GEM Journal 2011-04-22

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

Michael and I visited Braunschweig yesterday. Michael preached first, and then we had a Q & A session. They were enthusiastic about issues on dating. It was Good Friday. Many people were on vacation. There were only 9 students there, including one German who can speak Chinese. The encouraging news is that there were two new comers among them last night. One lady, Ms. 李,is a Christian from Shandong. Her grandfather and aunt both are ministers in China. She came to the fellowship for the first time last night. She also brought a non-believer.

We were very impressed by the leaders of this fellowship. This couple (Wang, He-Peng and Li, Dai-Yi) leads two small groups every Wednesday for new believers. They also lead the Friday fellowship and Sunday worship service. They have an eight month old baby. They are young in the Lord, and yet they are devoted in their spiritual growth and the ministry. The wife has memorized all the worship songs from the songbook. I was able to do that twenty years ago. She has inspired me to challenge my memory again.

We visited Halle today. There were 14 students there. Most of them are PhD students or post-doc researchers. I gave a talk, followed by a lively fellowship sharing time. Michael and I had shared the gospel with some non-believers after the meeting. Michael and I feel that this fellowship can become a strategic place to reach out to many scholars. Many of them are working on their PhD programs or post-doc programs. They will stay much longer than those who only study for their master degrees. It will be great if a Christian couple or missionaries can live there. Many Christians here need to be mentored.

We’ll visit Magdeburg again today. Michael will be preaching, and I will give a workshop. We’ll take the train to Berlin afterwards, since we are taking an early flight from Berlin on Monday morning.

Thank you for your faithful prayers.

Amy (with Michael)