atableinthewilderness

Derek and Amy arrive

Derek and Amy arrived in Prague today, but not without some trouble. Just as they were unloading their baggage into their apartment Amy's new luggage was stolen from the back of the car, welcome to Prague guys!!! Sorry for the welcome but that's life at the moment. Looking forward to Shannon's arrival and we hope that her arrival is a little less eventful. We had the Pizza Party tonight but I felt a little absent in the whole thing - arguing with Sarah. Cya.

Dancing on the wall...

Hello from Berlin, as you probably know we have come to Berlin to check out its potential for the Boaz Team to relocate to. It is quite a bit different to Prague, much more westernized, for example there is Starbucks, Burger King (HJ's) and dunkin donuts.

Yesterday we had a really cool tour of the city. Many thanks to Kerstin, who has an incredible knowledge of, and love for Berlin - it was fascinating. Whilst Prague is pretty, Berlin is handsome, very masculine; a lot of the architecture really says, “don’t mess with me”.

We visited the memorial wall that remembers the people who lost their lives trying to escape from East Berlin, there were some pretty graphic photos of the Russians use of torture, very hard to look at, but I admire the way they are willing to acknowledge it and not pretend it never happened, as is also the case with WW2. We straddled the bricks on the road where the wall used to be, it stretches across the city like a big scar and the kids got a kick out of being in two places at once. We stood at what little remains of the wall and there, right at the top is written, “Jesus is Lord” I can’t believe we are actually experiencing all of these things.

We find the language much closer to English, you can basically figure out a lot of the words, which is really good - it would be much easier to learn than Czech. The people are purposeful, does that make any sense? They walk like they are all on a mission from God; it is my observation that they are fairly happy, certainly noisier than the Czechs, which is great for me, because we always seem so loud when ever we are on the tram or the underground in Prague.

The Christmas decorations are amazing here, lights absolutely every where, and combined with the cold, it feels really Christmassy. Actually in Germany, yesterday was the day that Santa comes, and it is customary for him to leave fruit, nuts and chocolate, so that’s what the kids woke up to this morning, I think they like the Australian version better, but when in Rome……

Today we spent the day with Derek and Amy, and it was very encouraging, it was a very positive day and left us feeling uplifted. More later - Sarah.

A message to us all...

God is always taking us from religion toward Him. Put another way, God is always teaching us that it is not by works but by Grace. It is easy to spot religious effort in cultures other than our own, but often much harder to spot the places within ourselves where we are still doing doing things FOR God rather than In Him. When we replace a true relationship with God with things that we do FOR God, we enter religious spirit.

Read more at sion bubbles

We're off to Berlin...

Looks like we're off to Berlin. Yes we are able to go and check out Berlin from close up because of a great person we are yet to meet Kerstin. Berlin might be out future home and base for ministry, we'll figure it out when we get there. Sarah, the kids and I will enjoy and make the most of a weekend in Berlin on Decmeber 6/7 and we will also meet with as many people in the city a possible who are involved in ministry so we can begin the process of networking. Cya.