70 years of Kristallnacht

Recently we had the 9th of November. This day was the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht. This dark day in German history had its main influence in Munich and was planned long before. Therefore this whole weekend a lot of meetings and gatherings were planned - to remember, to commemorate, to meet each other and to worship God. A small group of messianic Jews was invited to come to Munich and to take part at these events.

Friday - A Prayer Evening
Friday evening started with a prayer evening.
This special evening full of the presence of God took place at the Charismatisches Zentrum München. It alwasy touches me when the body of Christ gathers together. But it is very special when messianic Jews worship bringing with them their own culture and history.

The impulse for the whole Kristallnacht was given from the Old City hall in Munich. So this small group of messianic Jews gathered there with some Christians from Munich to commemorate this event.

It touched me to hear what moving moments happened there. A sensitive song on violin that led to deep wailing and common lamenting, Germans and Jews were laying in each arms. Finally the celebrated the Lord's supper together and praised the Blood of Christ over all this guilt. Love was there, hearts were bound together, a deep connection was formed. Somehow it is special when German christians and messianic Jews stand together!

Some of the Jews shared very moving their stories with the Holocaust and what this day meant for them. All of them were touched with how much love they were welcomed.

After that we had an intense worship time in which the messianic Jews served us - very intense and dense. A very moving and intense evening. Nice to see that you can make history with only a few...

Saturday - Worship Evening

After being the whole day afoot I was looking forward for a nice seat and the worship evening together with our friends from Israel. But when I arrived at Paul-Gerhard-Kirche (a charismatic Lutheran Church I was attending years ago every Sunday) the whole hall was packed, no more places left over! There were many people standing in the corridors and in the back. It touched me that so many had come.

Some greetings were held, briefly summarized what happened already on this weekend, our guests from Israel were introduced and called to the front, Thomas Römer was preaching about John 17.

At some point everybody was standing to read out aloud a declaration being in opposition of the statements of the Kristallnacht. At that time the Jews were told to disappear, that we did not want them or what they had to give. Therefore we welcomed the Jews in the declaration of today with all their gifts and callings.

A worship band around John Angelina lead us into worship. Here the atmosphere was very dense and the presence of God touchable. Then the musicians from Israel took over. They came to us to serve us with their gifts, not to look at the past, on the wounds or the trauma. They have a special way to play with violin, clarinet and different drums. First the worship seemd to be very sagging, to much focused on shame and wounds.

From time to time I had to sit on the floor cause I was not able any more to stand. I just enjoyed the presence of God. Suddenly the worship went over into a prophetic part, were the drums, the shofar did mighty things in the spirit. Something was broken, the veil was drawn away, it was like something was fallen. now the music was more happy. The people went into the groove and were clapping. Very cool!

How wonderful it is when Jews find their Messiah, how much more when they understand to flow in the Spirit and to set free things in the Spirit! That really is a calling of the Jews to lead the nations into the worship of the one true God - Jeshua Hamaschiach.

The evening was so dense and intense that it is impossible to tell everything here. Again and again it was said that this would be a new day for Germany, a new cooperation of Jews and Germans. Now we are challenged to heed the call. Another important impulse was to found a prayerhouse for the nations in Munich, in which 24h worship and prayer will be held.

Again and again the Jews said thank you for being invited for being able to come and that they were welcomed with such a love. They told us that they would need us to bring light into the darkness of Israel that the people would find newly their God...

Wow, what a wonderful evening. Words can not describe it. How good that I stayed and did not let my tiredness lead me away...

Wedding in Belgium

At the end of October I had the privilege to be invited to the Wedding of my old friend Frank Ernst (called Ernsti). Now I finally had a chance to visit him in Antwerp/ Belgium.

Travel
We went by car, another Jesus Freak girl from Landshut joined us. So we had a nice travel without problems, had nice talks and listened to a challenging sermon of David Pierce. We started about 10 in the morning and arrived at 19.00 o' clock in Hoboken and received a heartly welcome. We were shown the daycare facility for children. It is the first christian one in Belgium and I only knew it from all the struggles, prayers and other thing realizing it. So I was glad to be finally able to see it with my own eyes.

Some of us went away to get Kebap with strange sauce *hehe. I went cooking with the other girl (Bri) and carried it up all the way over the remarkable stairs under the roof where we all stayed. Sibylle arrived in the meantime and was quite lonely. Sometime later the boys came back and we chilled in all the sofas that were there abundantly.

Spontaneous Service
As Bri had a cold I just wanted to pray for her healing. But suddenly we were in a long time of prayer and worship. Really cool! We thanked God for all the things he had done in the life of Ernsti, how this day care center was realized, thanked God for his faithfulness and prayed for Belgium and Antwerp. Matthias got hold of a guitar and started playing worship songs and we worshipped Jesus. Somehow I got the idea to release the friendlyness and glory over Sibylle (in the midst of night Jesus had the idea to give her a loveletter - at 2 o' clock in the morning!). As we all were very tired we soon went in our sleeping bags...

Sightsseing


After a wonderful breakfast we went together with Mäggi and Susi, who arrived in the meanwhile, into town for sightseeing.

Antwerp is a real nice place - small alleyways, small houses with wonderful facades. Somewhere we got a big portion of chips with different sauces and different enthusiasm :)

On the way back we got some Belgian candies. We liked to have some coffee but no one came to serve us so we left without.


The Wedding

It was nice to be at this international wedding. It was held mainly in flemish without translation. Somewhere closer to the front someone was sitting wo was translating - but only the people around him could understand it. But some parts were at least in English or were translated.

The worship was quite nice, they really have some cool musicians. A friend from Ireland was holding a little speech. Something about that we easily can imagine that Jesus loves our neighbor but not me...

After that sparkling wine (not really alcoholic), some dips with vegetables and some sweets were served.

We retreated to write some greeting cards for our presents. As church we were collecting money for the wedding and everybody from us brought their bills. We wrote our greetings in fake Flemish. We had great fun with it.

The Celebration

The evening program took place in a hall nearby, a real nice location. We as jesus freaks were sitting together and had some nice conversations.


We heard some testimonies of conversions and how our Jesus Freaks churches were founded. Later we were asked to serve at the bar. That was really funny and we enjoyed it a lot.
The clean up afterwards was soon over cause many helped.

The next morning we had a nice breakfast with our host. They just moved in, their flat is still to be renovated. But the really served us gernerously and were excited to have us. Realy hospitality.