Missions
Bringing People To Jesus /
As we are in the process of mobilizing we either meet or get introduced to a lot of current, former, and future field workers. This is a great thing and has been such a source of encouragement to us. It is something that we really enjoy. There has been something that The Lord has been bringing to my attention in growing frequency. I have learned that when The Lord begins doing something like this I had better pay attention. As my friend Doug once told me...."don't miss the lesson."
Here is how this goes. We introduce ourselves and begin speaking about what God has called us to. Normally we mention Berlin first but then we explain more fully that we have been called to specifically minister to [withheld] people group(s) giving in Berlin with a desire to see Church Planting Movement begin immediately jumping borders. Usually somewhere along these lines we hear something regarding the statement that these people groups normally take 4+ months of friendship before they begin following Jesus. This statement is normally meant (and received) as an encouragement to 'not give up with these people.'
Yet this bothers me. It is not that I am not willing to invest the time. It is not that I think it is wrong to labor diligently and unwaveringly to see a person come to Christ. To these things I say a hearty, "yes and amen!" The issue is, I just have a hard time seeing that it played out like this in scripture.
It is true that Jesus' disciples walked with him for 3 years but then we see Him breathing on them and giving them the Holy Spirit in John 20. After that we just do not see any one laboring anywhere with prolonged periods of few or no one coming to Christ.
Now there are a number of ways to explain or rationalize this but I am not necessarily interested in coming to a resolution....yet. The question that is rolling through my mind is this......"When there is someone who is genuinely open to the message and the messenger but it takes them a long time to come to Christ, how much of that is because of baggage inserted into the process by the messenger?"
Today my prayer is that The Lord would help me to further get out of His way and to stay behind Him following instead of trying to get Him to follow me.
An Appeal For Tongues /
The more I grow in The Lord and the more I know Jesus, the more I am desperate and longing to see Him return. It has become an all consuming desire to see my Lord physically return to earth as He promised to do. Since it is impossible for Jesus to lie, we know that His return is as certain as it came be. Yet also in this, is the promise that this gospel will be preached as a witness to every ETHNE (people group) on earth and THEN the end will come (Mt 24:14). That means that the Gospel going to every people group is a pre-requisite to the return of The Lord. Could this mean that our lack of praying that The Lord of the harvest would launch out workers is because we really do not want Jesus to return? That may be, but there are also lots of people who are desperate to see the world reached with the gospel IN OUR LIFETIME.
If you follow websites like the Joshua Project you will see that currently there are 7,266 unreached people groups left on earth out of a total known people groups of 16,782. That means that we are roughly 57% complete with our job. Roughly 1,980 years and we have only completed 57%.
Now to be fair it has only been in the last 50-60 years that we have been able to identify who these people are, where they live, and then have travel ability to get to them. So it is not all doom and gloom for sure. Jesus said He would build His church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. We are seeing MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR moves of God among some of the largest blocs of unreached peoples...right now! Much of this is happening through God using dreams and visions and other ways of getting the attention of certain people.
I am guessing I have, at the most another 40-50 years of life left (should The Lord allow it) and I am desperate to see this whole world reached in my life time.
But there is the number 7,266. How do we tackle it?
I would say let's look at what is holding up the show. I think there are professing believers who really do not care, but I do not think this is the majority. I think for most believers they see the task at hand and want to be involved, at some level. They want their life to count for Jesus. Yet they also see that of these 7,266 they know almost no one who speaks the language. They cannot even get Rosetta Stone for most them. There is not a bible nor is there a Jesus film in most of these languages. It could take YEARS of painful struggle just to learn the language, so what do they do? They look to send those willing to go, they bury their head in what is going on around them because they have no answer, or they go and spend their days among already reached people groups. Because who among the church is going to argue against telling people about Jesus? It becomes easier to rally around the cry "what about all the people around me?!?!"
But something happened a couple of years ago that really changed my perspective on this. We were doing some homeless ministry in Fort Worth and came across a group of guys who were stoned out of their minds, passed out, and who did not speak English (there was one woman there who told me this). I tried to make small talk and no one understood a word of what I was saying. Then something inside me just welled up and said, "preach the gospel." I did not know what to do so I did. Strangely enough suddenly every single person in that group began to sit up and listen to me. They responded with head nods and a look of surprise that I was communicating with them. I do not speak spanish at all.
