3 October - Tag Der Einheit

Today was a national holiday in Germany.  October 3 is celebrated each year as "Tag Der Deutche Einheit" - The Day of Germany Unity.  It was on that date in 1990 that Germany was officially reunited after 40+ years of separation of East and West.  For all those years, Germany served as the visible symbol of a divided world.  But there was much more than a political and philosophical division.  A people were torn assunder - friends and families suffered and grieved over the loss of intimacy and fellowship for a generation

I thought of the significance of the day several times over the weekend.  On Saturday we travelled to Bielefeld, Germany to speak at the International Baptist Church located there.  As we drove there and back, the Autobahn was filled with families travelling to get in one more weekend of great summer-like weather before fall and winter arrive.  And it was a beautiful weekend!  But I wonder how many people really thought about the significance of their holiday weekend.  Has it become like so many of the National holidays in the US and other countries, where we make the most of our opportunity to enjoy a day off work, and indulge in play, food and fun, with little regard to the original meaning of the day?  I suspect that as the years pass (it is alreay 21 years since Germany was re-united), that the significance of the event will be lost...

Worship at International Baptist
Church, Bielefeld

As we worshipped on Sunday morning with our brothers and sisters at Bielefeld, I was struck by the fact that every day is reunification day for the follower of Jesus Christ!  And we have much more to celebrate than any nation or people have.  In Ephesians 2:13 Paul wrote, "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ." He further wrote in Colossians 1:21 "But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation--" Inspired by those words, Daniel Webster Whittle wrote the words to a hymn in 1891:

Once far from God and dead in sin,

No light my heart could see;

But in God's Word the light I found,

Now Christ liveth in me.

Christ liveth in me,
Christ liveth in me;
Oh! what a salvation this,
That Christ liveth in me.

If you have discovered reunification with God through the blood of Christ, then you have reason to worship every day - not just on Sunday - and certainly not just on some holiday on a calendar.  If you have not experienced the amazing salvation, it is available to you by God's grace.  You can recieve the gift of reconciliation - and celebrate your own Tag der Einheit!

I am aware that a week has passed since we last posted a blog.  It has been quite a week!  We spent Wednesday taking posession of our apartment.  That turned out to be a longer event than we planned!  We walked through the apartment, noting any problems, taking pictures, writing down meter readings for water, electricity and heat.  Those all got entered onto a contract.  Then we had to pay the deposit.  In Germany, the security deposit is held in a joint savings account in the name of the renter and the owner.  Opening that account took some time at a local bank.  Then we went back to the apartment and began to do some cleaning while the realtor went to the owner to have him sign the contracts.  We went to the Pizza/Gyros/Kabob stand that is just below our apartment, and got two sandwiches for our first meal in our new home.  The owner was there, Orlan, a very nice young man from Turkey.  The sandwich was great!  I told him he would be seeing a lot of us! (If I keep eating those sandwiches, he will be seeing more and more of me!)

First meal in our new place!

Thursday and Friday were spent purchasing basic cleaning supplies for the house, washing windows, floors and shelves; sweeping the balconies, and taking measurements for the kitchen.  We have done some shopping for the kitchen, but have not done enough work on it to make a decision yet.  We have done some shopping for bedroom furniture, too.  We got our electricity account opened, learned how to do electronic banking in Germany, and even paid our first month's rent.  We also contacted our shippers, and gave them our new address so that our winter clothes can be shipped ASAP!  By the way, our new mailing address in Germany is:

Bob & Carol Marsh
Escholbrücker Str. 3
64285 Darmstadt
Germany

Wisconsin???

Due to some scheduling conflicts, we moved our "Mission, Vision & Prayer" meeting to Friday night.  It was a wonderful time!  We spent the great majority of it praying for the people of Darmstadt who do not know Jesus.  We prayed specifically for the individuals in our own little circles of friends who do not yet know Him, and we prayed that we might live Christ-like before them, and share Christ with them.  It was so great to hear the heart of each person there for their friends, family and co-workers who have not been "re-united" with God.

Our weekend of ministry in Bielefeld was a great time!  We had a beautiful drive through central Germany.  The Autobahn was very crowded, and on several occasions, our GPS would direct us to back roads to avoid a "stau," the infamous German traffic jam.  We loved it!  Though the speeds are greatly reduced, we loved driving on more country roads, through small towns and villages.  It was simply beautiful, and remided us of our homes in Wisconsin, Minnesota and West Virginia (except for the castles, of course)!

Oh, maybe not!!!

 
This week includes more settling in the apartment - we hope to find and settle on a kitchen, bedroom and other furnishings.  We would love to get the stuff that was collected for us in Ramstein and bring it to Darmstadt, now that we have a place for it to land!  We will be setting up our telephone/intenet/television plan and installing light fixtures.  We are also on the "cleaning crew" for the apartment building this week - so we need to learn our responsibility and take care of it (it's a rotation of tenants cleaning stairways, etc., and we are on this week).

All along the way, we meet people.  People like Orlan, at the restaurant; our realtor, Kolja, who has promised to come to the church when we open; Peter, our building manager, who is about our age and lives above us with his wife and daughter; and Jennifer, the kitchen sales associate we met at the local "Home Depot"-style store. 

That is the work of church planting.  Actually, it's the call each of us has as followers of Jesus - to live life in the midst of people who are blinded to the truth of the gospel, and bring the light of the love of Christ to them where they are, as they are, no matter who they are.  That's our life's calling - to bring the good news of reunification between God and humanity to those who are still, in Paul's words "far away."  Pray for us as we live out that call - and be the heralds of the good news in your circle, too!