Hope you’ve had a wonderful Christmas-tide and a super start to the new year!
Report on Pre-Christmas: The “Festival of Light” went wonderfully! We had about 50 people in the Garden House (former kindergarten building) as we explained the Jewish festival of Chanukka and its connection to Jesus’ claim to be “the Light of the world”. Some deeply personal conversations with several “not-yet” believers resulted. Please pray that God’s Spirit will use the love and friendship these folk sensed together with the content of the message and questions discussed to move them closer to Jesus!
Three days later, we traveled to the western part of Germany to celebrate Christmas with Daniel’s parents (Erich and Doris) and family and to speak at the home church of his mother in the Westerwald (”Western-forest”).
It was a wonderful time: these are the folk who sent a team of professional tradesmen from the congregation to lay paving stones for the back area patio here in Haus Nazareth. They are warm, transparent people who have a deep desire to do things for God’s Kingdom.
I preached on the three sermons of the Apostle Paul in Acts 13-17… focusing in particular on the reason why Paul gave so much background information to the non-Jewish audiences to whom he spoke.
This is an important topic for people working in a post-Christian environment like Berlin, with only 1.5% church attendance. The simple reason is: the story of Jesus and His life and sacrifice for us is only truly understandable if you have what the film industry calls the “backstory” of the reality of cosmic evil, creation, the fall of the human race into enmity with God and the divine initiative He took to reclaim and redeem His lost creation.

Clark visiting with some of the tradesmen and their wives after the service

More good news: Our boxes from the U.S. arrived today! Since my back is also doing quite a bit better, we were able to get them up the front stairs into the building!

This Saturday (December 20th), we’ll be celebrating a “Festival of Light” at Haus Nazareth. It is the beginning of Chanukkah, the Jewish celebration of the cleansing of the temple about 150 years before Christ and the evening of the 4th Sunday in Advent. We’re looking forward to having about 60-70 guests in the “garden house” (former kindergarten) in the back. We’ll be considering Jesus’ claim, “I am the Light of the World!” Please pray for an atmosphere of real spiritual openness and the working of God’s Spirit.
My back is not well yet. It has been a little over 4 weeks and I still have some pain and swelling, as well as pain in the sciatic nerve running down my left leg. It is very frustrating and I’d deeply appreciate your prayers that this will heal. We’re scheduled to travel to west Germany next week, where we’ll celebrate Christmas with Daniel’s family and I’m scheduled to speak in a church in the “Westerwald” on December 26th. Thanks in advance for your prayers!
Finally, a news item you wouldn’t probably expect: Berlin has a real problem with wild boars! The city has wonderful green areas and city forest… but that’s opened up the way for the boars to move in REALLY close. (We haven’t had any at Haus Nazareth… yet…). Thought you might enjoy reading about them in a Wall Street Journal article. There’s even some pictures… anybody interested in a Christmas ham?

The past two weeks have been VERY intense, topped by celebrating Thanksgiving last Saturday with about 40 European friends at the home of an American couple who work with Campus Crusade. We were able to help by baking 4 of the small turkeys in the student ovens and making a fruit salad. (Thanksgiving, of course, isn’t a holiday here; so we usually have to organize something either the weekend before or the weekend afterward! It’s a great opportunity to talk with Europeans about living for the Gospel. We’ll also be celebrating again this coming weekend!)

We had some deep conversations with different folk–a student from Uganda who is doing genetic research at the university in Potsdam, a couple from Belgium who want to reach their nation for Christ and a married couple who do professional translation work in the medical and legal fields.

- Thanks for your prayers for us and the Haus Nazareth team. Our times of prayer and planning with Matthias and Sieglinde (the physician and his wife who are our partners in the project), as well as with Michael, a German university professor whom we met through Bob Caldwell have been breaking new ground.

We have two big prayer requests:

- There is an annual meeting of “Philosophia Europa” this coming Sunday; would you please pray that all the key people will be able to come and that God will continue to bring just the right men and women together as part of the future leadership team.

- I’ve managed to do major injury to a muscle in my lower back and leg; it’s been pretty much constant pain (sciatica, partial paralysis, etc.) in one form or another for almost two weeks. Please pray that the irritation will subside and I can get back to full capacity in the next couple of days. I would really like to take off some weight, too!

Remember the sensation of being cranked up to the start of one of the wild rides at Disneyland (or… your favorite childhood theme park…)?
We’re feeling that way right now as things wind up for our departure from Boise on October 16th and flight to Berlin 4 days later.
The final packing, sorting and discarding is proving more time-consuming than we’d thought it would: I guess when you get down to the core of things it just takes longer.
So… we’d really appreciate your prayers as we try to wind things up, see friends and family and stay sane.
Thanks for being there and holding the ropes!