This is precisely what happened in Acts 2. People from all over the world were in one place and they all heard the gospel in their language. Nothing complicated, just a straight up miracle. Real tongues that no one argues over!
What if we stopped looking at what we do not have (language, printed bibles, literature, etc) and went with what we do have. Jesus. What if we stepped out in faith and were just silly enough to believe that Jesus will show up and by His Holy Spirit bridge the language gap? What if we were crazy enough to really believe the bible is true and believed that God does not nor has He changed? Presumption is doing something stupid and expecting Jesus to bail you out. Faith is asking The Lord for what you need, believing He has heard you, and then moving forward expecting Him to show up.
**disclaimer: I am not knocking language acquisition. I think it is helpful and useful. I am merely saying that we should not let what we do not have stop us from moving forward.**
Speaking Of Jesus /
I was praying the other day and The Lord placed on my heart that I was to go to a certain Mosque at a certain time (yesterday afternoon). I love the idea of the "divine appointment" knowing that Jesus has orchestrated a specific person to be in a specific place at a specific time in order for His glory to be revealed. I showed up at the Mosque and it was largely empty except one man of Pakistani descent. Given the fact that there was non one else in the Mosque and there was still yet an hour before the call to prayer he decided to show me around.
He explained to me several things about Islam including the 5 pillars of Islam and the 7 pillars of faith. As he explained things, many things stirred in my heart but I hear The Lord telling me, "just listen, it is not time yet." So I waited and I listened.
He was a very gracious man and gave me a ton of literature. He kept making small references to what I believed versus what he believed but The Lord would not release me at that point. I am not sure what this man was thinking but The Lord was clear that under no circumstance was I to go on the offensive.
Then finally The Lord gave me the green light to speak to him about how God is not seeking him to do anything to please him and that there is no amount of activity that can be done to please God. Rather that God is pleased only because of Jesus. As soon as I mentioned the name Jesus I saw goose bumps break out all over his arms. I think he noticed that I noticed it because he tried to cover it up but it never subsided during the remainder of our conversation.
He had already spoken to me about him being required to believe the 'before scriptures.' He had already told me about the fact that if a Koran was found buried in a cave that was written at the time of Muhammed then it would be identical to what is today. He had already told me that ONLY infallibility is attributed to the Koran and not the Hadith - which is the only place that speaks of the bible being corrupted. So when I spoke to him about what Jesus said and what the bible said his only response was that "we believe that the bible has been corrupted." So my question to him was, 'was it corrupted before or after Muhammed.' He responded, "after, of course." It was at this point that we discussed the fact that we have actual manuscripts from before Muhammed and after and they are identical. So if they cannot be said to be corrupted then he is required to believe them - per the Koran.
Here was a very kind and gracious man who the Father loves a great deal. He loves him enough to send His son to die in his place. May The Lord turn the light of truth on more and more people like this man. This man was on the defensive from the word "go." It sounds like he perhaps had been attacked before in the name of Christianity. This should not be, there is no need for us to attack. It is the Holy Spirit that convicts the world concerning,sin, and righteousness and judgment. In our short conversation it was OBVIOUS that he was extremely burdened by his own sinfulness.
May The Lord give us greater boldness motivated by love.
Children /
The Lord has been dealing with a lot on the way I treat my kids. Let me explain; children do not receive a junior version of the Holy Spirit. Period. The same Spirit living in me is in them. That means they have access to everything that I have access to in Christ. In fact, you can make the argument that they may have more access. Jesus defended the children when the disciples said he was too busy. We are to come to Jesus in child-like obedience. The bible is clear about the status of children in the eyes of our Savior.
I have been an advocate for family worship and family discipleship. This is good, but I am seeing that I have been missing something. Let me explain:
I was reading a book this morning by Karen Barnes entitled: "Kids Can HEAR*DO*GO." Here is a quote that got me this morning:
Psalm 127:3 says, "Behold children are a gift from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward" (NASB). Unfortunately, many times adults think of them as too immature, too little, or not ready for the deeper things of God. A typical Sunday morning class might be teaching a Bible story, maybe doing a craft, singing a couple of songs, trying to memorize a Bible verse, and making sure they have their take home 'hand out' as they run out the door. For a few kids, they will gain head knowledge, and might even be able to quote Scripture, but for the majority of the children, the material will be lost to them.
