Monday, August 3, 2020

End of Summer? How can that be?!?!?!?

For a summer that started out looking like we may not have much of a chance for contact ministry, we sure had a surprise waiting for us! Originally we thought we would have 4-5 camps and 4-5 interns. Then we thought we would have zero camps and zero interns. My, weren't we surprised!

Though neither our US interns nor our US church teams could come, God provided us with two incredible "twinterns". Our Ukraine-born, German twin-sister interns, Anna and Sofia, graduated from German high school this year. Together with another young man, they have been leading the youth groups in Eisenhüttenstadt and Guben the last two years. We are so thankful for them!!!!

Anna and Sofia on Graduation Day

The new style in Graduation Attire!
We also ended up having an INCREDIBLE camp, with the Twinterns' youth groups, as well as three other youth groups. You may have heard us refer to this as the Brandenburg Area. We have been doing this camp for 4 years, and feel so blessed to have had it again this summer! We had 32 campers, over half of which are not yet believers! We sure love these kids and have enjoyed our two follow-up activities of a lake-side Bar-B-Que and a Kayaking day!

Fun play on the mask theme, we had a Masquerade Dinner!



True Covid proofing food service!

Such a great group of kids!!

Jim, the Kayak-King!
We also saw 5 of our students from our Leipzig youth group graduate and the Leipzig youth band did a concert for some new youth groups in another city in Germany.

Leipzig youth band leading worship at youth group.
All in all, it has been an incredible summer of unexpected ministry. We feel so blessed to be here and be used of God in these young peoples' lives.

Prayer Requests:

  • Pray for us as we finish up our summer ministry with some "Action Days", a three-day, in-city camp in Magdeburg.
  • Pray that Lina will be able to get her visa to go to Bangladesh on August 23 to be with Emily as our first grandchild is born. (Emily and yet-to-be-born baby boy are doing great!)
  • Pray for our Twinterns, Anna and Sofia, as they leave us and start University.