Still alive and thankful for it!
Well, we're still alive. September was a whilrwind. School started, a new FSJ team arrived and has had two weeks of training, Bird flew to the U.S. to surprise her dad for his 70th birthday while I was home with the girls, AND we had a church retreat the last weekend. "Well, Mike, *cough* you know September is long gone and we're already half way through October right?" Well now that you mention it. Weddings, seminars, and missions festivals, have kept us busy so far this month.
I won't bother you with the details on all of the previously mentioned activities. We have been going like crazy just trying to keep up. At the end of October we plan on getting away with the family to Dresden and Herrnhut for a couple days before we head to the Czech Republic for the annual EMM retreat. A friend of ours from Kaiserslautern here is our speaker and I'm excited about that.
One of the other things that I enjoy twice a week is to go to the tougher areas of town and give out food to people the city has forgotten about (or doesn't want to acknowledge). We've been doing this with some other churches around town for a few years now and I love it. The Body is working together. So as we were out in a neighborhood not far from here. We were handing out bags of bread. Some bags had loaves of bread with a sweet-roll or a danish or something sweet. We opened the back end of my friend's CRV and we set up tables around the end perimeter to manage the crowd. This area of town is where the city managers place hundreds of refugees from all parts of the world who come to Europe to seek asylum. We've met Christians from Iran who come because they converted to Christ and they know what the consequences are at home for such things. We've met people from Iraq and Afghanistan who come to Germany to meet Americans who care about them and their well-being and are astonished! One fellow recently arrived from Afghanistan and gets to live a small, dank, dirty hovel of a flat and is perfectly happy because no one is seeking to kill him for whatever reason. Anyway, we're handing out bread and sweet rolls in the ghetto. One guy comes a little late and we don't have as much left. I hand him a bag of bread and he tells me in relatively good German that he doesn't want bread he would like a bag of sweet rolls. My inner reactions was, "Hey pal, beggers can't be choosers." But I disciplined myself and wanted to be friendly to the guy still shaking my head in astonishment at how he had learned German so well. I took the bread back looked around in the back of the SUV and found a bag of sweet rolls. Gave it to him and he was very thankful which calmed my frustration. So I asked him what his name was and where he was from. He is Yusef from Syria.
"How long have you been here, Yusef?"
"Seven years."
You've lived HERE seven years?!
No, I have studied here in Germany seven years. I just finished my work. But since the war in Syria started four years ago and doesn't seem to end, I was placed here as an asylum seeker. I have only lived HERE three months."
Throughout the conversation I found out that Yusef isn't Muslim. He's Yezidi and from western Syria. He said the situation there is terrible to be anything other than a memeber of ISIS. Chirstians and Yezidis are being rounded up and killed.
"What kind of religion is that?!" I asked him.
"Exactly!" he answered with passion in his response. Like he had been contemplpating this very thing and someone had formulated it for him. We chit-chatted about life back home and what the situation looks like.
So then I asked him, "Yusef, what is the answer for your country? What will bring peace? You've got Assad, the Rebels and all their factions, plus ISIS and their twisted ideology killing people who don't belong in their "theocracy." What is the answer for peace?
"So many Arabs blame the Jews for their problems. That's not right." He said. "People have been killing each other in my country for centuries and it won't just stop overnight."
I nodded.
"The Assyrians, Babylonians, Jews, Christians and Arabs have all caused terrible suffering."
I nodded again and repeated my question.
"I don't know." He said.
I said, "Yusef, I don't know you or your culture or your language. But I come from a Christian background. I believe that Jesus came from heaven to bring us peace and reconciliation. Not just to take away our sins and restore us to God, but also to give us the Shalom/Salaam we need with each other."
He nodded. "But we can't force everyone to believe in Jesus can we?"
"No, we can't force anyone to believe anything."
He concluded and we warmly parted ways. I thought about how fornutate I am not to have lived through any wartime in my own country. Not to have seen men taken to the river and executed. Not to have seen my sister sold into slavery or raped because she doesn't have the same theology as the powers-that-be. Then I thought, if Yusef and his people really want peace they have to know Jesus. Until then Syria and everywhere else will have no peace.