Why is this? Because they did not connect the 'truth' they memorized with the person of Jesus. There was no encounter with Christ to further deepen and solidify their experience. In Jesus' parable of the sower and the seeds in Matthew 13:19, He says, "When anyone hears the word of the Kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart."
There has to be a better way to bring children into a deeper relationship with God. How can we get kids to consistently and honestly seek after God and encounter Him? We want their lives to be changed, and for them to fully understand WHO God is, HOW He loves them, WHAT kind of power is available to them, WHEN they can access His presence, and WHY it's so much fun getting close to Jesus.
This can only be accomplished through relationship with the Father. It has to be more than just a corporate prayer at the beginning and end of class. Although grounding in the Word is vital for growth and necessary to nurture and maintain a healthy relationship with the Lord, it has to be more than head knowledge that they MIGHT or might not take away from classes. Children need an intimate close, encounter with God that they just cannot get through lesson plans alone. They need to be taught how to sense His awesome presence, and be able to 'tune in' to His voice.
The Impact of Missions on Kids /
I want to encourage you to think about taking your kids on a mission trip. This can be highly formative for them. I have often thought of our kids as highly cautious yet in Berlin we saw them come out of their shell to a degree. This part is still coming into focus as we continue to debrief as a family on all that God has shown us.
One of the things Emma was doing that we did not know about was that she was making lists of people we had spoken with and how she could specifically pray for them. She collected the slips of paper in an empty 'Bubble Tape' container that she bought in a little German store.
I pray that my kids never grow accustomed to 'normal American Christian life.'
The Seductiveness of the City /
Today is our last full day in the city as we fly home tomorrow. There are a lot of things stirring in me, some good and some not so good. This morning, in prayer, I think The Lord was pleased to reveal some things to me. There is a real danger of getting sucked into a culture (any culture). Even a primitive or strange culture. We all have different tastes and fascinations, so any time there is a cross cultural missions experience there is a real danger of getting caught up in the culture.
It would be easy to fall prey to that here. To get lost in the possible romanticism of this place and miss what is going on. There is a danger of falling prey to looking at or being mesmerized(literally) the history and uniqueness of this culture and embrace far more than you should.
I have talked to so many people who will tell me about the inherent skepticism and intellectualism of the German people. This is usually said with an air of pride and sophistication, not understanding that this is embracing something that is keeping you from seeing the light of the gospel of Christ in the face of Christ Jesus. This is a spirit that is choking the life out of millions and millions of people. It is why blessed in spirit are the poor. When the props have been kicked out from under you, you readily embrace good news.
I think some people speak of 'redeeming culture' and really have no idea what they are speaking about. It is almost as if they use the term so that they can engage in the same sort of debauchery but have it dressed up so that it does not cause radical wholesale change.
Here is where it hit for me. All week I was been bothered by the intense amount of graffiti in Berlin. Most see this as a cultural thing. It is really part of the identity of Berlin and even a hallmark of urban dwellers everywhere. Yet have you stopped to think that this is an outward manifestation of deviant and rebellious heart. This means that a city is taking an identity in what is being manifested of deviance and rebellion. This is not art but rather evidence of a heart that needs to be transplanted with a new one from Christ.
When we carry our sin for so long, it becomes part of our identity. We see the destruction and all but it is familiar to us and quasi-comfortable. So we come to what Jesus said, "the reason you will not come to the light is because you love you sin."
I have wondered by The Lord would call me to urban ministry when I am anything but fascinated by urban living. But if you put me into suburban lifestyle or even rural lifestyle I would gladly embrace isolation and being cut off from people. Yes The Lord knew what was good for me. This is only partially about reaching the people in Berlin. I am seeing that this is just as much for my sanctification as many.
Our aim is to see Jesus reign on earth just like He does in heaven!
Friday Morning In Berlin /
It is Friday morning in Berlin, the weather is cold and it is about 4:45AM local time. So many things are on my heart right now that I do not know exactly where to begin. I hope you will allow me to kind of 'free-flow' these thoughts. You would be a tremendous help to me if you would grant that. First off there are some things that are just kind of weighing me down. We have ridden the S-Bahn and U-Bahn for what seems like a million miles. We have seen people of every tribe, tongue and nation. Yet one overwhelming factor that we have seen a a dominating consistency is a lack of smiling in this place. Oh sure there are some smiles but by and large, if you judge by facial expressions, then it is a very very somber place. It became somewhat oppressive the other day and we played a little game of 'who can make some one smile?' Our friend's sweet 7 year old daughter was the winner twice over. Once by creating a "Fat Booth" Image of me on her parent's phone. The second by demonstrating that she was able to touch the tip of her nose with her tongue. I was impressed!
