Student Strike

I definitely had a cultural moment today as I went out into the middle of the city. I knew that today was a pretty important day for students. I've had several students and friends tell me they were going on strike today (all the universities in the city) to protest the introduction of new fees for students who are "taking too long" to complete their degree. The majority of students I have talked to about this say that it's restricting students in their course options and exploring other subjects as well as just taking away their right to free education. Well, I as I stood at Hackescher Markt, thousands upon thousands of students marched down the street, chanting and holding their protest signs. I've never seen students so passionate about something. Sign after sign said something about free education. The parade often turned political as I saw other signs that said "Capitalism is the war", "revolution" and even signs demanding anarchy. It was quite loud in both sound and color as there were people with drums, whistles, some dressed in all black or pink (what on earth?)... I was more entertained by this than the cultural festival a few weeks ago. Anyway, I feel like this experience gave me a little more insight to the state of this city. These students are the future of this city and I felt like today I got to see a glimpse of the direction things are headed. If only they could be this passionate about Jesus...

Summer Project

They're here! An amazing group of 22 students and staff from the states are now here in Berlin for 5 weeks sharing their faith and developing relationships with German students. It gets me so excited when I see a bunch of students giving up their summer by deciding to support raise, go to a foreign country and share their faith in a totally different culture. What a step of faith for so many of them - I love it! This morning I did part of the morning session by sharing with them why I went on STINT, why Berlin, something I learned this year, the state of the ministry past, present and our hopes for the future. I then led a group of them to the TU and showed them around, helping them get oriented to the campus and mensa. They're still a bit tired from the trip (they just arrived yesterday), but their attitudes are fabulous. I'm so thankful to have them here for the summer sharing the gospel at twice the rate the regular team can. And I know for me, summer projects were a huge way in which God gave me a heart for Europe and taught me much about what international ministry was like. This is definitely my hope and prayer for them - that God will meet them in a big way in the next few weeks, that they'll never be the same. :)

How is it June 13th already? Seriously...

This year has felt like it's gone by so fast, but I feel like these past few weeks have been the fastest of all. It's been a major time of transition as Dan, Krista and Avery have already left, the Sfura's and Jon leave tomorrow and Bryce, Amanda, Katie and I leave in just a couple short weeks. There are so many details to cover and things to wrap up while at the same time dealing with saying goodbye. Imagine spending almost all of your time with the same people for 9 months and then all of sudden, they're gone. So weird.

Anyway, I got the most precious phone call from a Christian student yesterday while I was on campus. I had texted her telling her that I was leaving to go home for the summer soon and that I would love to see her and her non-Christian friend (I had met with them a few times previously) before I left. So she calls me and hurridly asks me (and she doesn't speak English, mind you) when I was leaving and asks if we can met up next week. I love this girl. She so desires that her friend will come to know God personally and it is such an indescribable feeling when she asks me to help her. And this is my job? Seriously...

Of course, there's never a time I don't need prayer, but I feel like it's especially important right now. There's so much to do and I'm starting to feel stressed and a bit overwhelmed. Also, I need much prayer as I'm re-raising my financial support. There's a lot I need to trust God for right now and it isn't always easy, especially when you can't see how it's all going to come together. I'm clinging to this verse right now:

"Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these." - Luke 12:27

Why do I worry? Won't my God whose taken care of me this far continue to keep his promises to me?

Standing in the Breach

So he said he would destroy them—
had not Moses, his chosen one,
stood in the breach before him
to keep his wrath from destroying them.
-Psalm 106: 23

I want to care for the German students like this, standing in the breach between them and God. Praying on behalf of them and loving them enough to not let our relationship be superficial, but to continually be bold and clear about the truth of the gospel. Amanda and I cooked dinner for some of our TU students a couple of nights ago and it went so well. It was great to see them get to know each other and laugh and talk and bond over being TU girls. I am very thankful for the evening, but I recognize this was just the next step of going even further with them. Please pray our relationships with the students will continue to build and that I'll be bold and clear about why I'm here.

Debrief

This past weekend we had our debrief time on the island of Rügen which is on the German Baltic coast between Denmark and Poland. We talked about thankfulness for this past year, faith for the future and the challenges of re-entry into America. It was a good time of refection, team bonding and planning out our schedules for the rest of our time here in Germany and (for us returners especially) what this summer home will look like. It's hard to believe this STINT year is almost up. The weather wasn't the best, but the town we were in (called Sellin) was very beautiful and I loved being at the beach. :)

"Your accent is so American. It's just like in the movies..."

This is what a German student told me last night at Fire-Abend. Never will I cease to be amazed at what Germans have to say about my "accent". Anyway, our 2nd Fire-Abend of the semester was last night and although there were not as many students as last time, many of them stayed to hang out afterwords in an Italian restaurant across the street. It reminded me a lot of going out to eat after Cru at Syracuse and had the feeling of fun and community - cool.

But what I actually wanted to update you on was our TU outreach last Wednesday (the picture above). We had about 27 people come and some of them were people we didn't even know. The speaker had a wonderfully creative way of talking about his life, priorities and success while weaving in the importance of his relationship with God. Many people had questions during the Q&A time at the end and we were able to chat with a few of the students afterwords. I think we (as the TU team) were just excited that people came and it all went so smoothly. It was definitely an experiment since we've never done an outreach on our own before. But we have definitely learned a lot about what it takes and hopefully we have established ourselves as a student group that is active and doing things here at the TU.

Outreach Adventures

The outreach we're having at the TU next week is fast approaching. So, this past Monday Amanda, Dave and I had an appointment with our speaker to meet him and discuss a little bit about what he will be talking about. He gave Dave the address of what our speaker called the "Christian Ship". Well, we joked the whole way there, wondering about and laughing about what this place could possibly be. And low and behold, the "Christian Ship" is indeed a ship. It sits right on a river by a beautiful Schloss in Orienburg (north Berlin). Our speaker (who happens to be a business man who runs a chain of bakeries in Berlin) treated us to kuchen on board. The boat is actually a museum, cafe and an auditorium-type facility to hold services/conferences etc. Um, cool!

The picture above is Dave, Amanda, me and our speaker (Karl-Dietmar) on the Christian ship!

On Wednesday, we advertised all over campus with our lovely flyers (designed by our fabulous graphic designer, Amanda). As Amanda and I were hanging flyers outside on a temporary construction wall, there was a huge gust of wind and the "wall" proceeds to push us back on a pivot. The wind was blowing so hard, one of the large concrete blockes that was supposed to be holding down the wall was definitely being moved across the walkway. There were some pallets standing up against this wall that kind of fell on me and scratched my leg. Thankfully the wall stopped moving and Amanda and I (and some students who also got caught in the fray) got out of the way. I wish I could explain this incident better, but it's just one of those things that's unexplainable. Although it was scary in the moment, we definitely had a good laugh about it.

Anyway, our outreach talk is titled "Was ist Erfolg?" (What is Success?). It will be about what it means to have a successful life in your career, relationships and (most importantly) in your spiritual life. Please pray many students will come. Thanks!