Here is just a little slideshow that was put together by one of my most wonderful friends, Nicole, which gives you a little glimpse of my last five months in both Costa Rica during lecture phase, and outreach in Germany! Enjoy
this video! (just click on the words, "this video".)
February 24, 2011
February 16, 2011
Light in the darkness...
I shared with you in my last post that we were all busily getting ready for 5 weeks of outreach in Germany, and I want to thank you for your many prayers! While shedding light in the darkness we felt the presence of God, his guidance, and protection strongly throughout the entire time. By now our group has been to Germany, and spent five amazing weeks involved in various ministries in the cities of Berlin, Hamburg, Brandenburg, and Straubing. Returned to Costa Rica to graduate from the DTS, and all dispersed to our respective places from there. Unfortunately I could not keep you all updated while in Germany, but now I would love to share some stories of our experiences in the different cities of Germany of God’s goodness and faithfulness!
Right from the beginning of our outreach we saw God’s provision and faithfulness.
A lot of people in my school came to Costa Rica unprepared for the cold they experienced in Germany this last Winter. After all, we did not know for sure that Germany was where our outreach was going to be to, so needless to say there were many of us that were waiting for packages full of jackets, mittens, socks, and sweaters to arrive before we left for Germany. Of course what none of us knew was that the post office was closed the entire week after Christmas, which was the week that we planned to fly out. After turning the wheels of our brains around and around, trying to figure out some way we could access those packages before leaving, we arrived at the conclusion that we would have to leave for Germany without our warm clothes and trust God in the situation.
So we make the big flight to Germany, arriving in Frankfurt. There we are greeted by our contact and taken to the church where we were going to stay the night. We were only planning on staying in Frankfurt for the one night before we made our way to Berlin the next day, so not many people from the church knew that we were even there. Later on that day though, we were told that someone from the church was going to give us some jackets. We were all very excited, but really had no idea what to expect. I know I was expecting that they probably collected from whoever had old Winter jackets that they didn’t use anymore, but next thing we know, this lady, who owns a clothing shop, comes to the church with 16 brand new jackets each costing more than what was coming in any of our packages and more than any of us would ever spend on a jacket! God is good!!
The next day we were planning on taking the train to Berlin. In Berlin we stayed at the YWAM base, and we apart of the different ministries they did there. The only problem was that they didn’t have any room for us to stay at the base that first night. Considering it was right around New Years, there was not a whole lot of room in any hostels anywhere! On the train ride to Berlin our leader, Tony, really had it on his heart that upon arriving to Berlin we were supposed to take some time individually to pray about staying in the train station for the night to spend time praying for the city of Berlin. So as we each spent some time praying, we all felt this was what the Lord was asking us to do. God had provided us with warm jackets, so we were good to go! So we pulled out the guitar and drum that came along with us, and started just a time of prayer and worship. Many people in the train station stopped to chat, or simply just stopped to watch us, not sure of what was going on.
One lady, who was in the train station to pick up her daughter from a youth retreat, stopped to talk with one of our teammates, Brittany. Brittany got to share with her what our group was doing here in Germany, and more specifically what we were doing in the Berlin train station, and how we had no place for the night, and so we planned to stay there all night in prayer. After leaving to pick up her daughter, she returned to where we were all gathered, no daughter with her, because she had missed her train, and good news that after making a phone call to her pastor, he had opened up the doors to Bethel, their church’s 24-hour prayer house. Praise the Lord! Our group had planned on staying up all night in prayer for the city of Berlin, and now God had provided us a place to do this where we could be warm! The lady now had to wait until tomorrow to pick up her daughter so she had planned just to join us for the night. She was willing to wait for us to the leave the train station though whenever we felt we were ready. So we spent a little more time in worship, and sure enough a couple of minutes later the security came and told us we couldn’t play music in the train station, so we were off!
God’s divine appointments are amazing! This was a contact that we did not have until arriving in Berlin that night, and this church remained a contact through our entire outreach. During those next two weeks in Berlin we joined their church services and prayer meetings, having many opportunities to lead worship and share testimonies. In our travels back and forth through the country we always had a place to stay when in the area and needed. God is good!
More stories to come...:)
Right from the beginning of our outreach we saw God’s provision and faithfulness.
A lot of people in my school came to Costa Rica unprepared for the cold they experienced in Germany this last Winter. After all, we did not know for sure that Germany was where our outreach was going to be to, so needless to say there were many of us that were waiting for packages full of jackets, mittens, socks, and sweaters to arrive before we left for Germany. Of course what none of us knew was that the post office was closed the entire week after Christmas, which was the week that we planned to fly out. After turning the wheels of our brains around and around, trying to figure out some way we could access those packages before leaving, we arrived at the conclusion that we would have to leave for Germany without our warm clothes and trust God in the situation.
So we make the big flight to Germany, arriving in Frankfurt. There we are greeted by our contact and taken to the church where we were going to stay the night. We were only planning on staying in Frankfurt for the one night before we made our way to Berlin the next day, so not many people from the church knew that we were even there. Later on that day though, we were told that someone from the church was going to give us some jackets. We were all very excited, but really had no idea what to expect. I know I was expecting that they probably collected from whoever had old Winter jackets that they didn’t use anymore, but next thing we know, this lady, who owns a clothing shop, comes to the church with 16 brand new jackets each costing more than what was coming in any of our packages and more than any of us would ever spend on a jacket! God is good!!
The next day we were planning on taking the train to Berlin. In Berlin we stayed at the YWAM base, and we apart of the different ministries they did there. The only problem was that they didn’t have any room for us to stay at the base that first night. Considering it was right around New Years, there was not a whole lot of room in any hostels anywhere! On the train ride to Berlin our leader, Tony, really had it on his heart that upon arriving to Berlin we were supposed to take some time individually to pray about staying in the train station for the night to spend time praying for the city of Berlin. So as we each spent some time praying, we all felt this was what the Lord was asking us to do. God had provided us with warm jackets, so we were good to go! So we pulled out the guitar and drum that came along with us, and started just a time of prayer and worship. Many people in the train station stopped to chat, or simply just stopped to watch us, not sure of what was going on.
One lady, who was in the train station to pick up her daughter from a youth retreat, stopped to talk with one of our teammates, Brittany. Brittany got to share with her what our group was doing here in Germany, and more specifically what we were doing in the Berlin train station, and how we had no place for the night, and so we planned to stay there all night in prayer. After leaving to pick up her daughter, she returned to where we were all gathered, no daughter with her, because she had missed her train, and good news that after making a phone call to her pastor, he had opened up the doors to Bethel, their church’s 24-hour prayer house. Praise the Lord! Our group had planned on staying up all night in prayer for the city of Berlin, and now God had provided us a place to do this where we could be warm! The lady now had to wait until tomorrow to pick up her daughter so she had planned just to join us for the night. She was willing to wait for us to the leave the train station though whenever we felt we were ready. So we spent a little more time in worship, and sure enough a couple of minutes later the security came and told us we couldn’t play music in the train station, so we were off!
God’s divine appointments are amazing! This was a contact that we did not have until arriving in Berlin that night, and this church remained a contact through our entire outreach. During those next two weeks in Berlin we joined their church services and prayer meetings, having many opportunities to lead worship and share testimonies. In our travels back and forth through the country we always had a place to stay when in the area and needed. God is good!
More stories to come...:)
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