News update

This past week has seen more activity in our garden than for any other week we've been here. We're extremely grateful to Andy Ninnis for his skill and hard work in rebuilding the 2 metre high dry stone wall which collapsed some months ago. (see picture). With his father's help he also felled six largish trees to let more sunshine into the garden and brought to light the old bowling alley of by-gone years. Peter Ninnis also contributed significantly to the spiritual ministry of the house in giving us an encouraging exposition of the book of Habakkuk in four sessions, which were ably interpreted into German by Deb. A full house of guests, including our Hungarian friend Gabriel and a local German bus driver appreciated this ministry greatly.
Also this week we have finalised arrangements with 'charitycards.co.uk' for the sale of Christmas cards with the Haus Barnabas logo which we would like to recommend for your interest as an additional way of supporting our work and ministry. The cards can be bought online through

www.mycharitycards.co.uk/haus-barnabas

News update

We had a friend with us this past week whom we hadn't seen for 26 years. He very kindly told us we hadn't changed at all in the intervening period and wanted a few pictures of us. We've made one of them our blog picture for this week! At the end of this month we have a break from guests for a few weeks and are travelling across to Britain. We hope to get a bit of relaxation but have a guest reunion meeting in Otley, Yorkshire on 14th Nov - come and enjoy a Black Forest tea and an update on news and information - all are welcome, past guests, future guests and interested friends. See more information alongside here on blog spot. We also have a meeting at Langley Park, Durham on 17th and are speaking at a parish breakfast in Patcham, Sussex on 21st and at Herne Bay, Kent on 1st Dec.

News Update

Tom having enrolled for a second year of football training in the village is now playing short matches in the junior team against other local villages on a series of Saturday mornings this autumn. As the picture shows he is very proud of his kit, supplied by the village and with 'Utzenfeld' blazed across his back, and also his first real football boots. For his weekly training he wears an England shirt!! What will happen if he's ever chosen to represent the national German team?

This week we are providing the venu for the Utzenfeld pensioners' club's monthly meeting. This now happens several times a year. We provide food and drink and get to hear all the local gossip. This contact has also helped a number of the older folk to feel more comfortable about coming into our 'evangelical Christian' house. Some now come fairly regularly to our café and we were delighted when eight from the village came to the Marilyn Baker concert in September.

The second half of October becomes busier with guests before Len & Phyl come across to England in November. See details of our 'northern reunion' opposite.

News Update

On Sunday our worship service concentrated on thanksgiving for harvest and all God's visible, material gifts to us. We noticed however that in Psalm 65 David praises God for both material and spiritual blessings and that the New Testament shows us that God's invisible blessings are eternal and therefore more important than His material blessings. (2 Cor 4:18). Our very simple harvest display, seen in the picture, illustrate His visible gifts given for the good of our bodies. They come to us with God's love, but the greatest demonstration of his love is His gift to us of His Son Jesus, through whom He gives us eternal life. When we know and receive this gift we begin to know God Himself, which should bring us to the position where we can be happy in Him whether the material gifts are there or not. The prayer of the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk illustrates this. (Habakkuk 3:17-19)
After the service 17 of us enjoyed a fellowship lunch together.
Martin Leech from the European Missionary Fellowship was visiting us for the weekend and in our evening fellowship we valued hearing about EMF and its work. This led us into a time of earnest prayer for a movement of the Holy Spirit in revival across Europe and also more specificially in the lives of those we ourselves know and love.