News Update

Haus Barnabas Christmas cards

  

Buying from our range of charity Christmas cards helps to support the  ministry of Haus Barnabas and this year we are offering a selection of eight different cards, pictured below. They come in packs of 10 cards of the same design and each has a Scripture text, a simple Christmas and New Year greeting and our 'Friends of Haus Barnabas' logo. Each pack of 10 cards costs £3.50 except HB Card 4 which is enhanced with gold and silver foil and costs £4.50 per pack.

 

 

HB Card 1 - The Wisemen: size 125mm x 125mm

HB Card 2 - The Shepherds: size 125mm x 125mm

HB Card 4 - 'Jesus': size 70mm x 150mm

HB Card 3 - Snowdrops: size 110 mm x 150 mm

HB Card 5 Shepherd Boy: siz 1120 mm x 150 mm

HB Card 6 - Robin: size 125mm x 125mm

HB Card 7 - Snow scene: size 70 mm x 150mm

HB Card 8 - Joy: size 125 mm x 125 mm

If you would like to order please send an email to David Barnes at:

d.cbarnes@yahoo.co.uk

or alternatively to us at Haus Barnabas:

len.holder@haus-barnabas.com

Please be sure to state the quantity of packs and the card ref number(s)

and give us an address for posting.

We will enclose an invoice with your cards and in addition to the cost of the cards as stated above we will add the cost of postage.
Payment can either be by cheque or direct transfer into our UK account. Unfortunately we are unable to handle credit/debit card payments.    

If you order 10 packs or more postage is free.

(Why not accumulate orders with family or friends to take advantage of free postage!)

We, Len and Phyl, plan God willing to be in the UK during November and also again in the New Year. We have reunion and information meetings planned as follows:

Saturday November 17th - Basildon, Essex

Saturday November 24th - Tollerton, York

Saturday Feb 2nd - Stanmore, Middx, N. London

Saturday March 9th - Penrhyndeudraeth, N. Wales

We would love to welcome as many of you as possible to these 'reunions' so please drop us an email if there is any possibility of you coming and we will send full details of place and time. 

    

News Update

The above group pictures give evidence of our busier weeks this summer. The Sportsreach young ladies enjoyed their five days with us at the end of July. They had good Bible times together and played some good football against local ladies' teams and had some very encouraging responses as they shared the Gospel and offered New Testaments at the end of their matches. They are already talking dates for 2013 and have suggested coming for more days to give more time for matches against teams from other towns and villages! 

The Pitsea Family Holiday was a challenging time for David & Christine Barnes who had organised it and for David & Liz McCann who led the Bible teaching. Each day was full of holiday activities with outings mostly using public transport, and each evening there were two separate children's Bible teaching sessions to cater for the wide age range of the youngsters, followed by a session to which everyone else was invited. It has been very encouraging to see at least two of the group expressing interest after the holiday in attending church back home in Pitsea. The journey home by public transport was an additional challenge. The journey began at our village bus stop when after a phone call the local bus service kindly ensured that the normal service bus that morning had the capacity to stow the luggage for 32 travellers, ie. nearly 50 cases and bags plus a 'rollator'. Our neighbours had watched the whole week with great interest.

It's good to have opportunities for local people to come into Haus Barnabas and a musical evening attracted an audience of about twenty earlier this month. It was arranged by the language school when Ben Burge, Allen & Annette's son-in-law accompanied his own voice on the guitar and brought us a range of songs, many being his own composition. This coming week we are also pleased to have been asked to host a golden wedding celebration for one of our village residents to which the couple concerned have invited about a dozen guests.
 

News update

Our summer season is now well under way and although not so consistently sunny as some might wish, compared with the weather in the UK our guests have felt very blessed.
The picture taken by one of our guests of the sign advertising the nature reserve area of the glacier basin where our neighbouring village of Prag is situated, will interest some of you. It shows some of the rarer flora and fauna to be found here and I can give the following translation:

Fluegelginster - Arrow broom  Chamaespartium sagittale

Alte Schwarzwaldhauser - Old Black Forest houses

Zippammer - Rock bunting (Emberiza cia)

Arnika  - Mountain Arnica or Leopard's Bane or Wolf's Bane (Arnica montana)

Warzenbisser - Wart-biter cricket (Decticus verrucivorus)

Auerhahn - Capercaillie  (Tetrao urogallus)

Hinterwaelder Kuh - Our local 'Hinterwalder' breed of cows

Wasseramsel - Dipper (Cinclus cinclus)

Schwarzspeckt - Black woodpecker (Dryocopus martius)

Weidbuche - lit 'Pastureland beech' -A variety of the European or Common Beech (Fagus sylvatica) which has taken on this particular form through being grazed by cattle when a young tree.

Wachtelweizen-Scheckenfalter  - Heath Fritillary butterfly (Melitaea athelia)

Geflecktes Knabenkraut - Heath spotted orchid (Dactylorhiza maculata)

This weekend we have a Sportsreach group of young ladies with us who during their five days here are playing football against three different local ladies' teams. They use the opportunity to talk about their faith and to share the Gospels Please pray that their witness may prove to be part of God's plan for a spiritual awakening in our upper Wiesental. We had a extremely encouraging worship service together this Sunday morning.

