Lively Stones
Pastor Gary Groenewold’s 10 plus years of investment in Berlin continues on, now led by Pastor Stephen Stein. Please pray for this small, yet great church of beautiful believers. Each one is special and is so precious. Though the actual church premises is very nice with its tasteful, neutral color scheme, the Church herself is quite colorful. Some bright and bold, some softer, some quiet, others somewhere in between, but what an amazing gathering of lively stones!
Kids’ Camp and more
We took part in the Kid’s Camp when we arrived. We took a day trip to Martin Luther’s hometown of Wittenberg. A special thank you goes to Adrian Elder, our tour guide du jour. We also took a“walking tour” of Berlin led by Pastor Gary to see the Berlin Wall and another by Pastor Stephen to see the city “Gate” and other history surrounding the separation of the East and the West. More thanks to them, too. But the most memorable moments for me were much less “spectacular” – Just eight of us at dinner at Sven and Aisel’s home; lunch at a Turkish restaurant where 14 of us sat at a table for six (yes, 14 hungry kids and adults around a booth made for six for three entire hours!); a tea and desserts time for some of us – girls only; soul-winning at “the fountain in the shopping district”; a dinner at Pastor Stephen’s, breakfast times with Marianna and Irena, doing dinner dishes with an Iranian man and a German woman and no common language amongst us!
The Contrast
For me, this portion of the Summer Harvest trip brought out the contrast between God’s ways and the world’s ways; God’s priorities and the world’s; His love toward all of us and the world’s view of that; God’s concern for each individual person vs. the world’s agenda. It’s all about people. For me, Berlin was all about the people: the amazing believers and the desperately lost; the sinners saved by grace and the sinners still aimlessly searching for something to give meaning to it all. As the song says, “God loves people more than anything.”
For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
by Angina Whipp, MBCS graduate