"Lord, your Kingdom come. Your will be done."
Mike
I won't bother you with the details on all of the previously mentioned activities. We have been going like crazy just trying to keep up. At the end of October we plan on getting away with the family to Dresden and Herrnhut for a couple days before we head to the Czech Republic for the annual EMM retreat. A friend of ours from Kaiserslautern here is our speaker and I'm excited about that.
One of the other things that I enjoy twice a week is to go to the tougher areas of town and give out food to people the city has forgotten about (or doesn't want to acknowledge). We've been doing this with some other churches around town for a few years now and I love it. The Body is working together. So as we were out in a neighborhood not far from here. We were handing out bags of bread. Some bags had loaves of bread with a sweet-roll or a danish or something sweet. We opened the back end of my friend's CRV and we set up tables around the end perimeter to manage the crowd. This area of town is where the city managers place hundreds of refugees from all parts of the world who come to Europe to seek asylum. We've met Christians from Iran who come because they converted to Christ and they know what the consequences are at home for such things. We've met people from Iraq and Afghanistan who come to Germany to meet Americans who care about them and their well-being and are astonished! One fellow recently arrived from Afghanistan and gets to live a small, dank, dirty hovel of a flat and is perfectly happy because no one is seeking to kill him for whatever reason. Anyway, we're handing out bread and sweet rolls in the ghetto. One guy comes a little late and we don't have as much left. I hand him a bag of bread and he tells me in relatively good German that he doesn't want bread he would like a bag of sweet rolls. My inner reactions was, "Hey pal, beggers can't be choosers." But I disciplined myself and wanted to be friendly to the guy still shaking my head in astonishment at how he had learned German so well. I took the bread back looked around in the back of the SUV and found a bag of sweet rolls. Gave it to him and he was very thankful which calmed my frustration. So I asked him what his name was and where he was from. He is Yusef from Syria.
"How long have you been here, Yusef?"
"Seven years."
You've lived HERE seven years?!
No, I have studied here in Germany seven years. I just finished my work. But since the war in Syria started four years ago and doesn't seem to end, I was placed here as an asylum seeker. I have only lived HERE three months."
Throughout the conversation I found out that Yusef isn't Muslim. He's Yezidi and from western Syria. He said the situation there is terrible to be anything other than a memeber of ISIS. Chirstians and Yezidis are being rounded up and killed.
"What kind of religion is that?!" I asked him.
"Exactly!" he answered with passion in his response. Like he had been contemplpating this very thing and someone had formulated it for him. We chit-chatted about life back home and what the situation looks like.
So then I asked him, "Yusef, what is the answer for your country? What will bring peace? You've got Assad, the Rebels and all their factions, plus ISIS and their twisted ideology killing people who don't belong in their "theocracy." What is the answer for peace?
"So many Arabs blame the Jews for their problems. That's not right." He said. "People have been killing each other in my country for centuries and it won't just stop overnight."
I nodded.
"The Assyrians, Babylonians, Jews, Christians and Arabs have all caused terrible suffering."
I nodded again and repeated my question.
"I don't know." He said.
I said, "Yusef, I don't know you or your culture or your language. But I come from a Christian background. I believe that Jesus came from heaven to bring us peace and reconciliation. Not just to take away our sins and restore us to God, but also to give us the Shalom/Salaam we need with each other."
He nodded. "But we can't force everyone to believe in Jesus can we?"
"No, we can't force anyone to believe anything."
He concluded and we warmly parted ways. I thought about how fornutate I am not to have lived through any wartime in my own country. Not to have seen men taken to the river and executed. Not to have seen my sister sold into slavery or raped because she doesn't have the same theology as the powers-that-be. Then I thought, if Yusef and his people really want peace they have to know Jesus. Until then Syria and everywhere else will have no peace.
"Lord, your Kingdom come. Your will be done."
Mike
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