Now I am not so naive as to think that a person has to be giddy smiley all the time to reveal joy in their hearts, but I am convinced that the eyes are the window of the soul. You can smile with your eyes and have nothing showing on your mouth, this much I know. The ones we have seen freely smile are the ones who openly profess Christ. I assure you that this light does shine in the darkness. I do not want to make blanket statements or assume I can see the heart, I am just making an American Centric observation.
Last night a dear brother, Christoph (definite joy on this brother's face) who is the pastor of a church plant in Prenzlauer Berg part of Berlin (www.diekreative.org east Berlin -- extremely difficult area to minister) noted that there are less than 15,000 known born again believers in Berlin. A city of 3.5 million people!
Yet I do not want to paint too bleak of a picture. There is something stirring here, especially among the smaller congregations. According to a dear brother living and laboring here in the city, there is a movement afoot in which Christians are starting to take stock and see that what has been done in the past is not working. Trying to carve out individual territories and being disconnected to the wider body of Christ does not work. Independence and pride have gained nothing. If we have seen anything this week, we have seen these people coming together to worship and pray for their city. Hear me say this, lest you think I am understating this: This is not like anything I have seen in the states! This is not a "we will pray when we think about it." This is not a general desire to seek the good of the city as we so tritely hear in our comfortable churches. This is a desperation of crying out to God on the behalf of the city, walking in repentance and knowing that something has to change. This is encouragement to my soul. We know of European Initiative who are sending multiple short term teams to this city. We ran across First Baptist of McKinney last night who brought a team of 76 people to this city. The Lord is doing something. This is not something that we are doing rather this is something that God is already working. Already.
Wednesday night we had a time of worship with a group of people here at the Gnadenhaus. I can honestly say I have never been so sad to see 2.5 hours end in my life. The worship was just amazing. We sang many songs in English, but even as a non-German speaker I could completely understand the words "Helig, Helig bist du Herr!"
Our team is continuing to grow and for this we are extremely thankful to The Lord. We cannot state in this blog the exact details of this growth due to current security concerns of the ones involved, but this is a sobering and exciting addition to our team and an answer to months and months of intensive prayer.
I think that all of us would agree that the thoughts we had before have been radically altered. What we thought we knew, we now know that we do not know. Our plans are continuing to be re-shaped and altered, but in a very good an positive way.
In Jesus, we believe that the nations (gathered in Berlin and Beyond) will be glad and sing for joy in Berlin. I see Jesus moving in this city. I am so excited to get a front row seat to what He is doing!
Turkish Market /
Today was an extremely cold day. I am convinced that Jesus has come to liberate these people from this ice and snow. OUr team took the train into Neukolln/Kreuzberg area today in search of the Turkish Market. Yesterday we searched for the Turkish section of the city and learned today that we were literally a meters away. But knowing that The Lord had appointed us to go and speak with the lady at the coffee shop made me glad for direction we went.
Today we found the Turkish Market and even in the cold it was quite an event. The food was incredibly good and the prices were very good as well. As we were leaving the kids wanted to stop at a little stand in which the lady was selling piping hot corn on the cob with lots of butter and salt.
The lady at the stand spoke very good english so we had quite a conversation. She considered herself Muslim but mainly nominal. She was married to a man from Chicago which is the reason for her English language skills. As the conversation turned to spiritual matters, she began to reveal that she miraculously survived a fall from a four story window at age 4. She also told us how, 7 years ago, she needed emergency liver transplant surgery and somehow was able to be put to the top of the list to have the surgery. Heather quite quickly pointed out that it was God who has done this and she agreed.
We again spoke of prayer and the greatness of God and how since God is so great He will not hear the prayers of sinners. Yet there is only one person who has never sinned. When we said this immediately she got a strange look on her face and slowly said, "it was Jesus." We said yes and that only Jesus can make us right with God. At this time other customers came up and wanted to guy something so we politely exited the conversation handing her a tract on how to know God written in German. She was so happy that she looked at the new customers and said, "see! You have all brought me great luck today!"
