A Post for Brad

After church last night we went home and decided to have something to eat. We had FRENCH TOAST! It tasted so good, but better than that it brought back many thoughts of our mission trip. If you didn’t have breakfast and you need to get your “Toast” fix you can listen to the song here.

More Pictures

In case you missed them there are now several pictures on the left column of the blog. There is a link at the bottom of the pics that you can click on to get to more pictures of the Germany 06 trip. Most of the pictures are the same as those on “Pics from Germany” page, but these pics are in Flickr and are smaller in size (therefore can be viewed easier) and can also be viewed in a slide show. I have also added pictures from the last two days of the trip.

Back Home

Well, we arrived back at the church at 5:55pm on Sunday. We had a great time in Prague touring the city and watching some soccer on a really cool TV in the New Town Square (It was fun even though England lost to Portugal). Some in our group thought that Dresden was more beautiful than Prague. One of the main reasons was that Prague was a much dirtier city. I missed seeing the dirt because I was captivated by the architecture in the city. It was so ornate and pretty. I will call it a draw, they were both beautiful cities in there own rite.
During the trip each of the team members were able to give an update and over the next several weeks I will be asking them to each share several experiences and also what the Lord did in their hearts over the 13 days of our trip. Those recaps will begin in several days.

Last Update From Germany

Tonight we had homemade pizza at the church. Then we sang and shared testimonies. We had a great time and 3 teens who had come to the grill showed up tonight! We will be leaving Dresden in the morning for Prague. Our train leaves at9:55am and once we get to Prague we will spend the day sightseeing with our tour guide Lucie. Then we head for home Sunday morning. Our time has gone by here so quickly. we look forward to seeing many of you soon and sharing more of what the Lord has done and about the great trip He has allowed us to have. Guten nacht.

For Camden

Hey Little Man,

Daddy was finally able to get a picture on to the computer of the big airplane we flew in to get to Germany. It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?! You can tell Mimi that the picture of the plane is the second one on the “Pics from Germany” page. I love you and Josiah both.

Daddy

Miss Heather

Guten Tag from Germany!!! That is almost all of the German I remember from college. I want to thank all of you for your prayers and financial support, especially the wonderful people of Macomb Baptist Church who always go above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to supporting missions. To say Germany is beautiful would be an insult. It is beautiful beyond words and pictures do not even do it justice. Do not worry, Pam, I took almost 4 memory cards full of pictures and about 2 rolls on my Advantix camera so far. I will have to get a second job to pay for printing my photos. HA! HA! HA! All of the people we have had the privilege of meeting have been wonderful. It is truly a blessing to be able to meet these dear brothers and sisters in the Lord. We have been able to make contact with a couple of people and please pray that the Lord will work in their lives and they will see their need to accept the Lord as their Savior. All of you parents of these 4 teens do not worry, you would be surprised to see how they are working, even in the kitchen. To the Cowles, you have done a wonderful job so far with Brad (or should I say Brat). He needs to have a couple of classes for the other guys. He reminds me a little bit of Steven Graham. Oh wait, there is that name again. He comes up a lot around here. I think everybody in Germany knows about him from Rachel. Steven, I am so sorry that you had to sit through that phone call Wednesday. It is great to see missions become real for the teens and see how they respond. The Lord is working in their hearts about missions and that is so exciting! We miss you all and look forward to telling you all about our trip when we get home. Thanks again for your prayers and all your love! See you in a couple of days!!!!

