August / September 2021 — The Gfeller Family

I’m reminded every day of the toll that living in a dry and hard place brings. As much as there is excitement in living life in a city, the brokenness of relationships and life apart from God brings reality to the troubled hearts of those who seek refuge and opportunity in our world’s urban centers. It is amazing how this brokenness seeks to wrap up everyone in its path.

Our daughters experience this daily as they enter the halls of their school. They are growing up quickly, confronted with a world that has set itself against God. It’s a world that is desperately seeking to lure them into a world-view that sets man central to our universe and laughs at any thought of God. To be honest, this makes the city that God has called us to seem heavy at times and likely to choke us out.

But then God always seems to remind me, sometimes in ways I never expected, that He has planted us right where He wants us. He did this recently through our oldest daughter Quinn at the dinner table one night last week. She reminded us that this is a great place to be to proclaim the truth we have found in Christ. She said that we are a lot like a dandelion, we grow in hard places, bloom and then spread our seeds. I’ve reflected on this often over the past week and I am taken back by the wisdom of this little one every time I think on these things, because she is right, we are made to be dandelions.

An article I recently read sums up what Quinn reminded me of when it said this:

“Dandelions grow under the most challenging of circumstances, often making their home in extremely unlikely locations such as concrete cracks. Then, just as their vibrancy begins to fade, the white puffy seedlings are carried along by the breeze, eventually landing, swelling and creating another generation of dandelions.”
The Counseling Connoisseur: Dandelion strong: Lessons from a weed *

We acknowledge the challenging circumstances we face, but we praise God for the concrete crack He has placed us in. By His grace, we hope to, like the dandelion, bloom where He has placed us in order to declare His glory. We hope that in doing so we too may hold strong when the winds blow, for the purpose of spreading gospel seeds that spring to life a new generation.

Ministry Update

Things have sprung to life in ministry and outreach over the past month. We have resumed regular outreach with our youth sports ministry in Reinickendorf and are also preparing to help host a Basketball Camp for German and international youth alongside others in our church in the coming month. The hope would be to use this outreach event to connect youth from the city with our youth ministry at church to establish a long-term connection.

We have also reestablished outreach back into a local refugee accommodation. The center is a little farther from our church, but a number of ladies and men from our community are working regularly in the camp and connecting with residents. Last week we helped the staff put on a festival and we provided cotton candy, popcorn and games for the kids and were able to meet new families. We were also able to make new connections with another refugee accommodation by helping deliver 100 used computers for the residents in this accommodation. We hope that these acts of love will pave the way for opportunities to share the gospel as we establish relationships.

Our church and churches across the city also recently participated in street evangelism led by a close friend and fellow worker. These outreaches focused on going into predominately Muslim areas of the city and sharing Christ through testimonies and conversations. During the past month believers from across the city have passed out thousands of Bibles and pieces of gospel literature in German, French, Arabic, Farsi, Kurdish, Dari, and many more languages.

Much of our ministry alongside the church over the past month has focused on encouraging fellow believers into sharing Christ with those around them and we have been closely involved with facilitating new pathways for discipleship and evangelism leading out of our church. We hosted our church’s quarterly discipleship roundtable in our home the first week of September and we have new initiatives starting in the coming months that will encourage the growth of our small groups and outreach.

Finally, we kicked off our teen group this month with our annual flour bomb war and had our annual church retreat, where some good friends from Saylorville Baptist Church in Iowa led us in encouraging community in our body. Please pray for our church as we seek to build up disciples in Christ who present Him to the nations and for leaders as we shepherd the flock God has given us.

Family Update

We had a rocky August with Cherry, Quinn and I contracting Covid. We were thankful that the symptoms were not too severe, but due to quarantine requirements and the onset of symptoms at different times we ended up being in lockdown for practically the whole month of August.

We are thankful to be feeling much better and enjoyed some sweet time of fellowship with coworkers and friends over the past month. We are thankful for the people we get to do life with, those who come to work alongside us from far off, and the community God has given us that has allowed us to bloom where we are at.

For those of you who have been praying for Quinn and her breathing problems. She is starting a new treatment next month that will be a series of shots over seven weeks that will hopefully immunize her to the allergies that are causing the breathing problems. Thank you again for your prayers and support for her needs.

Special Needs

We are expecting some higher expenses in the upcoming month for annual transportation costs that allow us to do outreach in the city as well as some new medical costs for Quinn’s allergy shots. The transportation expense is estimated to be $1,500 and helps us cover costs for traveling to refugee camps and using our car to transport equipment to projects throughout the year. We are in the process of finding out what the costs for Quinn’s treatments will be, and unfortunately there is a chance our insurance will not cover it. We are hoping to set aside $1,000 to help offset these medical costs as well as some costs we have incurred for the treatment on my back this year. If you would like to donate to one of these needs you can use the link below to find our giving page. We are so grateful for everyone that holds us up in this way through regular giving or helping us with special needs throughout the year.

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Prayer Update

Please pray for our family as we seek to live the gospel to those around us, as well as to each other and that we would shepherd our girls hearts well.
Please pray for continued opportunities and open doors through our refugee and sports outreach.
Please pray for our leadership at our church as we seek to press forward with seeing believers built up and our body be influential in reaching the city for Christ through new initiatives.
Please pray for Quinn and her upcoming treatments.
Please pray for strength as we start a community group in our home and for Chad as he helps lead our Men’s ministry this fall.

* The article referenced in this article can be found at this link: https://ct.counseling.org/2016/06/counseling-connoisseur-dandelion-strong-lessons-weed/