Hi Praying Friends,

Thank you so much for your ongoing prayers! We have had a couple of weeks of really productive work in Berlin. It has been amazing to see our team pull together to work on accomplishing some pretty big tasks!

Stephen and Justin have been working hard to work with the National Office to develop a good residency program for people preparing for vocational ministry in the Alliance.

We have been getting our apartment and a new apartment ready to host interns in the coming weeks.

This past weekend was Gallery Weekend in Berlin, so we were making contacts and starting to get to know the artists and artistic community in Weißensee a little better.

Long text below - so here are the prayer requests up front for those who don't have time to read the rest!

1. Pray for interns who will be arriving in the coming weeks.
2. Elissa had a good doctor's appointment yesterday. Pray for continued health!
3. Pray for our kids! Johannah and Caleb have some upcoming housing decisions.

Monday was International Worker's Day (also known as May Day) and was a public holiday in Berlin (and most of Europe). It was interesting to be getting so many "work" emails on Monday from people in the US who were busy working on "International" worker's day!

In Berlin, it is a day when many people protest and lots of political parties are holding festivals and gatherings of different kinds. In our neighborhood, the SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschland (Social Democrat Party of Germany)) and Die Linke (The Left) both had community gatherings - both with activities for children, performances by bands, and speeches by politicians, as well as booths of all sorts.

At one of these festivals a person we know was selling a book she had written. The book was asking why, in a country like Germany, does an organization called Tafel need to exist to take care of low-income people who cannot afford groceries. Tafel is an organization that started with a Christian background with a simple mission, "Rescue groceries, help people." And this is what is really interesting to me - the author's overarching question is about why a country that places such high value on the worth of people needs a Christian organization to lead the way. She is not against Tafel, she just feels that if people were really valued, we would not need a religious group to do this kind of work.

And this is where many Germans are both open and closed to the gospel! They are closed, because they really believe that we can be good for goodness sake. They belive, idealistically - but also very passionately, that mankind could and should look out for each other and care for the needs of each other. Government intervention (through laws and taxes) can help overcome personal selfishness.

They are open, because it can be pleasantly astonishing to them when they realize that the church, this organization that they often associate with abuses of power and religious conflicts through the centuries of church history in Europe CONTINUES to lead the way in caring for disadvantaged people. The church's record is not spotless, to be sure! But when people who represent Christ well engage in caring for "the least of these", we display a level of humanity that can only, in my opinion, really be displayed through the transforming work of Christ and seeing the world with His eyes, caring with His heart, loving with His love.

Pray that we keep seeing opportunities to talk about these topics with our neighbors and that the Good News - the whole gospel - wins hearts and minds in Berlin!

Blessings,

mike