Death, where is your sting? Death, where is your victory?

Dear friends,

we hope that your Christmas season was filled with Gods joy and love. May your new year be filled with His holy presence. Well, its Chinese New year and almost Valentines here by now, haha (I was planning to post this right before Christmas).

This year began with an adventure of practical hospitality for us. A family of Christian Iraqis stayed at our place for a bit and we supported them through their church asylum. Each week we would do their groceries together with others who also helped since the family was not allowed to set a foot onto the street. Many prayers were spoken to keep them invisible for the police so that they would not be sent back to their home country where only death was waiting for them. God answered those prayers, hallelujah!

We witnessed a lot of answered prayers this year. Prayers in sickness followed by instant healing and positive changes in many lives of dear people. Right now we are learning so much about powerful prayer and what it can do so that God can change the world. I just recently read in a book how our presence changes the odds of circumstances wherever we go. We fight on our knees. We firmly believe that the world without praying Christians would be even more hopeless and dark. God wants to heal, free people from their bondage with darkness and proclaim the good news of his kingdom to everyone.
 
Right now "our" Kurdish family is doing well. They have learned quite a bit of German, which supposedly does not seem to be hard for them since they know some Swedish, Turkish, Persian, Arabic and their mother language Kurdish. Not bad for someone who never learnt how to read and write, eh? Each time we see them we are amazed how much their German has improved again.
After an ordeal of getting out of church asylum and moving a few times, it has been now confirmed last week that they can stay in this area! This week they will finally move to a large apartment suited for their needs in a larger town about half an hour from here and finally settle down. We hope and pray for them now to receive a visa that allows them to stay in Germany. At least, the three older children will now finally be able to go to school! And that would allow the parents some free time to rest, to heal and to proceed with German language classes.They have also started a Trauma therapy in Berlin, which they attend once a month.

We were both able to help building a youth group here this past year, which was fun. We alternate our own attendance between each other and are a group of 8-10 young people who are faithfully coming most weeks. We are slowly building trust and a togetherness so now we can also talk about deeper themes. We pray that Jesus is going to ignite a fire for himself in their hearts which is never going to be quenched.

Spring brought us babies. A new niece and nephew, hurray! We visited our brother and sister in law in Lyon, France and loved it. The air was already much warmer there and the french people were very friendly. And we ate some of the best local strawberries in our life. In April!
A short time later we celebrated Amos‘ 1st birthday and couldn't believe how fast time flows. He is a quirky toddler by now and adores animals and cars, he is very talkative its just that we don't have a clue what he is saying most of the time in his toddler language. But its quite fun to listen to and watching him exploring the world. And has a lot of patience with his sisters' ideas of (role) playing but can also hit back… if you know what I mean.

Some siblings however are not able to do that sadly. Friends of ours lost their second child while being pregnant in week 30 because of a blood infection caused by a little tear in the amniotic sac. That was a big shock since just a week before I became a midwife spontaneously to our neighbors' very spontaneous home birth (one that I wish would happen to every woman, it was fantastic, 20 minutes, no tears, everything went super smooth) witnessing the miracle of a birth from the other side for the first time. We were still so engaged in this joy of new life and incredible experience that the other message hit us like a big truck. Life and death are often closer to each other than we think.

Summer approached quite fast after spring and we were on our road trip to Croatia. And it was hot. Very hot. Half a year without any rain. We were quite happy to be near the ocean for most of our trip. During this time, our planned move to Croatia swished more into reality. We contacted a bunch of missionaries and it was a blast to meet Christians there to praise our God. It was a first time experience for me to talk about Christ in my other native language and culture and extraordinary. We were also able to meet family, which was nice as well. Remember us asking for prayer to start meaningful conversations? Well, for the first time I was able to talk o my dad about his war experiences during the war between Serbia and Croatia (1991-1995) and felt it was ground breaking but also quite sad of course. "Time heals most wounds", is what my father said...

During fall we had a load of friends visiting us over a few days and we loved our time of reconnecting. It is so important to work on friendships but also a challenge to do so when there is an areal distance between our friends and us. Well, and then we had four young ladies move in with us. Prillan, Hannelore, Hildegard and Hertha (now English speaking friends, try saying these names aloud please!) moved into the finished chicken coop and started laying eggs for us a little while later. And another couple we know well had to let go of their unborn baby in early pregnancy.


A short time later, on Friday, December 12th, in the afternoon, we got a whats app message saying „the son of our friend became unconscious and they are resuscitating him.“ A short time later apparently his heart was beating on the way to the hospital but he was still unconscious.
Two hours later we got a call that he passed away from complications due to a very rare heart condition.

