The revelation on the Web of the actual danger Hillary Clinton faced when she was in on a visit to Bosnia reveals, according to Frank Rich (NY Times): “the accelerating power of viral politics, as exemplified by YouTube, to override the retail politics still venerated by the Beltway establishment… The Drudge Report’s link to the YouTube iteration of the CBS News piece transformed it into a cultural phenomenon reaching far beyond a third-place network news program’s nightly audience.” He notes that “the Clinton campaign’s cluelessness about the Web has been apparent from the start, and not just in its lagging fund-raising.”

Regardless of where each of us stands politically in this super-heated election year, we as the followers of Jesus have a truly “viral” message, if we can just listen to God’s Spirit as He wants to lead us and pay as much attention to our culture as Jesus and the Apostles did to theirs!

One of the facets of our call to Berlin is definitely the love we have for people in the arts. (This was true even before Seanne, our eldest daughter, began her journey in the film world or we gained a son-in-law - Davin - who has creative writing etched on his heart.) We hope and pray that “Haus Nazareth” can be a place where artists - both believers and not-yet believers - can encounter the living Christ.

In a current article in the New York Times, Adam Fisher opined that “Berlin has emerged as the creative capital of Europe, if not the world.” Berlin, he notes, is “what New York was in the ’80s”.

He quotes Robert Goff of “Goff + Rosenthal”, one of the first New York galleries to open a Berlin branch: “At least half of the young artists I meet in New York are seriously thinking about moving to Berlin to work.”

Please pray that every aspect of the remodeling here and the spiritual principles we are trying to live by will lay the foundation for touching these creative men and women with the love of the One Who made them in His image.

Whew! The past 10 days have been busy.

The Seder celebration on Maundy Thursday was amazing! We had about 60 people (!) in the one unoccupied office room on the ground floor as we went through the same celebration that Jesus and His disciples had on the night of the Last Supper.

Tables were set up in one of the offices

It was an amazing time for believers and not-yet believers alike. If you’re interested, I’ll be glad to send you a copy of the program we used (please indicate German or English!).

Thanks for your prayers for my time with the Campus Crusade students - it was encouraging to see the students from various universities in Germany so eager to hear from the Scripture! I spoke on “Friendship with God” on the basis of the life of Abraham.

An important decision: Our lawyer-neighbor decided not to give us permission to raise the end of the roof 65cm (25.5 inches) for the staff apartment that the Ploners will be occupying. (It would have put the height of that end of the building outside the proportions allowed in the building code in relation to his property line.) The decision was not terribly surprising, but nevertheless disappointing from a “neighborly” point of view. (Others have reported to us that he is a very difficult person in general to work with.) On the other hand, we are not truly sad, because the architect we are working with had already given a lot of thought to alternatives and there seems to be a couple of possible ways we could achieve almost the same remodeling goals without needing his signature. (The alternative also may save us some money!)

Language and Culture
It always takes two or three weeks to “recalibrate” our speaking and get back into a lifestyle mode of speaking German, but we spent Sunday afternoon with some close friends and noticed that “passive vocabulary” was reactivating and our brains and tongues were getting into sync with each other again!

I met for the first time last week with Matthias and the other four German brothers who are the foundation of the “Haus Nazareth” ministry on this side of the ocean. It was humbling and tremendously encouraging to hear how eager and supportive they are of our being back and their personal commitment not only to the ministry of Philosophia in general, but also to us as a couple. They continue to give of their time and finances in a sacrificial way to help see “Haus Nazareth” be a lighthouse for the Gospel to shine into the darkness.

Upcoming Events
Four major events are on the horizon. We’d really appreciate your prayers for them:

Campus Crusade Outreach: On Thursday (tomorrow for most of you) I’ll be teaching at the Campus Crusade university outreach. About 60 students from Germany and the United States are involved in initiating conversations about Jesus on the universities here in Berlin. Please pray for my tongue to free in German (see above!) and my thoughts to be led by His Spirit.

Seder Celebration: Since the time of the early believers, the people of God have celebrated Maundy Thursday (the day before Good Friday) as the occasion when Jesus had Passover with His disciples and instituted the “Lord’s Supper”. “Haus Nazareth” will be having a Seder celebration with about fifty folk involved in the ministry here to rejoice together and pray for the spread of the Gospel in this needy city on Thursday, March 20th.

Video Filming: We are planning for a video team from Calvary Chapel, Boise to be with us for three days March 24-26 to shoot footage of “Haus Nazareth” and the ministry in Berlin. Would you please pray for good weather and a tight shooting schedule? Thanks!

Vision Evening: On April 21, the friends here will be hosting a by-invitation evening to share the vision and plans for “Haus Nazareth”. Would you please pray that just the right people will come? Purpose of the meeting is to discover more prayer and financial support.

I wanted to catch you up on what’s happening here in Berlin, so I’ll try to write a bit each day for the next couple of days.

Haus Nazareth
The remodeling is moving forward. I wrote this to the background noise of a workman taking out the elevator door on the 2nd floor (all the elevator doors are being replaced today). The student bathrooms are now finished on this floor, too. Ann and I are staying in a little (read “LITTLE”) corner room until the guest apartment upstairs is completed. That will probably not happen until we are temporarily back in the U.S. for Charissa’s wedding celebration in June, so we’re learning contentment in tight places! The medical clinic has been up and running for 2 weeks and everything seems to be going well on that floor, too.

Outreach
We’ve spent a good amount of time the past two weeks on two of the major universities here to get the “lay of the land”. It is really remarkable how close the Free University is to “Haus Nazareth”! (It’s called the Free University, not because it doesn’t cost anything to attend, but because it was established as a counter-weight to the Humboldt University, which was under Soviet and East German communist control during the time Germany was divided.)
Campus Crusade has a major outreach planned for the Berlin universities in the coming two weeks. Students are coming from all over Germany and some also from the U.S. They’ve asked me to participate in the Bible teaching - which, of course, I’m delighted to do.
I’ll also be teaching at another Christian student meeting next month.
Another really interesting connection: As you know, we’ve been praying about me teaching an occasional philosophy course here to make contact with students and faculty. What will be needed for that is for a full professor to “sponsor” me to teach seminars. Well… I just discovered that an old acquaintance of mine from the time I did my doctoral work in Giessen is now a professor in the philosophy department at the Free University. Hmm… I wonder if God might have planned that??

Please pray! I’ll be trying to make contact with him soon.