News Update

A whole month or more has past since our last blog news update and a fairly full month at that. At the beginning of June Phyl and Len celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary and here's a picture to show how little or how much we've aged. For those who don't know us so well, I, Len, am in the back row and Phyl is sitting in the front in her red blouse (she'll probably dispute that it's red but you know who I mean). Also in the picture is Deb, next to Phyl, and her two children, Tom and Esther, and our two guests at the time, Ann and Joyce.

Len had a quick trip to UK by air in the middle of June, to do several things and not the least to see the spinal consultant who gave the injection I had in March. Because this had little or no effect he is suggesting an operation to widen the spot in the spinal canal which is causing the discomfort and pain in my legs and ankle. We'll keep you in touch with developments.

We have a pretty full summer season before us which is excellent and thankfully we now have help, for which we thank the Lord. In addition to a good number of families, couples and individuals coming to enjoy fellowship and the Black Forest, we have several specific groups. The largest is the Pitsea family week (ten days), with 27 coming out to us by Eurostar and TGV train across France. We also have 17 young ladies coming for a long Sportsreach weekend, Thursday to Tuesday when we have been able to arrange football matches for them against ladies teams in Schonau and Todtnau. Then a group from North Wales who will fill all our guest rooms for another 10 days. (A week last year wasn't long enough).

Looking a bit further ahead at the end of October, in the British school holiday week, we are recruiting youngsters, 12 - 15 year olds, to join us for five days of football training led by a Sportsreach team. This will include a Bible time each day and we are hoping we might be able to arrange a match at the end of their course against a German team of similar age.

Finally at the end of the year Marilyn Baker and Tracy Williamson are, God willing, leading a retreat over the New Year. (A brochure about this should be on our website to download very shortly.)

For our encouragement the India pastor who was with us for our reformation week rang, as he was waiting for his plane back to India, after several weeks in the UK, to say how much he had valued his time in Haus Barnabas and hoped very much to come back next year with others!
We seek to do all for God's glory and praise Him for His grace which, sustained by your prayers, is sufficient for all our needs as He promised.

  

It's interesting how our Reformation Week turned out to be an international occasion. Here we see Dr Bernhard Kaiser, who over the first three days lectured on the main Biblical doctrines emphasised by the 16th century reformers, with some of participants for the week. Helpful discussion arose out of the doctrinal lectures and then in the remaining days of the week we concentrated more on historical facts with visits to Constance, Zurich and Basel.

Our second picture shows the stone in Constance commemorating the spot where Jan Hus was burnt at the stake for his bold stand for the sufficiency of the Scriptures and salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone.

Basel was an important city in the 16th century because of its paper making and printing  industry. Erasmus published his Greek New Testament here and John Calvin wrote the first edition of his famous Institutes of the Christian Religion in Basel. Our day in Basel included visiting the memorial to Erasmus in the cathedral and the paper-making and printing museum.

Following the blessings of our Easter Conference weekend April has been a month when God has further blessed us with four different voluntary helpers. Eunice, seen here in picture, together with Chris from Huntingdon provided invaluable help during the conference and then stayed on and achieved a considerable amount of spring cleaning both inside and outside the house in preparation for our main 2012 guest season. We are deeply grateful to them.
Then following our first helpers' return to Britain came John with Rita from North Wales. During their 10 days with us they achieved 'miracles'! Rita worked hard and with a steam cleaner on our guest bedroom carpets gave new life to carpets we fearedwould need replacing. She varied this with garden work and armed with a pair of secateurs and a small garden fork prepared the garden for another year's growth. John with all his practical DIY skills repaired several fittings and fixtures and very successfully installed a ceiling digital projector in the lounge for power point presentations and video projections. We celebrated the completion of this new facility by watching together a sermon by John Piper which brought blessing to all of us.
Please praise the Lord with us for providing these willing and capable helpers and pray that He will graciously continue to meet our needs and bless all who come into the house.
Next Thursday sees the beginning of our Reformation Week and amongst others we look forward to welcoming two participants from India. 

News Update

We praise our Lord and Master for His blessing on the ministry and fellowship over the Easter weekend. The number of guests attending required us to accommodate some in rooms in the village (we look forward to being able to fulfill our plans for additional rooms in our roof area), and the picture shows us at breakfast one morning.
The theme of the ministry both from Dr Bernhard Kaiser, our guest speaker, and from Geoff and Len was "Faith in the risen Lord Jesus". Everything was in both German and English and in addition to the more lengthy Bible expositions we had a worship service on Good Friday morning with communion, seminar-type sessions when we looked together at various questions arising out of the Bible teaching, and a further worship service on Easter Sunday morning.

Our next structured programme is a 'Reformation Week' May 3rd - 10th, see details on our website, www.haus-barnabas.com, and it's not too late to book to join us in this.

