Church update & Prayer Requests

So we have continued to enjoy attending this new-for-us little church! I can't say enough how much we've enjoyed meeting the people, spending time in their homes, and just generally getting to know everybody better. It's sort of crazy, we feel like they want Stefan as their pastor 'like right now', but they've never even heard him preach! (we see some pros and cons to this, ha ha!)

That will change next week when Stefan gets his first chance to preach in this church. Please pray for his sermon prep and delivery - that his thoughts and words would be God-directed. It's really tempting to feel pressure to make it 'perfect' and agonize over a smooth delivery/good illustrations/clear take-home message/text-consistent, etc. While these things can be important, we want him/me to keep remembering this is God's deal, not ours. Stefan's just a vessel.

Stefan will start preaching once a month September through December. Ideally he'll also lead the service/order of worship one other Sunday each month. The goal is to give him a chance to be present 'up front'. This is as much for the congregation to get a trial of this idea as it is for Stefan to get a feel for how much time and energy he'll need to devote towards preparing sermons during the busy school year. The thing is, of the next four sermons he'll have before Christmas, two of them are during school vacation blocks, leaving only 2 'real' examples of preparing a sermon during/after a typical busy week of teaching school (remember, the church can only fund a part-time pastor at this point). Please pray for good time management as well as discernment!

On a separate but related note: Yesterday I was asked point-blank, "So, when are you planning on moving here?" Right. Well, that remains to be seen. There's not a simple answer. Stefan and I know we need to move down there to be more integrated and involved, that's obvious. However, there is a list of sticking-points, a few of which are: need for a second car, large increase in fuel costs with daily commutes, we just moved last year and had to buy a kitchen (sigh) - so it would have to be sold somehow to pay off it's remaining amount, and we'd have to be able to move into the right sort of space.

This last issue is even trickier because as of this month there's technically an apartment free in the church building, but it's incredibly tiny (one of the 3 rooms doesn't even have a window in it). I know we'd be miserable in there. We *think* most people would understand this, but you never know. We also think the earliest we would move down there would be sometime next summer, but that would be a best-case scenario. (We also have to consider moving stress and moving Stefan's office during the school year...) We both believe that something will work out when it's supposed to, but it would be good to pray for peace and clarity on the relocation issue!

One last thing that could use prayer is my language abilities. Please pray that my German skills would increase and that my communication would be clear. People often tell me that my German is great, but that's such a relative statement, truly! Oftentimes I feel I have to beat around 4 bushes before I can finally get to my point simply because I lack the appropriate vocabulary! There are also all these weird and unpredictable areas where I have no vocabulary - not a huge issue because people are understanding, but I don't want pity. These are perfect opportunities for me to re-learn to exercise patience and humility with myself, and to trust that God will guide people's understanding.

I could really go off on this topic, suffice to say I don't want to say anything stupid that will misrepresent who I am (or Stefan is) or what we believe. Overall, the Germans I've met since moving here are FAR more gracious with people trying to learn their language than what I've experienced in the US (shamefully, I can think of many times I've been impatient with people who don't speak English well in the US!). While this is good, I don't want it to be a crutch. We may be asked as early as next week to formally introduce ourselves/share our testimonies before the congregation -in German, of course! So you can guess what I'll be doing this week!

My dad just blitzed in for a mini-visit of 2 nights and 1 day (Saturday) on one of his business trips, so we took him down to visit the church we've been going to. He took some pictures of the place and the never-ending building project that's been going on, so I'll add some images later if he's able to email a few. I think it'd be nice to have some physical representation of where we're getting involved.

The funny thing is, as I look back on this post with all the potential red-flag issues it seems to raise (job-juggling, finances, language issues, moving, church building project), overall we feel peace about it. At times it can stress us out, but overall we're not feeling tons of pressure, so praise God and pray that continues, especially for Stefan with his full-time job. We want to be aware of the issues, but not all wrapped up in them!

Thanks dear friends!