Sowing & Harvesting (by Kim)

Sowing & Harvesting (by Kim)

Uva

God's timing is always perfect.  Thilo, Bre and I had spent the last hour discussing the ministry of der Garten - (our sort of cafe room).  Bre was feeling extremely sad because our vision had been that we would meet people on the street and then der Garten would be a "safe" place where they could come to talk and ask questions.  So far, we have not seen this vision come to pass.  We were trying to encourage one another in the Lord and at the same time remain open to what God's plans are for der Garten as opposed to our own ideas.

Thilo went home because he is sick with an ear infection and on a whim, Bre and I decided to put the Jesus movie on (instead of our usual worship music).  We put it on in Deutsch and I was just preparing to settle into an evening of email & Facebook when who should walk into der Garten, but Uva - the man we had just prayed for at our Friday night street - Heilung.

As I prepared him a cup of coffee, he came over to the counter and I asked him if he had read the book of John like I had suggested. 

He said, "Yes, I read the whole thing."

"How did it make you feel upon reading it?"  I asked.

"I felt nothing.  But it is difficult to put into English what I feel."

"Well, as soon as I finish this coffee, how about if we sit on the couch with Bre and she can translate and we can talk in Deutsch &English."

As we settled down with our tea and coffee, the first thing that Uva said was, "I really want to meet someone who has the Holy Spirit."

I said, "Wait no longer, the Holy Spirit is living inside of me and inside of Bre!  So you see this with 2 people who sit before you."   

He smiled at this (which was nice to see because he has a permanent look of pain in his eyes).  Then he went on to say that he had tried in the past to know Jesus and to be "good enough" but nothing had ever happened.

So, we were given the opportunity to explain the whole gospel to him, in as simple a language as we could.  I explained the reason for Jesus coming to the earth:  that He died to take the punishment for our sins and that we can never be good enough for the holiness of God and therefore need Jesus to come into our lives to be our Savior.  

Uva had a hard time understanding this free gift of God.  He kept thinking that he had to do good works to come to God and he tried to tell us what a good person he had tried to be while at the same time confessing all of his known sins to us.  Bre explained a lot to him in German and if I talked slowly, he was able to understand all of my English and he did most of his talking in English.  In the end, he said he needed more time to process all that we had told him, and Bre told him that this was okay.  We tried to stress that the Lord does not invade a life without the person's permission and that he needed to make the first step to open His heart to Jesus.

We then prayed for him again.  He sat between us on the couch and seemed dead inside while we prayed,  (as opposed to when we prayed for him on the street and his whole body seemed to shake and he started crying).  We prayed for his finances as his electricity has been shut off.  It is extremely cold in Berlin right now and he has no lights or heat.  He told us that he is a drug addict, and now on methadone which explains his hollow, pained look that he carries.

Then we fed him some of the apple crumble that I had just made and we all watched the Jesus movie, along with 2 other people who had come into der Garten.  I sensed that he needed a VISUAL of Jesus as well as the reading that he was doing.  As I sat there, I was so amazed at how the Holy Spirit leads and moves us without our even realizing!  I thought it was me who decided to put the Jesus movie on, but it was Him, leading through me. 

At the end of the night, Bre and I greatly rejoiced that at this point in time, the Holy Spirit had sent someone for us to minister to in der Garten.  

der Garten

HEILUNG  -  HEALING

Every Friday night our ToTheStreets team goes out to Frankfurter Tor, which is a busy intersection in our neighborhood and where people can catch a Tram or the Underground train.  We put up a big banner that says, "Heilung" and we set out chairs for people to sit in who would like prayer for healing.  Sometimes we pass out  fliers to people passing by, which explain what we are doing.

