Hallo Everyone! Wilkonmen to Klun! This weekend, we were in Klun for a city-wide festival called Karnival. Basically, the just of this holiday is that everyone (And I do mean EVERYONE, grandparents and babies alike) dresses up in these insane costumes and go celebrate. To celebrate, they drink and dance and have parades and such. It is pretty crazy. So we were here this week to minister to the people of Kuln, particularly the ones that were celebrating. The newest editions to our team, Kim, Thilo (Previously referred to as the bearded man), and BreAnna were ready to jump right into ministry with us so we all headed out into the city for a prayer walk. Whilst on our prayer walk, we visited this gigantic cathedral with looked like it could be in a horror movie. It was dark colored and had crazy spirals and crows circling its tall, tall peaks. It was very massive and it took us a very long time to walk around it. That night when we were safe and warm back in our church, (Okay, maybe we weren’t warm, but we were safe!), we made a lot of bracelets with different colored beads that tell the gospel. We did this as an evangelism tool because we don’t speak German and so it is easier to have a visual aid when we are talking to people and such. So we had our bracelets and our German tracts, we were all set to go! The next day, we all got into costume. We painted our faces and wore wigs or crazy hats and got all set to blend into the carnival atmosphere. Because we didn’t really have costumes, we basically looked like a bunch of tribal hobos. On the way to the city, we all sang worship songs. Thilo had his guitar and so we filled the train with music about Jesus, drowning out all of the carnival go-ers who were singing about getting drunk. Once we arrived in the city, we jumped right into it: evangelizing to people, preaching in the streets, singing worship songs, and lastly,(and certainly most importantly to our thin, Australian blood), drinking coffee at Dunkin’ Doughnuts. We had a lot of really good conversations with people that night and many people were interested in hearing about Jesus. Morrison got to talk to a teenager who was a Muslim about God and after a very intense conversation; she gave her heart to Jesus! It was very exciting for our team and we headed home that night with happy hearts and frozen feet.
Then next day was Sunday, so we went to a German church. “Went” isn’t exactly the correct terminology because all we did was walk downstairs and we were at church. Jonathon, our wonderful translator, made certain that we understood the sermon and translated most excellently. After church, there was a parade outside on the street. We went out and stood with all of the kids and yelled, “Carmella! Carmella!” That means candy or something and we seriously got tons of it. Everyone in the parade has a huge bag of candy and sweets and they just throw them at the crowd. The parade went on for about an hour and we all had bags full of candy. I think I found my favorite German tradition.
After the parade, we took the train into town and Kim got to witness to the boy who sat next to her. He was very interested in her because she was American and so she got to share many things about her faith and he was very curious to hear about Jesus. Once in the city, we all held big poster-board signs that said “free hugs” and stood in a line. We hugged so many people but it really was a good conversation starter and we got to have some really good conversations with them. One girl that Jodie talked to was from her home town and so she became Facebook friends with her. It was really good to see Germans, who are normally more reserved and rushed, take time to talk with us and ask questions about God. After that, we went home and prepared to head out the next day for Berlin. This weekend was really eye-opening for our team and it gave us a chance to experience some German culture. We were so glad to see how God was moving whilst we were in Kuln and we were surprised to see how much we have all grown spiritually in such a short time. God is doing great things and we are excited to see what Berlin brings!!
Thank you for keeping us in your prayers, we really appreciate all of your love and support. We hope that you will continue to think and pray for us whilst we are at our next stop: Berlin.
Until next time, ciao!
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