Update from ~Rachel*

Hello State Farm Girls,:) Well, Germany…need i say more?  So pretty much this has been an interesting trip. We have experienced a totally different culture. The people here are so practical. So many times we take our American freedoms for granted. We begin to get a sense of “American pride.” It was weird coming here and not seeing flags all over the place and bragging up their country. We as Americans tend to broadcast everything and here in Germany they live their lives and don’t get caught up in the vain things. They don’t care what brand of clothing they wear or what people will think of them. They are rather blunt, they don’t hide their feelings they say what needs to be said and they say to your face. They live to get by. even though their economy is better than ours they do not over-splurge or do more than they need to. It was really an eye opener to see how different their way of living was.*****It was rather discouraging to see how many of the people here are atheist and don’t want anything to do with the things of God.   We tried our best to communicate our beliefs and try to let them understand, and considering we don’t speak any German, the message was portrayed well. There were a few people who were very interested and Alex (This really cool German Guy) even came to church twice! Hopefully he will still come even after we are gone! Hopefully the work that we did will have a long lasting effect for the missionaries and their ministry!***Now considering that we were in Germany during the world cup, we definitely had to get some playing time in. And we did! Yesterday we were out in the cow pastures playing soccer because that was our only open field. Let’s just say that when we returned for supper, the adults wouldn’t let us sit in the nice white chairs. hmm.. i wonder why? umm what more can I say?  Chocolate! Chocolate! Chocolate!! Amazingly good! Amen?! Oh by the way, HI STEVEN!!!

Quick Update

Well, there are several pictures from today that are now posted. Enjoy. Today we spent much of the day on our own (with no one who could speak German in our group) in downtown Dresden. We had a good time, saw many cool things, ate at McDonald’s/Subway and spent some money (especially Schmitty). We also met Alex during our lunch break. He stayed with us for the rest of the afternoon. Then he came to church in the evening. Church was good tonight, I think it was the largest crowd of German folk that has been out for a service while we have been here. Jeremiah Sandahl taught (and there was discussion) about music and worship. Very good…what we could understand anyway. Well, this is quick because we are getting up early to head out of town to have a work day at a chalet that one of the families at church owns. We will spend the night there and then head back to town on Friday morning. The guys get to camp out. It would be a good time.

Jump For Joy!

There are pictures from yesterday and today now posted under the “Pics from Germany” page. Enjoy!

Update from the Brat

Hey everybody, Brad here!!!

       Re: the title above P.J. is just kidding (ha ha), I’m not being a brat.  In German my name is pronounced as “Brat” instead of the much cooler sounding “Brad.”  Anyway Germany is sweet!  Everything that I have eaten here has tasted excellent.  I’m not going hungry on this trip!  Today, 6/27/06, we went to the Konigstein fortress.  It’s a huge castle built into a mountain/plateau along the Elbe river.  The fortress takes up the whole top of the mountain and had many well thought out defenses and fortifications.  The fortress is so high that if you and your army where going to try and take it the guards could see you coming from 3km-ish away.  Once you got up to the mountainside you had a very steep incline to climb.  When you got up the hill you had to make your way along the wall to a small, partial moat and drawbridge.  To help us imagine what it would have been like back in the day Mr. Sandahl had us run the last portion of the “attack route”, and he made a point of pointing out all of the places along the wall where guards could have been shooting at us from.  The way that the path curved by the time you got to the main gate you where surrounded on three sides by unfriendly walls.  If you managed to get through the main gate there was a very steep drawbridge that you would have to figure out how lower before you could cross.  If by chance you hadn’t been shot you had to run up another very steep hill through a tunnel which was guarded by tar-dropping trap doors.  The inner castle was very cool, but the best part was the well (not kidding), it was 152 dug-by-hand meters deep! When we got there the historian expert guy dumped out a measuring cup full of water down the well and it took a full sixteen seconds to hit the water 141 meters below (and yes for those who noticed I did just give two different measurements, 141 was to the water’s surface, and 152 was down the the absolute bottom of the well).  There was a lot of great scenery and we had a great time.  A couple of days ago we went to a German school whose name is pronounced the “Gym-naaas-ie-ooom.”  While we where there we handed out invitations to a grill-party, which you probably have already heard a lot about it, but now your going to hear some more.  It was a really cool evening that started with some soccer games to make everyone feel comfy, followed by some really good witnessing opportunities.  I think that we really brought glory and honour to God with our testimonies and witnessing.  The sweetest thing other than the above mentioned was defenitly the fact that I got to listen to the “Toast” song by Haywood Banks!!!  Totaly sweet!!!  Yep, I think those where my favorite parts of the trip so far, and I hope you’ve enjoyed my update!

This is Brad(t) signing off bye!!!(Yeah Toast!)