Hi praying friends!

When we launched Envision Berlin 2 years ago in the middle of Covid, we had ideas - lots of ideas - about what ministry would look like. God was super gracious and we were able to assemble a great team of people who thought with us as we prepared.

Last summer was actually our first FULL summer - a summer not impacted by home assignments or Covid restrictions. It was amazing! We had interns, teams, residents - and it helped us, as one Envision Berlin team member said recently, move from systems development to actually seeing those systems in action.

And now, as summer is coming to a close (a debate in the office this week was about when summer actually came to an end, from a calendar point of view...) - we are entering into the time where the sports quote "after the game is before the game" is a reality.

We already have teams on the calendar for next year. We have two interns leaving this week (September 10th) and 2 interns arriving a little over a week from now (September 18 and 19).

That means it is time to look at our plans, at what worked, at what didn't work, at our original dream foci and compare it with our current reality and make conscious decisions about what we are going to do in the coming year - rather than just letting things happen.

Part of the challenge for us is that we have an embarrassing richness of opportunities! We also have a limited amount of resources (finances - but not just! We also have limited hours, capacity, space, etc.) - so deciding what we want to be urgent and not just responding to what feels urgent is important.

That meeting is happening this week. It is part celebration! "Look at all the things we were involved in over the last couple of years!" It is part evaluative - "What worked? What didn't work? What do we need to stop doing? What do we need to do differently? What do we need to add?" It is all, ideally, submissive in nature - recognizing that we would not be where we are without Him, and will not be able to fulfill His mission for us without His help. Can you pray for this time? A few minutes of your prayer will impact the few hours we have set aside on Thursday morning to dig into this, which will impact the many hours we will spend in adjusting programs, which will impact months (and years) of ministry.

Other prayer requests:

1. Caleb is still away with his band in Austria as they work on some music and record some songs together.
2. Pray for our interns who are leaving this weekend and their transition and for our interns who are coming.
3. Next week we have some visitors to our site from another Envision site - pray for the time we spend together!

Thanks for praying!

mike