September 2019
One of my favorite things to do with Quinn and Gracie is explore our little part of Berlin on our bikes. Berlin is made for bicycles and when the weather is nice we venture out to find new things. A couple weeks ago we were on one of these rides to explore a new park nearby.
It’s interesting how confident the girls have gotten riding around on the roads. As they have become more aware of their surroundings they feel emboldened to venture out on their own path. Two little voices behind me are constantly telling me to “turn here” and “go that way”. I found myself in this situation as we were leaving the park the other day. They both wanted to start off down a path one way, while I new the best path was a different way. I found myself saying to them “just follow me”. In that moment I thought of the implications of those words. How many times had I been in the same position as my daughters and tried to tell God the best way forward!
While my daughters may have a reason to think there is a better way (I’ve gotten us lost a couple times:), I know that God will always lead me directly into what is best for me. I am finding that this might not always be the fastest or easiest path, but this path always lead to Him. As I reflect on another year in Berlin, I can testify to God’s love and faithfulness to our family. May we never forget the steadfast love of the Lord and may our hearts desire be to “just follow Him”.
“ But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.”
Ministry Update
We are in full-swing with our weekly outreach and ministry. We are continuing our work in Reinickendorf and Wilmersdorf among children and families in these communities. Our hope is to continue to influence the children and families in these communities to follow after Christ. We are encouraged that other believers are joining us in this as well. In both of these communities we have seen consistent teams of five to ten people join weekly in serving and loving refugees and hopeless people. The women of our church recently hosted a baby shower for seven new babies in the refugee home we are working in. We also reached out to a family from Ukraine in this camp that has a little girl with Leukemia. It is encouraging to see so many from our church community letting their lights shine by loving those in lowly positions.
Our ministry with our youth has also begun and we kicked off the school year with our annual flour bomb war. We shared the gospel with the teens in small groups and we are focusing on being ‘Convinced’ through this fall about our faith. Our teen group is young this year, so please pray for growth and maturity in spiritual things with our teens. Specifically pray for Jake, he professed Christ this summer at teen camp and I seem to have a bond with him that has allowed for us to begin meeting regularly.
Pray for God to work among our church family through this fall. We just returned from our family retreat, where we had great attendance. Our speaker talked about how Jesus changes everything and we had the opportunity to hear how he had done this in others lives, including a lady from our community that was baptized. There seems to be a special spirit of unity within our church and we hope to encourage authentic love and brotherhood among our fellowship through monthly dinners and new community groups this fall. We also have the blessing of one of our supporting pastors being here this month to do a series on ‘living as exiles’ from 1 and 2 Peter. Pray that these messages would motivate our community to live for God’s glory.
Finally, pray for us this week as we have unique opportunities to connect the church with those who do not know Christ through outreaches to men, women and children from across the city. Believers from all over Berlin will take part in these efforts.
Family Update
We are thankful to a great start to the school year for the girls. I praise the Lord for His mercy and grace to us in this regard. Quinn really struggled last year both socially and educationally in school. She has a tremendous teacher this year that is also a believer (you can count on one hand how many Christian teachers there are in this school) and has found a close friend from a family that moved just around the block from us this past summer. Gracie is excelling in her classroom environment and has a wonderful teacher that she has been with for the past two years. She is surrounded by sweet friends. They both have new friends at church as well and we are so thankful for the leadership of our children’s program at church that is pouring the gospel into their lives.
Cherry and I had the opportunity to go to a marriage enrichment night put on by a sweet team from Iowa that has served with us this past week. We also had a free hotel night and were able to take the girls into the center of the city for a fun night that included Five Guys and swimming in the hotel pool. Cherry’s mother Jeannie just arrived back this week in Berlin. We are so excited she is back!
We have also seen God’s faithfulness to us in providing a new house. Many of you know we have been searching and praying for a place that we can grow into and that will also allow us to continue encouraging and welcoming others into our home. We have been turned down on many occasions and it seemed that this was out of our reach. Little did we know that God had been preparing the perfect place for us this whole time. We look forward to moving in December!
We look back on God’s faithfulness and you are a big part of God’s faithfulness to us! We could not support gospel efforts and reach into dark places without you. Many of you have seen our yearly update video, but if you have not we made it for you. We hope it gives you a picture of what God is doing here in Berlin and how He is leading us into the next year.
Thank you for those of you who consistently give to help us reach Berlin for Christ. We know some of you prefer to partner through special gifts and we wanted to make you aware of a need if you are looking for an opportunity to give as we near the end of the year. We were able to purchase a number of things that will help us setup our new house from the family that is leaving. They were so kind to give us so many things that we could not have purchased new. This amount along with moving expenses will total around $3,000. If you would like to help you can give online at the link below or you can send a check to our new ministry address provided below.
Thank you for your continued support and love you show to our family.
Note: Please note that our physical address has changed. We apologize that some of you who send checks regularly had checks come back to you this month. Unfortunately, the mail was not forwarded properly to our new address, which you can find here:
Berlin Ministries International
210 Saddletree Place
Simpsonville, SC 29681
Prayer Update
Praise for God providing a new home to encourage believers and draw others into community.
Prayer for growth of new believers within our community and spiritual maturity for those that are within our influence.
Prayer for fruit with many outreach opportunities we have upcoming this week including an Open Table, Fall Festival, Evangelism Workshop and Soccer Tournament.
Pray for a Syrian family we had in our home last week and shared the gospel with. They accepted an Arabic New Testament. We plan to meet with them monthly to open God’s Word.