Dad and I arrived today in Berlin — flight was quite early and enabled us to get a nice German meal for lunch (sauerbraten for me) and then go on to a worship service at Crossway International Baptist Church in Berlin. It is an English-speaking church designed to minister to ex-pats living in Berlin along with nationals who are evangelical. In addition to singing choruses familiar to us, they also had a baby dedication that would be similar to what we do at home, and a 40-minute Bible exposition. The evangelical church, we are told, is not particularly strong in what formerly was Eastern Europe, so it was encouraging to see so many young families participating in an evangelical church.
After the worship service, we made our way to the campus of Word of Life, where we will begin teaching the book of Matthew on Tuesday morning as part of the one-year Ezra training course. The campus is about 45 minutes south of Berlin and is in a beautiful setting on a lake. We were served a fine dinner, settled into very comfortable rooms, received a brief tour of the facilities, and now are getting ready to go to bed (and hopefully get a good 7-8 hours of sleep).
Tomorrow, in an effort to help acclimate from the after-effects of jet lag, we will be going to Wittenburg to tour a number of sites related to the reformation and Martin Luther.
Words of Grace 