were hoping that you would be coming back to Berlin, but were not sure if it would happen. How long are you able to stay before you have to go again?" At 3:00 pm, the gardeners (and sometimes others) gathered for Cake and Coffee. The initiative was celebrating 13 years of gardening together, but since 13 is an unlucky number, they had planned to toast Elissa and my return to Berlin instead. That was so sweet!

After that, we met with friends who used to live in our building for dinner and to go to a dance performance being put on by our ministry partners at The Limelight Collective. The performance and the discussion with the artists afterwards led to some great conversations with our friends about faith - especially since the husband is very fact/proof-based, and has struggled over the years to believe in something he does not have solid proof for.

It was quite the day, a day that contained a lot of God-focused conversations. Our coming back to Berlin opened up doors for some questions and conversations that had felt like they had been on pause for a while.

Here are some prayer requests:

1. I still have some things (mostly music equipment related) that I have not had a chance to unpack and get situated how I want it. Can you pray that I can get some of those last things unpacked and organized?
2. We have had some equipment replacement expenses at work that were needed but not necessarily expected. Please pray for both ongoing support for Envision Berlin and for books from our publishing company to sell.
3. Pray that I have patience with the time it takes to re-settle. We have only been back a month, and it is important for me to remember that, but I find myself feeling really overwhelmed with how behind I feel on a lot of stuff.
4. Pray for some of the people we had conversations with over the weekend! Pray that the seeds we have planted over the years keep growing!

Thanks for praying!!

mike