The openness to Jesus that I have seen so far has been quite shocking to me really. In these few conversations, it is quite obvious that the Holy Spirit has gone before us convicting the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. These are precious people in the sight of God and people for whom Christ died. May we constantly share this great news with these people!
Neukolln /
Today was a mixed bag of events. I guess in missions it is widely understood that you hold your plans loosely. From the beginning it didn't start like I had hoped. First of all, even though we were in Germany, we did not prepare for the weather being this cold. We decided that we had to find some cold protection for the kids or we would have a frost bite situation to deal with. We took the train into Gesundbrunnen to catch the U-Bahn to Neukolln. Our goal was to find a person of peace, a la Luke 10. At the train station at Gesundbrunnen we found a mall in which to buy gloves, hats, and more appropriate winter apparel versus our Texas winter apparel. This took much longer than I expected but was necessary. By this time it was lunch time and every body was starving.
By the time we ate lunch Jacob could barely keep himself awake from Jetlag. Since Keri had just gotten over the flu (literally days ago) Keri offered to take the kids with Heather and her kids back to the Gnadenhaus.
Rob and I left for Neukolln seeking for someone in whom God was already at work. We rode the U8 subway to Hermannplatz and got off. We took off walking hoping to find this person. Yet perhaps it was the cold, perhaps it was fear, perhaps it was the language barrier - whatever the case we found no one. It was not that there where no people it rather everyone seemed to be headin someone. It was difficult to even make eye contact. I was becoming more and more discouraged.
After walking quite a distance, we finally decided that it would be a good idea to get some Turkish Coffee. I had never had Turkish Coffee so I thought this was a good idea and an opportunity to warm up. The only problem was finding a coffee shop it the district in which we were in. W walked and walked and finally found a coffee shop, coincidently, directly across he street from the train station.
Going in, we found it to be very quiet. We ordered Turkish coffee and sat down. The young lady working there brought us Turkish Tea instead of Coffee. Oh well, another plan dies hard. Rib and I sat discussing various approaches to Muslim ministry. As we spoke two men came in with an iPad playing a video game of some kind. We tried to strike up conversation and we basically learned that they were Afghans but the conversation could not go much past that. Even being bold enough to ask about Islam did not seem to get us anywhere.
Suddenly the young lady who was working behind the counter came out and asked if we liked our tea. We were able to engage in conversation and learned that she is Turkish but born in Germany and hopes to die in Germany one day. Her parents immigrated years ago, so she speaks German, Turkish, and English. Anyway, we asked if we could pray for her. Se looked confused and asked if we wanted to pray right here, right now. That must have sounded a little odd to her. We explained that God is greater than anything we can imagine, He is Holy and perfect and He has the ability to hear prayers anywhere that we may pray them. We also explained that because God is so good and perfect that He will not hear the prayers of someone who is a sinner. God is far too great to do that. Se agreed with us on all points so far. Because we have all done bad we are all sinners and so God will not listen to our prayers because of our sin. But I said that I now my sins are forgiven because of Jesus. He took my punishment by dying on the cross. I stated that only Jesus never sinned and that Jesus did many mighty miracles. Because Jesus took my sins God will listen to me because of Jesus. This, we explained, was why we wanted to pray for her- because we have access to God through Jesus.
So we asked how we could pray for her and she explained that her grandmother has Alzheimer's. so we prayed for this young lady and that her grandmother may be healed and that this lady might see the massive amount of love that Jesus had for her and that she could have her sins forgiven in Jesus. She was very appreciative and while we prayed and spoke of Jesus the two afghani men were extremely quiet and listening patiently to the whole conversation. After our prayer the men were much more cordial it seemed. We bid them all a farewell and said good bye - leaving a gospel tract in German as to "How To Know God."
Making our way back was filled with twists and turns and getting lost and being on the wrong train platform but we finally made if back. We gathered for dinner at a small Italian eatery in which our waiter was a Muslim man from Kosovo. He was very kind to us and allowed us to ray over him but due to language constraints I am not sure how much of the gospel was shared/communicated.
What might happen if this young lady goes home and finds her grandmother with a restored mind? What might happen from that? Only God know and He is free to do as He chooses. It is late now, and I am having trouble sleeping. May The Lord bless tomorrow abundantly and may here be tremendous fruit.
Moving Sidewalk /
More fun.....
