Seasons

Harvests, sitcoms, college football, duck hunting, bathing suits, and missionary work all have at least one thing in common: they exist within seasons. For a while, they are on and everywhere. And then, just like that, they seem to disappear. The people involved know that it's just a break - prep time for the next prime time, as it were. Farmers, actors, athletes, carnivores, fitness models, and church planters look to these in-between-times for rest, possibly even improvement. But for the casual observer, it's easy to assume that the activity no longer exists... until it does again.

Ashley, the kids, and I fit into several of the seasonal categories described above. But, for the purposes of today's post, I'll stick to missionary work.

What feels like a very short time ago we committed two-years to work alongside our good friends, Brian & Janine Weaver, and their incredible team here in Frankfurt, Germany. Amazingly, that season is coming a close. On 10 April 2020, we'll relocate back to the good ol' US of A and take a moment to breathe, recalibrate, and make plans to act on whatever assignment God puts in front of us next.

The adventure has had its ups and downs. But we can honestly say that it has been 90% up - and a quick survey of the past few months (since our last update) confirms what we suspected from the beginning: God was in it.

Take, for example, the women's group that Ashley has been a part of. One of the young mothers in our church started inviting other young mothers to her house for a bible study. Ashley came alongside her and walked her through the process of taking care of the ladies, offered free child care while they met, and even showed up early to clean her apartment before the events. Over the past 4 months, the group has grown from 3 women to more than 20! One woman - a Japanese emigree to Germany - recently stopped the meeting to ask, "Is that a Bible?" She went on to say, "I've heard of them, but never seen one in real life."

Now, ladies from the group are beginning to show up at our church services, are asking real questions about Jesus, and seeing evidence of God's power in their lives and marriages. It's worked so well, that the husband of the group's founder decided to start an evening group for the local fathers. 10 un-churched German "papas" showed up on the first night!

Likewise, the numbers across all of the teams we lead have steadily grown. This means that the needs of the community will continue to be met even after we depart. And, all the better, they will be met IN GERMAN by locals who can invite more locals. We're ecstatic to leave a few legacy developments in place for each of these vital groups. We successfully rebranded the church (and will launch a fresh web-page before we leave), have trained up new leaders, revamped the praise & worship experiences, decorated the rooms, built out a workable social media calendar, developed a kids' church ministry and eaten a lot of pretzels - the big kind that is served warm. And as we begin handing over our responsibilities, we're confident that each team has an awesome leader in place who is ready to take their department to the next level as soon as we get out the way ;).

This momentum has already yielded real growth. The campus in Oberursel has nearly doubled in the last year and now averages more than 120 adults each week and a whopping 40 kids! Likewise, the campus in central Frankfurt has grown from an average of 50 adults or so to an average of 80+. This last week we had to put out more chairs in the middle of the first song to accommodate the swelling crowd. And, as if that wasn't enough fun, the leadership team is partnering with an Indonesian pastor to start an Indonesian (Bahasa) speaking campus that meets bi-weekly to serve that population.

All of these experiences culminated in the mid-January launch of the Fusion Network. Fusion is a relational collective designed to help future church planters, leaders, and laypeople from New Life Church stay connected as God uses them across Germany, Europe and beyond. New Life has been unbelievably fortunate to have a relationship with a local seminary from which we receive several interns for each campus. The first class of these interns just graduated and Fusion will help resource the dreams that God has put in their hearts. This "resourcing" will be bolstered by connection to Dynamic Church Planting International (DCPI), an incredible organization that trains church planters in the craft of making disciples for Christ and building communities around the Gospel. Starting soon, New Life Church will serve as a hub for DCPI training. That means leaders from all over Germany will be joining in to strategize for churches that plant churches, that plant churches, that plant churches. We'll be home by then, but it is amazing to think that we got to help build the foundation for what promises to be a Gospel-movement across the continent.

On the personal front, we couldn't be prouder of our kids. Each of them has made tremendous strides academically this year... in 3 different languages (4 for Camera who is also learning Chinese)! And, they've done so in the face of some challenging social situations. For Ashley and me, the best part of it all has been watching them grow in God. They too, after all, are missionaries, and it has been incredible watching them rise to the occasion.

So, thank you so, so, so much for your prayers. We know beyond any shadow of a doubt that nothing that has happened in the last almost-two-years was possible without your faith, support and willingness to ask God to move. He has always answered, "Yes." And we have every reason to believe He will continue to.

From left to right: Opening night of the Fusion launch, the fam standing guard at Check Point Charlie, Caleb giving a branding workshop during a Fusion breakout session, August turning 10!, Ashley & Ember on the Bastei Bridge, Remi by the Berlin Wall, Caleb & Brian at a DCPI training session in Brussels, Belgium, Christmas morning, the kids lounging on the Leipzig Lion in Leipzig, Germany, Remi bringing in the New Year, making gingerbread houses with the Weaver kids, Caleb leading worship at a city-wide youth prayer night, hanging with a giant (and live) polar bear in Dresden, Germany, Ember with her best bud, Emma at kids' church, Camera & August hiking in Saxony-Switzerland National Forest, Remi at the Berlin Lego Discovery Center, August climbing the Berlin Wall.