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.