Family Discipleship and Missions /
Many have asked us about missions and how that impacts our family. In order to understand our stance on this you must first understand that discipleship is a process whereby a teacher teaches a student to do what he/she does. See Luke 6:40.
Part of the way that we disciple our children is allowing them to see us disciple other people. Our kids have seen numerous people in our house, over dinner, or in many other situations as we have walked with them and pointed them to our Lord Jesus. It is not uncommon for us to speak with our children about why we do what we do. We have discussed mistakes, failures, successes, puzzling situations. They are with us in evangelism and in difficult situations. They see us pray with food servers and others in public. They have seen people prayed for and healed. They, themselves, have experienced miraculous healings!
Once, when B-- was 3 years old he found my razor in the bathroom (parent fail) and decided he would shave, like I do. He was bleeding profusely and we were quite frightened. It was difficult to know the extent of the damage due to the amount of blood. Through his tears and screaming he was asking us to pray. So we stopped and prayed over him. Then cleaning the blood off, we saw that there was no cut. At all. Nothing. There is not even a scar. That was something that made a HUGE impact on all of us. To this day, when there is sickness or pain, our kids do not want medicine or to be comforted, they want prayer. The other night, E-- came into our bed room saying that she felt nauseated. We would tell her to run to the bathroom if she was going to throw up. We also placed a trash can by her bed. Several times she came into our room to announce that she was nauseated. Finally, in frustration, I said, "honey there is not a lot I can do for you." Her response said volumes, "you can pray."
Our aim is to teach our kids to do what we do. There is not a separation between family and ministry. Our family is our ministry and our ministry is our family. There is wisdom to be applied as to when, where, and how much we allow our kids to see/participate in. Just as our heavenly Father walks with us through life allowing us to go through various 'lesson' when it is appropriate. He never allows more than is right for us at the time. As we walk with our Father, He is telling us how to walk with our kids.
Moving Targets /
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Matthew 16:18
Jesus made this radical statement. Thousands of people have debated as to whether Jesus would build His church on Peter or on His confession. While I have my convictions, that is not the purpose of this post. I would rather call attention to what Jesus said would not happen. Jesus said that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church. It is clear that the church is strong and vibrant when looking at the global church, yet sometimes it appears weak and ineffective when looking at a local body.
Have you ever noticed that there are extremely rare instances of local churches lasting for very long? Sure, you have buildings that last, but very rarely do we have congregations that last. I know that we hear people blaming the degradation of society or cultural shifts or any number of other reasons. But I cannot go along with that. Jesus said that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church. So what is happening?
Jesus, during his incarnation, confined Himself to a regional geography but never a specific and exclusive place. He was itinerant at best- even warning those who wanted to follow Him that He had a less stable environment than the foxes. Jesus taught His disciples to do what He did. Jesus' command was to follow Him (indicating movement). Yet they tried to stay put in a specific location. Then persecution came and the church started to spread, all but the apostles. Finally in 70 AD we learn that the hammer was dropped and the gospel was thrust out.
Could it be that the church was never meant to be stationary? What would it look like if this were true?
So Many Things Happening /
This has been such a fun time. We are preparing for our growing team to leave for a short time in Berlin. As we move closer to departure time it seems that there are so many things happening that I just do not know where to start. It has been our conviction from the beginning that if God is who He says He is, in the Bible, then He is capable and willing to do great things. We take seriously our Lord's words that the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. So we began asking ourselves, "if we believed that the harvest is really that massive, how would we act?" The answer is that we would be begging Him for far more laborers than we currently have. So this is what we have been doing. We are asking Him for 50 people for our team. Can you grasp the magnitude of this? It is hard enough to get people to witness to their neighbor and we are going to convince people to leave all that they know and come do in another country? Well yes!
So we asked the One who has the destiny of all people in His hands! Suddenly, with virtually no effort on our part our team has swelled to 15 people with another 8 people in the process of praying! Can you get your mind around that? I am asking for it and I am struggling with it.
Now we have learned of 2 other families in our immediate locale who are mobilizing to go to Berlin! An interesting story from today was that while Keri was at a new family doctor for a sinus headache today, her doctor said he had heard about us and would be praying! He also provided names of others who are planning on going to Berlin for missions.
All in all it is a fun time. We are seeing The Lord do so many awesome things and we are so excited to be a part of it.
