With some hesitation, I offer an alternative pun that our friend, Dale Horn, suggested:

“Friends, we are on holey ground!”

With this, I think it’s time to bury the puns…

More soon!

I’ll get to the pun in just a moment (someone noted it is the cheapest form of humor; a few of you may be groaning already…)

We flew to the U.S. on Friday (arriving in the evening). Our flight took us through London’s Heathrow airport… the world’s busiest. Just a word of warning to those who may be thinking of traveling through there in the near future: transfering flights IS as bad as the news reports have pictured it. The HUGE “elephant in the living room” is the new international terminal. It is remote from the original four. As we trundled along in the transfer bus I joked to Ann (somewhere after about half an hour): “Terminal 4 [where we needed to go] is located out near Aberystwyth [on the Atlantic coast of Wales].” But all went well since we had 3 hours to change planes and now we’re back in the States.

We’re here for two main reasons: to prepare for Charissa’s wedding and get our house in Idaho ready to sell. (We took out an extra mortgage on it to help with Haus Nazareth and wisdom dictates that we clear this to be free of the debt as we make the final transfer to Berlin.) I know… it’s not the best time to be selling a home in the U.S., so we’d appreciate your prayers.

Since we have an appointment soon, I’d better tell you the pun before I forget it. I barely restrained myself from titling the last entry “Brethren and Cistern”. Please forgive me… one way or the other.

Clark

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!).

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.

We’ve had some very good times with the students and with the Campus Crusade folk here. They asked us to share with their university leaders from around northern German our story and the vision for Haus Nazareth. It was a moving time, reconnecting with some and getting to know others.

We also had another amazing re-connection over a three-hour lunch with a former German campus director, Rainer Harnisch. He is now working with business leaders in China (!) and media people as well as students.  It’s almost as if God has been preparing us to work together again.  Please keep praying that we will see God’s will and way clearly and make good decisions about where the work here can best begin.

Thursday to Sunday we met with church leaders in Berlin at a mini conference called “Transforum”, where interested people came together to talk about the needs of Berlin and other large cities.  It was quite a while since we have touched base with many of these people (some of them were students when we knew them), but it was very encouraging. We met one Lutheran pastor in particular who has planted a church among former atheists. Hearing him speak and comparing notes with him showed us that much of what we have learned about sharing with secularized people is transferable!

Please continue to pray that God will lead very clearly in these first steps of putting down our roots again here.

We arrived in Berlin early Tuesday evening - but two of our suitcases took a little longer to make the journey!

The main problem seems to have been our connection through London’s Heathrow Airport; apparently it’s not uncommon for baggage to get delayed there. In spite of this, we are delighted to be back in Germany.

We’ll try to update you again soon. Thanks for your friendship and prayers!

Hi friends!

We just wanted to let you know that we had to delay our flight by one week - for a very important meeting on Thursday evening. We fly a week later on this coming Monday (February 11) at 3:00pm, connecting to the same flight in Seattle. Thanks for your prayers - please ask the Lord to “transfer” them to the actual flight! Thanks!

There is a huge number of things that need to be done before we fly on Monday (Wow!).

We’d really appreciate your prayers that we’ll face this stress in the power of God’s Spirit. Please pray that we’ll be able to get everything packed and the house ready for the young couple that will be living here until we come back for Charissa’s wedding celebration. Also, that we will not “offload” the stress and snap at each other.

Thanks!

Our departure for Berlin is getting closer! We leave on Monday, February 4th at 5:00pm on Alaska Airlines (connecting with British Airways for the flight to Berlin).

Next weekend, Calvary Chapel, Boise - our Idaho home church - will be officially sending us out with a prayer of commissioning. The service times are: Saturday, 6:00pm / Sunday 9:15am and 11:15am.

It would be very special to us if you live in the Boise area and could join us for one of these times!

Here’s a map of how to get to the church:

“Calvary Chapel Map”