I arrived in Germany on Wednesday, April 4th. Due to different schedules, holidays, and becoming acquainted with the culture, I had my first real day today. Wednesday, I relaxed, and Thursday 7pm to Friday 7pm we had a 24 hour prayer meeting. This was very neat and a good kick-off for me to get to know the students in the church. On Saturday, I went to downtown Dortmund with my host family - Charlie and Innis Ford (former Buckeyes!) I spent Easter Sunday with the Goering family. Monday was a holiday in Germany. So, though this may have seemed like a fairly busy schedule, it was quite slow to what I have been used to, and I was affected by it.
Things have just been different here. After two and a half weeks of very intense ministry and labor in Italy and India, it was difficult to adjust to a very slow paced time of relaxation in Germany- this quickly turned to boredom. This allowed time to become homesick and lonely (I came alone). Not only so, but of the 15 college students, 3 of them are guys (who are all married). So... I have good odds here ;) But seriously- that combined with language barriers made it a difficult 6 days. I really struggled with the question of "Why did I come to Germany?" I became very discouraged, and it all climaxed Monday night after a night of playing cards- the night before my first real day of the mission trip. At this time, I sent an e-mail out asking for prayer. And today I went out evangelizing with the power of those prayers behind me.
Jenilee, my evangelism partner, is from Kansas City and is in the middle of a 3-month missions trip here. (that whole story of how this worked out is amazing... for a later time though). God totally blessed our time and answered so many of prayers of the saints. We had a 2-hour conversation with George and Tobias. After discussing the concept of God, afterlife, absolute truth, George actually initiated with us to meet for lunch the next day. It was a very real and personable conversation. Our next interaction was with a first-day student Thomas. He really struggled with God, the church, religion, etc. because of his bad experiences with the catholic church and priests. I couldn't help but think of Matthew 9:36- 'When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.' We really believed God that this time was very successful, and trust that he left with things to think about.
I attribute 100% of today's success directly to prayers, and specifically the ones that were offered up today and the previous night. I also believe that God's power came through in my utter weakness (II Corinthians 12), and that God graciously gave me faith when I was lacking it. I praise God for what HE did; today was a testimony to the power of prayer, and His faithfulness, His power, His sovereignty, and His miracles.
Summary: first few days were pretty rough, but I'm believing God for great things these next 7 days, and hope that today was only the beginning! Thanks for your prayers, do not think they are not needed! Keep praising Him! Much love,