Team Germany 2007

This will be the only post today.  It is 11:50 pm.  The gals have just gone to bed, and the old folks are still reflecting on an amazing day.  With months of mission trip days behind me, I can honestly state that today was the most unusual.  Time will not allow the stories, but let me summarize for the gals.  Ideally, the day was to be spent in site-seeing at Potsdam followed by a cookout at the Talleys.  Both were accomplished, but the circumstances surrounding them were not planned.  Today we enjoyed: starting at 6:00 am, tachycardia amongst the sponsors, pouring rain and blustering winds throughout the day, missing bus times, pushing kids off trains as the doors were closing (both were blondes), having fires on trains (not ours), losing two coaches for two hours driving in downtown Berlin (actually they got lost initially in a parking garage), logging over 100 miles on trains, busses, and walking, sliding through palaces in size 16 slippers, and utterly rejoicing in the goodness of our God.  Each aspect has its own story that can be told at a later time.  In essence everything that humanly could go wrong for the first 13 hours of the day did.  Yet in the midst of it, God showed himself excedingly strong.  At every turn there was a sovereign appointment.  I say the first 13 hours were challenging, because the day ended with a gift.  Internally expecting no one, we returned a hour late to a rainy cookout to which we invited our new German friends.  Indeed they had arrived in time, but finding no one there they left.  They left to pick up more friends to bring!  By the time we arrived the party was just beginning.  The next several hours were spent building friendships, playing games, and letting our light shine through very earthen vessels.  After a final farewell to them, we are ending the day with thankful and humble hearts.  Though challenging, today was a remarkable day for all to enjoy the hand of God.

Tomorrow, we leave in the morning for southern Germany.  We will work the next several days in Erlangen.  We do not know the internet options there, but will try to regularly update the blog.  Thank you once again for your prayers.  They were answered in many ways today.