A BEAUTIFUL SUNDAY AFTERNOON

I received an email from my lovely German girlfriend Marianne on Friday to find out if we could catch up Sunday afternoon.

Marianne and Wolfram came for afternoon tea and then stayed for soup. Wolfram wanted to discuss the poem "Tyger, Tyger" by William Blake with Roger. We had the most delightful afternoon and covered lots of topics. We do enjoy their friendship. Marianne was one of the first German ladies I met when we arrived here. She lives in a small mountain village about 1/2 drive from Schopfheim.

We had another wonderful opportunity to offer friendship and a listening ear.

God is so good.

Live experience - right place, right time

Following on from "Just Walk Across the Room" I thought I'd tell you this little story.

Yesterday Roger and I had the absolute privilege of going to Luzern with a group of friends from Centrepoint Basel to have a tour of the KKL Cultural Centre. There were 16 of us altogether. Most of us took the train down there.

At this bad economic time for us Aussies living abroad, we wondered whether we should go ahead with this tour, but we had committed ourselves over a month ago and would have had to pay anyway.

I knew everyone on the trip apart from 2 people. One Aussie lady visiting her daughter who has just had a baby and another English lady who has been living in Basel for 20 years.

To save money Roger and I had brought our own lunch with us and we were going to sit in the sun on Lake Luzern and enjoy the surrounds whilst most of the others sat in a stuffy restaurant! We walked with 3 other ladies of which one was the English lady I had never met. Of course the question "why are you here" was asked so I shared with her about 'building' an Christian Community in Basel. Well........my goodness........! Can I say at this point that sometimes we wonder if we are making inroads here, wasting our time, going to slow, etc, etc, etc. Then an experience like this happens and we go ' W O W ' ! ! ! This lady just poured her heart out to me and at the end wondered herself why she had done it! Her husband of 28 years just walked out on her 3 months ago and she was totally devastated! But things are happening in her life, she is finding herself again, making good decisions and knows people are coming into her life for a reasons.

RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME

It's that easy - or that hard, whichever way we want to look at it.

We are both sick so are probably just a little bit down at the moment. Would value your prayers for us both for a quick and full recovery (it's been too long). Coughs are bad.

"JUST WALK ACROSS THE ROOM"

"Just Walk Across the Room" by Bill Hybels

Simple steps pointing people to faith

Bill Hybels the well known American pastor has written this book that answers this question; What if redirecting a person’s forever really is as simple as walking across a room? This book opens with a story of Bill finding himself opposite a person at a luncheon who started up a conversation and agreed to talk later at another break in the conference they were attending. This person Bill discovered was of another faith and could have been easily avoided but Bill took the opportunity to talk with him. You need to read the book to find what happened!

There are many good stories in this book that show that you just need to be noticing people around you and use the natural circumstances to start a conversation. It can be as easy as two men saying hello to each other when they see each other taking out the garbage bins.
Many people are just longing for someone to take an interest in them. Bill shows us who these people are: for example; two fathers standing together watching their kids play football, saying hello to a waiter in a café or helping an old lady enter a shopping centre.

But this book has more than good stories, it also has practical and easy tools that any of us can use to make our conversations with people more effective. Hybels also tells us how to make our own story concise and effective.

This is also a plea to make evangelism a way of normal living rather than a program to take to people. What it means to care about others and as Hybels says to live in 3-D relating to others and asking the Holy Spirit to be with you in your conversations. Friendships are essential and the basis of taking the gospel to people.

The book has easy to read short chapters which end with a page of study questions. I heartily commend this book for everyone and especially for home groups.

Roger

Leadership Advance Conference

From Sunday 31 August till Wednesday Gaynor and I met with 8 other Church leaders from Switzerland for an annual Leadership conference meeting in a small town on the edge of Lake Constance. For some time we looked at things that are going well, for example, great to see much more emphasis on Children & Youth ministry and seeing the development of new small groups with an outward focus. A real challenge however is the unwillingness of some folk to stand up as leaders. It is often regarded as not Swiss to lead.

We were priveleged to hear Eduard Friesen of Bonn Bible School

http://www.bsb-online.de/ bring 3 major addresses, one of which was on WORTH. One of the tasks of leaders is to show people their worth in Christ. We are valued as children of God and our worth comes from what Christ has done for us. Our worth is not based on nationality, morality, profession or place of residence but on all that we have from the generosity of God.

We spent time each day in prayer triads praying on three issues for each other. We examined where we are now at as a group of Churches. We also dreamed about what we would like to see in the next five years and ten years from now. It was great to get away as leaders together, it was a very full time and we snuck in one afternoon for a ferry ride on Lake Constance.

We are always blessed to have Derek Webster lead the music. He does an awesome job and really sets the atmosphere for the time together.

Pictures from Denmark

Roger (left) with some of the young guys looking cool !

Gaynor and Annick (who was the cook in the 2nd week)

Our table for the Oscar Evening

You can see more pictures on http://gaynorsworld.blogspot.com

Our wanderings !

We had a wonderful, though a little exhausting, time away on camp with our German Young People from the FeG Loerrach, 26 July - 10 August. (I've actually asked Rog to remind me that this is the last time I want to go away with the youth!!). The drive to Denmark was a rather long one, especially as there was a lot of traffic on the motorways. It took us 15 hours. We did learn something from our friends though. Trucks are not allowed to travel on the motorways in Germany on the weekends! Pretty good rule actually. I'd like to see them try and enforce something like that in Australia!!

The camp was very well organized and there were always heaps of things for the young people to be involved in - a fitness centre, gym, lounge, volleyball, trampoline and a variety of other games to be played. We had a mini olympics, casino night, bingo, Scandinavian Night and the last evening we had The Oscar's, which was heaps of fun.

Little Lilly

We did go to visit gorgeous little Lilly last Thursday. Sorry I have not let you know how we got on till now. It was a very moving experience for us both, but particularly for Roger. When we got to the hospital we had to be let in through a special door and then we scrubbed up, etc and one at a time went with mother Janet to be introduced to Lilly Isobel who nows weighs 1200grams (possibly more by now). She is just the tiniest little girl but oh so cute. We were able to touch her and talk to her and observe this very special miracle.

We continue to pray for Lilly as well as Mum Janet and Dad Alain.