Two weeks ago, I was very discouraged.  Passerby's had been giving me these pitying looks which seem to say, "You poor dear.  You are so miss-guided and brain-washed."  I can handle the out-right anger and the ones who give me a friendly smile but a no shake of the head but the ones who look at me with pity are very hard to take.  On this night, no one was wanting to take my flier and it was cold and I was wondering what I was doing.  I finally said to Jesus, "I am so discouraged.  Don't You ever get discouraged with these hard and stubborn people?"

"I am encouraged in you, my daughter.  You encourage me by your obedience to Me," was the sudden and startling, warm reply that went deep into my heart.

I smiled.  "Well, okay Lord.  I can handle this.  If I am pleasing to You, that's all I need."

Not fifteen minutes later, I was complaining again.  "Lord, please, I just need a bit more encouragement.  If this is what you want us to do, please send someone that wants prayer before we are ready to stop.  Just one person."

At 8:15pm just 15 minutes before we stop a couple were suddenly right there, talking to Thilo.  They came over to the chairs and Thilo said, "She would like prayer for healing in her knees."

Inside, I was rejoicing.  "Thank you Lord!  You sent me my encouragement!  We didn't even have to chase them down, You just brought them right to us!"

It turned out that they were Christians, had been walking by on the other side of the street, saw our sign and came over.  The woman asked, "Who do you pray to?"  and Thilo replied, "We only pray in the name of Jesus," and she said, "Well, okay, I would like prayer then."

When I started praying for her, I just had to let her know that she was MY answer to prayer!  She laughed in glee and then we prayed for the healing of her knees.  After this, her husband decided that he wanted prayer as well for his migraines.  So, the Lord sent us 2 people to pray with and we got to know some new Christians who live right near us.

The next week, it was just BreAnna and I that went out because Thilo was home sick.  This was hard for us but even harder was the extreme cold.  It was our first time to have the weather below 30 degrees.  Even with our long-Johns, scarves and hats, it felt cold.  We decided to just sit in the chairs, not pass out fliers and pray in tongues.  Within 5 minutes, a tall, dour-looking man came right up to us.  He acted like it was the most normal thing in the world that we were there, in the cold, offering prayer for people.  He said he would like prayer because he grew up in a very abusive home and he could not find his base.  He looked to be about 40 years old.  He said he was going to go turn in some bottles and then he would be back for prayer.  He was back in about five minutes and as Bre poured him a cup of coffee and conversed with him in German, I asked the Lord if He had a word to give me for Uva.  Immediately Jesus spoke into my heart and said, "Tell him that I am his base," and with those words, I saw a picture and knew exactly what I was going to tell him.  Bre did the translating and I told him that Jesus had spoken a word into my heart for him.  I said, "Jesus wants you to know that He is your base.  He is the home that you have always been looking for.  He is the only one who loves you completely and who will never disappoint you.  He wants to come into you and you go into Him and He will be with you and love you."  When I was finished, Uva said, "This is just what I was talking about."   (Thank you Jesus!)  I prayed over him that he would come to know how much he is loved by Jesus and I asked the Holy Spirit to come upon him right then.  Bre prayed for him in German and as she was praying, I watched a big tear well up in his eye and then spill over and roll down his face.  After this, I gave him a German New Testament and opened it to the book of John.  "If you read just this book, you will learn everything you need to know about Jesus who loves you."  Bre gave him a der Garten flyer and we encouraged him to come in and talk to us.

After he left and Bre and I had prayed for him we both felt that the Lord has sent us one of His chosen ones, a man that he had been calling for some time.

Next we had two teenage boys come up to us and ask what we  were doing.  Bre said, "We are offering prayer and coffee,"  (in German, of course).  They both said they wanted coffee and one of them, Emre said he would take both!  We sat them down in our chairs and Emre told us he would like prayer to stop smoking so much marijuana.  The first thing Emre said to Bre was, "I'm an atheist but I do believe in God...".  Bre said, "Well, you're not an atheist then!"  I asked him what he believed about Jesus and he said, "I believe that he was a good man, a prophet."  Then I told him that we believe Jesus is God and we would be praying for him in the name of Jesus because we believe all power comes from Jesus.  I also told him that I would like to pray that he would stop smoking pot all together and he assented that this would be okay.  We prayed for him, me in English and Bre in Deutsch.  He was smiling and seemed to be warmed by our prayers.  When we were done, I asked his friend if he would like prayer.  The friend said, "No" and Emre said, "You should.  It feels really good!"