Wow! In the midst of all the chaos on the financial markets and with the banks tightening the loan market down to a trickle, God brought our “little elephant” across the bridge and we signed the final papers for the sale of our house!

We’ve now booked our flight to Berlin: we depart Boise on October 16th and fly from Los Angeles on the 20th.

Please pray as we are in an intense process of the final packing and cleaning of the house - especially for strength and safety as we wrestle furniture and boxes back and forth to a storage garage and prepare to ship a few things.

We are immensely grateful for your prayers and encouragement during this long process. Thank you!

Sorry it’s been so long since I last posted… packing and trying to get our house sold so we can make the final move to Berlin has been crazy!

There is only one final hurdle: the friend who is buying our house needs a signed lease agreement for the bank to prove that there will be a rent stream for the next year until he moves to Boise. A young couple who are friends of Charissa and Davin is very interested, but the details still need to be worked out. Please pray this will go quickly! Then we can order our airline tickets!

Thanks for your friendship and prayers!

In the past weeks we’ve been thrashing through the thicket of selling our home in Boise (to cover a home equity credit we took out to pay back loans given to purchase “Haus Nazareth”). This means we’ve been packing our household for our major move to Berlin.

In the midst of all of the turmoil, it’s surprising how often a children’s book, The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, has come to mind.

We used to read this little gem to Seanne and Charissa. The subtitle of the book is “How Toys become Real” and it has been a parable for us of what God actually wants to accomplish through each difficult circumstance and why He sometimes leads His children on rough and painful paths.

The key passage of the story relates how the little Velveteen Rabbit finally gathers enough courage to ask the old Skin Horse something that has been on its mind for quite a while:

“What is real?’ asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. ‘Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?’

‘Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real.’

‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.

‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’

‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’

‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges or who have to be carefully kept.

Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because when you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.’

The Apostle Paul articulated it clearly:

“We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son.” (Romans 8:28-29)

God’s final purpose for us who know Christ is to “conform” (mold/form) us so that we become more like Him. Pain and pressure are not accidents in the life of the believer. God wants to bring us through them and use the pressure to mold and shape our character.

Our family at The Wedding

This update is “a wee bit tardy”, as my old Scottish fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Brass, would have said; but, we’ll try to make up for it with pictures!

Historic Christian Church

On Saturday we celebrated Charissa and Davin’s marriage in the old historic Capitol City Christian Church in Boise. The building dates from the early 1900s and is a fine example of the “round” church architectural style (it’s on the National Historic list). It was a wonderful time with many old friends (and some new ones as well). We really wish that all of you could have joined us!

After the ceremony, we went to the “Rose Room” on Idaho Street for the reception. (Dad had the second dance with the bride and even earned a compliment - Charissa has amazing rhythm, so that’s praise indeed!) The following morning -near noon - about twenty folk from the wedding party gathered for breakfast/brunch at our house and watched presents being opened. A very special “Thank You!” to all!

Now the new couple is on their way to Germany, where they’ll spend two months working in Berlin. (Davin has some overseas requirements linked to his major in International Relations and Charissa wants to do an internship there in trauma therapy with her German godfather, Arne.) Hopefully, Mom and Dad will link up with them in July — if we can sell or rent our home by then. (Prayer request!)

As far as the remodeling in “Haus Nazareth”, things are pretty much at a stand-still until the funds come in to pay the bills that have already accumulated. I’ll try to explain this more specifically in a future blog or email; but for right now: Thanks for your thinking of us and your prayers. Please know how much you’re appreciated!

Davin and Charissa

Finally, I have a moment to catch you up a bit on our lives:

I’ve been teaching a very intensive 3 week “Philosophy of Religion” course for Boise State University. It started two weeks ago. (I do this for a couple of reasons: to keep in touch with the academic world and friends there in the philosophy department; to expand my course preparation for possible teaching opportunities in Germany; to gather enough Social Security “quarter credits” to qualify for Medicare when I reach the right age… this is a little challenging because of our many years of overseas missions).

But most exciting: we are in the throes of preparation for Charissa and Davin’s wedding next Saturday (if you haven’t gotten an invitation yet, please pardon the oversight and shoot us back an email immediately!). We appreciate your prayers… coordinating all these things is getting a little wilder every day!

We are back in Boise now… on Saturday we had the privilege of celebrating the graduation of Charissa, our youngest daughter, from the University of Idaho with two degrees - in Psychology and German (home-court advantage!).

The Happy Graduate

Now, the intensive process of preparing for our return to Germany will continue in earnest. We are hoping and praying that we’ll be back in Berlin by mid-July. Thanks for praying with us!