News Update

We're enjoying our time here in Wales very much! The 'Reunion' meeting last Saturday was good and it was great to have friends with us from as far away as Chester.

The picture of me, Len, by the little lake at Llyn Mair was taken on the way back to our log cabin after I had preached Sunday morning at Capel Fron, Penrhyndeutdraeth.

On Tuesday we visited the old copper mine at Sygun which we enjoyed very much, see picture of Phyl inside the mine, and when later in the afternoon we called in at the Glaslyn RSPB reserve we were thrilled to see the female Osprey on her nest. She had only returned from Senegal a day or two earlier. We watched her through the telescope and when later were watching the nest camera picture on the screen, we saw the male return with a fish for her. Apparently this is part of his courting procedure. She is not expected to lay eggs for a couple of weeks yet and all this time the male will 'spoil' her with food and when she is off the nest exercising he will rebuild it and line is with fresh grass and moss ready for the eggs. It was great to see. You can google Glaslyn Ospreys for more information. We've also enjoyed watching birds on the feeder outside our chalet: blue tits, great tits, coal tits, siskins, green finches, gold finches, chaffinches, great spotted woodpecker, robins, dunnucks, sparrows, and black birds.

God willing, we return to Ashford on Friday and are back in Utzenfeld a week later.

Since being away we have been saddened by the sudden homecall of Tim's mother, Eunice Brooks. We had actually called in to see her a week before she died. Tim & Deb and family will be leaving for UK the day after we get back, in time for the funeral and to see other relatives and friends during the school holidays. We shall miss having them over our Easter Conference weekend and would value prayer for all the Brooks family at this time and for ourselves in Utzenfeld.

News Update

Here's the little hideout cabin in the Welsh hills but we, Phyl and Len, have the use of for two weeks this month. It's name is "Geborgenheit" - look up the meaning in your German dictionary! We arrived in Kent last Friday and have been quite busy since. Len spent several hours yesterday as a day patient in the Ashford hospital where they gave him a cortisone injection into the lumber region of his spine to help relief the pain and discomfort he has had for some time now in his legs. We thank the Lord that it went smoothly without too much pain and we pray it might prove beneficial.
God willing, we motor up to North Wales on Friday. From "Geborgenheit" as our base, we then have a number of visits and meetings planned and if you are anywhere in the area we invite you to join us on Saturday 17th:

Meet Len & Phyl at our Welsh Reunion

Penrhyndeuthreath, North-West Wales
Sat 17th March - Begin 3.30 pm

Capel Fron, Penryndeuthreath LL48 6DN
For more details: Carol Lowther Tel 01766 780784

Tim and Deb and family are keeping the home fires burning and once we get back to Utzenfeld at the end of the month our Easter Conference week end will almost immediately be upon us and the programme for 2012 will then soon be under way.

Click HB News on the English welcome page of our website to get our latest news with an outline of activities to join with us on during the year.
http://www.haus-barnabas.com/html/welcome.html

News Update

We have been experiencing some very low temperatures here in recent days and our picture shows the Todtnau Waterfall, which is familiar to most of our guests, almost completely frozen. To inexperienced eyes the man seen climbing up it seemed to be seriously risking his life, but he appeared to know what he was doing!
We enjoyed fellowship today, in our morning service, with two British guests and two American families the wives of whom originated from the Black Forest and were visiting their now aging parents here. Our sermon took up the text in the Daily Manna readings below. The reminder of God's presence with us in the Person of His Holy Spirit, our Comforter, Teacher, Guide and Advocate is a tremendous blessing and encouragement as we go into another week.

News Update

We, Phyl & Len, have had an interesting and encouraging time in UK. It has been lovely to see so many of our friends and family. Our London reunion at Stanmore brought friends and past guests together from as far afield as Brighton, Essex and Hertfordshire and it was great to catch up with each other's news and to share our on-going vision for the ministry of Haus Barnabas. It was also good to spend some days in our home region of Hampshire and also to visit Suffolk for the first time. Last Saturday we had been invited to renew friendship with both children, parents and friends who had spent time with us in Utzenfeld in the Pitsea Family Week holidays and the venue was the church hall of Waldringfield Baptist Chapel in Suffolk. It was a very encouraging time and particularly to see Richard and Michelle who were converted through a holiday with us in 2009 going on well spiritually. An even larger group from Pitsea are planning to come back to us in the Black Forest this August. The next day in the Sunday morning service in the Waldringfield Church, Pastor Steve Wyncoll, who had been with us for ministry in 2011 enthused about his visit to us and gave us opportunity to report on our work and ministry. The picture shows a service in the chapel in this picturesque Suffolk village of Waldringfield.
Although January is a quiet month for us in Germany, Tim and Deb have been keeping the 'home fires burning' and Deb has also had a good schedule of English teaching. Sadly Tom has gone down with chicken pox and quite likely Esther will follow suit. We expect to be back home there at the end of this week.
We have been very appreciative for the kind hospitality we have received during our travels and particularly for our 'home base' with Margaret and David Harman in Ashford.