We invited them to our cafe and as they walked away, I was so thankful that we had made the choice to go out on the street that night. 

Jesus is so faithful to encourage us and show us that He is with us and that He is doing all of the work through us.

LONELINESS

Jesus said, "Surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.  Matthew 28:20

"And I will ask the Father and He will give you another COUNSELOR to BE WITH YOU FOREVER - the Spirit of Truth.  John 14:16b-17

    I have experienced a lot of loneliness in my life.  Right now, living in Berlin, Germany I am often profoundly lonely.  I walk down the street and the sounds echo in a language I can't understand.  I feel as if I am alone on a planet with aliens....and when they do understand my language, my brain can't grasp this and I feel embarrassed and it is hard to to talk.  Do they wish I would speak slower?  Are they getting all my words and are they wondering why I haven't learned their language yet?

I was also lonely when I was in high school.  I went to a high school where I knew no one and I had no idea that it would be so hard for me to find friends.  I thought it would just happen.  I thought that people would just start talking to me, or I naturally to them, but that didn't happen.  When I realized, after the first week of school that everyone was completely ignoring me like I was invisible, I panicked.  I was in shock and didn't know how to handle the situation.  I called an old friend from my last school and she too was in a new school and she had already found some friends.  I asked her for advice and she said, "Just pick someone that looks friendly and try to talk to them."  So, the next day I did just that.  There was a girl who always had a smile on her face.....and rather than try and make small talk with her, I asked her if I could eat lunch with her.  She mumbled something unintelligible and then ran from me into the girl's bathroom and a friend joined her and I heard them laughing.  I was crushed and vowed to never try again.  I was humiliated.  Then I became very self-conscious thinking that everyone knew I was alone and that they must think I am some sort of oddity because I had no friends.  I couldn't bare the thought of their stares nor the embarrassment of simply being alone all the time and so I began sneaking away to the library during my lunch and hiding in one of those cubby desks so no one could see me.  But it was then that I started reading the bible.  Every day at lunch, to the library with my apple and then I would read the bible and I discovered that Jesus was my friend.  It got so I didn't mind the lonely lunch times because I loved reading my bible and spending time with Jesus.  

Psalm 68:6 says, "A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families...."   I'm so glad to know this about my God.  He sets the LONELY in families.  

When Bre came to Berlin as a young missionary of 20 years old - the Lord gave her a man who was to become like a father-figure to her and his wife was a friend.  This man would take her out to eat on occasion and give her presents, just like a father.  We discussed many times how good God is that he provided for her in that way.

Yet....there are many lonely people and they have no family.  Is the Father's love enough?  Is the comfort of the Holy Spirit enough?  Jesus said that we should be GLAD that He had to go away, so that He could send the Holy Spirit to us.  The Holy Spirit is our counselor; our helper; the one who lead us into truth.  In fact.....He is the one who told me to write this on loneliness and He is the one who is directing me right now on what to write.  I really don't know what I would do without the Holy Spirit.  He guides and leads me in every part of my day.

I had a vision two years ago that has really helped me in my current struggle with loneliness.  I was at a worship house and as we were worshipping, Jesus gave me this vision.  I saw myself walking down a dirty Berlin street in a simple wedding dress.  It was pure white and the length of it touched the side-walk that was littered with broken glass, trash and dog-poop.  On my head was a wreath of white roses, fresh and sweet-smelling and walking right next to me was JESUS!  He gave me a picture of my reality which included the dirty street but what I don't see is that He is the groom and I am his bride and He truly NEVER leaves me.