Hi praying friends,

We were, like many of you, shocked by the events of the weekend. Please know that we are praying for peace and unity. These are difficult times!

One of the things we will be talking about at our Salon evening today is the colonialization of the Self. Jenny Odell, an author and artist, writes about this in her book „How to do Nothing.“ She talks about how life is increasingly focused on productivity and creativity, to the point that even rest is evaluated on how productive or creative you will be afterward. Odell references our need to move from a Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) mindset to a NOSMO (Necessity of sometimes missing out) view.

During Covid, a German journalist Max Thol wrote about needing to come away from the hamster wheel of productivity (German article here).

So - in times where the world is spinning and it seems like we need to be increasingly involved for the good of "fill in blank here," it is important to step back and remember God's call to us to rest. To trust. "Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28)

That is definitely something we are learning again as we prepare for home assignment.

Here are some prayer requests for this week:

1. Pray for a visa appointment for Josh. Some entrepreneurs in Berlin discovered ways to start reserving blocks of visa appointments and then selling them to people - a business plan that did not meet with the approval of the German government. So... the whole website has been shut down for the last couple of weeks. We did get an email sent requesting an appointment before they shut down the website, but it is an uncomfortable position to be in. We are waiting with no way to try to reserve an appointment on our own.
2. Pray for our house church as we meet on Sunday! We meet every other Sunday, and we have only three more meetings with them before we go home for a year. Pray for us as we continue to process our transition with them.
3. Pray for two of our interns as they wrap up their time in Berlin over the next couple of weeks.
4. Next week one of our interns will be holding a concert and we will be launching a new art exhibit. Pray that both events help us connect well with our community!

Blessings,

mike