My teammate Ben wrote the following blog about how God orchestrated events that led us to GERMANY for the month of June! It’s awesome!!!
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Hey Everyone! I have an awesome God story for you today.
The Holy Banditz are going to Germany!
Our 3rd month in Europe was a “pioneer month”. We were on our own to find a ministry contact. A few days ago we had three potential contacts.
One was in Croatia working with evangelistic English camps. The Croatian contact told us that we were “an answer to prayer.” They had been preparing these camps for two years and they were finally ready. And we were going to be their laborers.
The second was a church planter working with Gypsies just outside of Budapest, Hungary. He told us that he wanted us to come and was begining to make preparations.
The third was a youth pastor in Blankenheim, Germany. He expressed a strong desire for us to come and mentor his youth group.
Three Great Contacts! One BIG problem. It was going to be almost impossible for the Germany contact to work out. First, just getting to Germany was going to break out budget. The cheapest flight to Germany was still twice what we had for travel that month. Second, Germany is an expensive country and we did not think that our budget for food and lodging was going to be enough to cover our expenses.
We talked to our Germany contact about this and he said, “Dont worry about lodging and food. A laborer deserves his wages.” OK, one obstacle out of the way.
Then our contact this month found us plane tickets to Germany that were within our budget! Two.
Then we found out that two other teams had contacts in Cologne, Germany (a city very near to Blankenheim) and that we could all travel on the same flight! Three.
Then the day before our team was going to make a decision about Month #3 the Croatian contact canceled on us. The contact that said we were “an answer to prayer” changed her mind and said they could no longer take us! Four.
Then the day that we were making our decision the Hungarian church planter cancelled on us! Five.
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alex again: I can’t express to you how very VERy excited we are to get to partner with this youth pastor and invest in the lives of the youth. Please pray for the relationships to be sincere and develop quickly. The pastor’s heart for his youth is that they would be ignited to live passionately for Christ, and to live a missionary life right in their own community. Which is basically what we have been learning and relearning and then learning yet again for the last 8 months! Woohoo!
