News Update

Although still awaiting the delivery of our new car were able to borrow our son Dan's 7-seater family Espace for the guest airport and train station pick-ups at the week end. Dan & Martina and 15 month-old John were leading a church group to Salzburg and we were looking after grandsons David and Benedict, while Sophia was with her aunt.

The house filled-up on Saturday with a total of 21 of us including David, Benedict and their friend Maximilian sleeping in a tent in the garden! With Tim & Deb & family in the UK, Phyl & Len were extremely grateful to have the help of various friends from Britain - some of you have been praying with us for the help we clearly needed and we are so thankful that God is meeting this need.

The emphasis this week is a children's Bible club week and our nephew David with his wife Liz and 2 young children are leading this very adequately. We have four other children together with their parents, the uncle of another child and an older teenager too. David and Christine organised the week for families connected with their weekly Children's Club and are also with us. It's proving an eventful week and we pray for lasting blessing.

The Sunday service was different and the emphasis was to explain as simply as possible how the Lord Jesus has removed the 'big curtain' of the Old Testament temple which separated the people from God because of His holiness and our sinfulness. Jesus returned to heaven after His death and resurrection (during this past week was 'ascension day') to sit with His Father on His throne as our Saviour and Friend and to hear our prayers. Hallelujah!

News update

The Lord has graciously provided for us to order a 1 year-old 7-seater Renault Espace Grand. We now await it's arrival from Renault! With Tim and Deb and family leaving for the UK on Wednesday it would be very convenient for it to arrive by Tuesday afternoon although our garage doesn't give much hope of this. We'll see!

Among our guests this week have been a Baptist couple pastoring a church in Cumbria. What is encouraging is that their contact with us arose through a friend who has been circulating all the email addresses on a website of British churches recommending us on the basis of his own holiday at Haus Barnabas. Thank you Jeff.

On Sunday mornings I'm beginning to preach a series on Revelation. Today was chapter 1:7 – 'Look, He is coming with the clouds .... '. John uses the present tense for this statement. Although written 2000 years it was present then and is still present today. Jesus is coming back again! All that He has been doing and is doing is in preparation for His coming and in this sense it is the present tense; He is on the way! Are we living and working towards this too?

News Update

Another eventful week - Our older Mitsubishi van effectively died on us after achieving more than 260,000 km and at the beginning of the week the only possible option for replacing it seemed to be some form of leasing arrangement. Remarkably before the week had passed our heavenly Master had indicated through promised provision from His children that we could go ahead and find a suitable vehicle to buy. As we have so often proved, we have a loving, faithful Lord whom we can trust to provide what's needed in His service. More exciting details next week!!

We have valued the fellowship and prayerful interest of our guests this week. Derek Prime, who was pastor of Charlotte Chapel, Edinburgh for many years, is with us and a couple who helped us, (Len and Phyl), to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary two years ago are with us again and they invited a teacher from the Black Forest academy who they met at the Faith Academy, Philippines to join them for the weekend. On Sunday we all enjoyed wonderfully encouraging fellowship together and sensed very much our oneness together in the Lord Jesus. The afternoon saw a walk above Schönau around the hills of the Holzer Kreuz, familiar to many of our guests and illustrated in our picture.

News update

This past week has been an eventful one for us and we want to thank and praise God for a number of significant happenings:

1. Pastor Peter Ninnis gave us a helpful study on the Old Testament book of Ruth. He preached from Ruth chapter 1 in our morning service last Sunday and then gave us three further studies on the following three chapters on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. These expositions with helpful application for our faith and practise today were ably interpreted by Deb into German and were appreciated by both English and German guests in the house and one or two German friends coming in each evening. We would like to think that this can be the first of similar weeks of Bible ministry!

2. The installation of our new hot water and central-heating boiler was completed at the beginning of the week and proved itself very satisfactory until after the last guest had left on Friday when a significant part failed on Saturday leaving us without hot water or heating over the weekend. Our heating engineer was prepared to motor 30 miles to Freiburg on Sunday to fetch the necessary part to install but we told him we had no guests over the weekend and Monday would be soon enough, which he appreciated! New guests are due to arrive Tuesday.

3. John Lowther had worked hard on the en suite bathroom in Tim's old office in the roof and when he left on Wednesday there were only a few details for us to finish off before the room can be used by the 'helpers' coming to work with us at the end of the month when Tim and Deb and family are in the UK. Please pray with us about this week 23rd -30th May. We have a group of ten coming from Essex including 5 children. Several of the children are a 'Good News Club' and their parents are with them. David & Liz MacCann and family are coming to provide a programme for the children each evening and we are praying that this together with our Sunday service and the general witness of the house may be a real blessing to the whole group.

The guests had a very successful visit to Mainau, the Isle of Flowers, on Lake Constance with Tim this week, when the the snow covered Swiss Alps could be clearly seen across the lake to the south, the orchid house full of hundreds of blumes and the island's gardens and fields full of colour.

Guest bookings for the whole period May to October have continued to come in most days this week and we have had the first two bookings for the Tracy and Marilyn retreat week entitled an 'Encountering God renewal break' 1st -7th September.