Speaking With Purpose

I am sorry for not posting yesterday!  We got back from downtown pretty late and I did not have very much time before sleeping.  We started off yesterday at a school called a gymnasium or the highest level of high school here.  We visited some 11th and 12th grade English classes to let them know that we were offering free English lessons.  Some of the students sounded really interested, and I’m excited to see the response from that!  Susan (the mother at the house we are staying at) took us to a beautiful castle in the countryside called Schloss Marienburg.  We took the tour and got to witness the inside of a castle built in the mid-1800s.  Pictures will be posted of our adventure later tonight!  We returned to Gemeinde Christi to eat lunch and later that afternoon I spoke with Renate.  She is an older woman that has an amazing personality.  She knows what she believes, and I highly appreciate her honesty!  She is very knowledgable about the Bible, but finds it hard to believe some of the miracles, like that of Jesus’ birth to a virgin.  I pray that she embraces the power of that is in God’s Word.  We then ventured onto our first bus ride in Hildesheim.  We rode downtown to do our laundry and have dinner at a small German pizza shop.  Due to the language barrier, getting the tickets was a bit tricky, but we got onto the bus smoothly.  Coming back from downtown was a different story.  We waited at the bus stop for about one hour before I had the bright idea to check for a bus schedule.  The last bus ran at 7:00pm, while we were waiting around 8:30pm.  So we not only are now able to ride the bus, but we also experienced our first taxi ride!  This morning we woke up early to get to the church to read.  I had two readers this morning, Mario (17) and Leonie (18).  They are both students at the high school and both speak English very well.  I talked today with Mario about the importance of both going to church and having a personal relationship with God.  He amazed me when he said that the statement by the angel Gabriel “God can do anything!” (Luke 1:37) can be used as a summary for the entire Bible.  I love speaking with him about God as well as his other interests.  Leonie, or Leo, knows so much about the Bible!  She grew up Catholic and has such a strong personality.  Today we spoke about her family and some of the struggles that her family has been through in the past few years.  It was interesting to see how she related that to the passage.  I am so blessed to have amazing people surrounding me here.  Please pray for Renate, Mario, Leo, and all of our readers as we provide an opportunity to let God’s Word speak into their lives.  Also, pray for our first party!  We are having a New Orleans party tonight at the church to connect members of the church to our readers.  Pray that connections are made and that it runs as smoothly as possible.

~Alicia