Tonight we had a great meeting of our Darmstadt planning team. We had several new people join the group this week, and it was a fun time! Kevin and Nicole are brother and sister who live in, and are from the Darmstadt area. Nicole has lived in Madrid for a couple of years, and has recently moved back home to Darmstadt. Kevin is 18 and is in an apprenticeship in business management in the city. We met them at church in Oberursel this past week, and they were excited to hear about a new International Church in their city!
Mark also joined us this week. He works at the US Military post in Darmstadt, and is the third person we have welcomed to the team from Dagger. Mark is a great guy (from West Virginia!!!), and it is a blessing to have him join us for Bible study, prayer, and planning.
Nicole, Kevin and Mark joined the rest of the group tonight in doing a bit of strategic planning. We were all given post it notes, and asked to think through what the first worship service of the new church will look like when it takes place in the future sometime. We were encouraged to write down each element of the experience as we envisioned it - for example, "someone greeted me at the door with a smile," "there were clear directions to the rest rooms," "the lyrics for the songs were easily available and read," "the nursery was clean and safe..."
Then the post it notes from each person were put on a large piece of paper that had been unrolled on the wall, and they were separated into categories ("spiritual," "physical," technical," "relational," etc.) and duplicates combined. We discussed them as we reviewed each major item.
In future weeks, we will begin to look at how we begin to pray, work and prepare in order to get from where we are TODAY, in order to arrive at THAT DAY with all the essential ingredients in place.
It was a fun activity, and a very important step in the process of planting the church.
On a personal level, we are still waiting to hear about our shipment from the US. Our boxes have arrived in Germany, and are in Hamburg, awaiting Customs clearance. We have sent off the paperwork, and paid the fees. Now we wait for the government officials to release the shipment for the final delivery by truck to our door. Pray that there are no setbacks or delays. We would love to have access to our winter clothing and coats as the temperatures drop below freezing.
We are also finalizing the purchase of the car this week. The paperwork from the owner in Singapore has made it back to Germany, and we are getting our insurance in place so that we can register and license the car in our name. Just another of the steps to officially being settled in Germany.
God is so good. Thank you for your prayerful support of us and the work God has called us to. God bless you.
No comments:
Post a Comment