News Update

It's a sure sign that Spring is here once we wake Benita, our 24 year old water turtle, from her winter sleep. Between November and April she sits quietly in 6 inches of water in the cellar demanding neither food nor attention. A convenient pet to have! Now she's looking forward to her spring diet of tadpoles and we need to locate batches of unhatched frogspawn to nurture for her. We expect still to find some in the colder pools at higher altitudes. One year when we got home from such an expedition we found a beautiful red-bellied newt in our bucket, which we had obviously unwittingly scooped up with the frogspawn.
The ban on flights across Europe this past weekend because of the high altitude ash from the icelandic volcano brought us unexpected guests. We appreciated greatly the fellowship with a family from London on their way home from Italy in a hire car. It was good too to have our first Sunday picnic lunch of the season in the garden after our morning worship service.

News Update

Here are the intrepid contingent from our Easter Bible Retreat who conquered the Belchen mountain (4,595 ft) on Good Friday afternoon! Actually car and cable car took them most of the way!
The picture was taken by Dr Bernhard Kaiser from the Institute for Reformational Theology who we were priviliged to have with us for part of the weekend and who gave us two excellent addresses. We recommend you link on to his website to learn about his ministry and with samples of his sermons also in English. www.irt-ggmbh.de

We were encouraged by the following comment in response to our request for feed back from the weekend - 'The teaching was excellent - we benefited so much from it - good to have it so bible based and clearly taught. I don't think that could be improved - be hard act to follow next year'
April is quiet in the house as far as guests are concerned but we really take off on 1st May! The sun is now warmer here, but snow showers are forecast again for tomorrow!

We are enjoying our first Easter Bible Retreat in Haus Barnabas. The theme is 'our incorruptible inheritance through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead' 1 Peter 1 3-4. Over the four days we have had four speakers each giving two expositions of the first part of 1 Peter chapter 1. (Berhard Kaiser, Alfred Staheli, Geoff Holder and myself). Everything is conducted in both English and German. There is time for relaxation in the afternoons and on Good Friday Geoff led the group of guests up the cable car up our neighbouring Belchen mountain. (See picture, although this was taken in February 2009 by Chris Hall) Most of the the guests who came were from the north the Switzerland and although we would have liked more it has been good to meet and get to know a few more local Christions. Tim and Deb and children needed to take the opportunity of the school holiday to visit Tim's family in Kent and we have been very grateful to a family from UK who have come out to help in very practical ways.

The expositions of this wonderful passage of Scripture have not only deepened our appreciation of the 'living hope' we have though Jesus' resurrection but also recognised and explained the necessary prerequisit of the new birth into God's family to entitle us to receive the promised 'incorruptible inheritance'. We are producing 8 CD's of the series of sermons. Let us know if you are interested and watch this space!