Someday we will also be just two hours away from death. Are we well equipped for it? This young man and his family were prepared.

The mother and younger sister of the young man have the same rare heart condition. They have the possibility of an immediate death close by every single day. Even though something like that could happen to everyone of us we don't have it in front of our eyes like they do. And still. Still, the mother build a christian kids church within the last few years which has now grown quite a bit. She goes to work every day and gives her sorrows and fears of her own immediate death and that of her children to God every day. And God fills her with this unearthly peace and joy and carries the burden of evanescence that she could never carry by herself. Because we are not designed to carry such loads on our own. For such loads there are broader, more powerful shoulders available.
Her daughter is dreaming of becoming a surgeon from a very young age. When other children were watching cartoons she preferred watching YouTube videos of surgical procedures.
Her brother knew that it was not the smartest thing to play soccer with his heart condition. But he couldn't care less. He said: „I‘d rather risk something in my life when I know that I am going to die anyway one day than living my whole life in fear.“ Wow… what a life wisdom coming from a 15 year old…
When a human being decides to follow Jesus and become one of Gods own children, then death has no power anymore. A bigger adventure follows physical death then but this time without death, tears and sadness. Death is eaten up by victory. Death, where is your sting? Death, where is your victory?
(1st Colossians 15)
Just read that whole chapter because it will give you goose bumps.

After reading such verses one can only shout: Hallelujah, our Lord lives and because we believe, we also live forever!



Are we ready to take risks in our life like the young man who passed away or do we rely on ourselves? Do we rely on insurances or the conviction of a prosperity gospel? God has given us this life only. What do we make out of it? Are we ready to take risks for our King? Are we consciously swimming against the current like a salmon or do we let ourselves drift in it with all the other fish because everyone does it and „this is how it was always done“? Every human being is only a mist passing by. Passing by so fast. Like a flower in the wind. The question is: are we ready to die and wither as a flower so that our seeds can fall into the dry ground and produce an ocean of flowers?

We questioned ourselves and found an answer for our life. Yes, Jesus, for you we want to give everything! For our King we want to sacrifice everything because we do not posses anything in this life anyway.

So, as we are moving forward with steps of mourning, crying, praying, and receiving a deep happiness from the Lord within trials and tribulations, we are making changes. The week before Christmas marked Junias last days in daycare because from now on we will start with preschool homeschooling (a program called ACE - Accelerated Christian Education). We are planning to continue doing so in Croatia as well because we do not like the current school system there and want to show our children a love for self-motivated learning. We know that it is the right decision for our family right now to have our children at home. By now Junia has made quite a few little friends who we are seeing on a regular basis so don't worry about her social-emotional development.

This summer we are not going to book anything in advance for the holidays in Croatia. We want to drive  towards the destinations that God is going to lead us to, just as Paul has done many years ago. Some places along that adventure we want to visit though is a prayer house in Slavonski Brod, and also Varazdin (kind of THE Christian city of Croatia), and Split. Looking forward to it. It feels a bit crazy but also really exciting. We are aware it may not be all "fun and happy" all the time but it will surely lead us into growth, contentment and unity with each other in Jesus.

We are planning to pack our tents here in about 1,5 years to go to New Zealand for a year. During this time we will stay there with good friends who live in a Christian community according to the first church in Acts. They are two of the founders of their community, which was established over 20 years ago and is still doing well. This couple has made a big spiritual impact on us and helped us to grow a lot, as many of you have as well. One of our goals is to establish a similar Christian community within the ministry in Croatia with the people who join the vision. This vision of a bible school for young Croatian Christians is slowly getting more concrete, which is very exciting. We have so many ideas and are looking forward as to how it all will become reality in the end by the wisdom and love of our King. It is an adventure to live radical and especially to put our own desires under Gods will (but also very hard as you may know!). We are looking very much forward to which doors God will open and close, which people he will gather with us to bring blessing to Croatia. We told some of our friends about our ideas and gave them a little nudge to see whether God calls them… so if you feel that nudge of God right now please let us know. ;-)
The most important piece which we need the most though are praying people. Because nothing happens without prayer. But everything happens and everything is possible with prayer!

May he also bless you!
We are happy to be connected to you through HIM!


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PS: A book that is helping me tremendously in mourning is "7 Lessons from Heaven" by Dr. Mary C. Neal. It puts the right perspective onto death and shows there is only a great love waiting after death for everyone who wants to accept such a love.

PPS: We have Whats app on our phones so if you like to connect to us on a more regular basis we are happy to send you our numbers!