Risk the Awkward

Meine Familie,

 

So it is not a Monday, it is a Thursday.

 

Germans love their holidays and everything shuts down for the Easter weekend. Easter is on Sunday but Friday and Monday are national holidays too. We got to move our Pday up so we would be able to email and shop while things were open. So that explains the random email.

 

Now for the update from Dahlem:

 

Risk the Awkward

 

That has pretty much become my theme here.

 

(another side note: awkward isn't even a word in German)

 

So there you go!

 

Like I said last week we do a lot of finding.

 

This can be street contacting or talking with people in the bahns or going door to door. All of it is such an adventure. Every time we knock on a door or klingel a building we just get to wait and anticipate who could possibly be on the other side.

 -I should pause here and explain what klingeling is. Everyone lives in apartment buildings so to get in we have to be let in. So we stand outside and buzz until someone lets us in. Then we go to the top of the building and knock our way down. So there you have it. That is how one klingels.-
 

We have had some good street lessons and even some return appointments set. It is always so scary to go up and initiate a conversation. Throw in the fact that I am stumbling through it in German and it gets super scary. We just pray to not be nervous and then open our mouths.
 

Sometimes we run into some awkward situations like starting up a conversation on a silent bahn so the entire bahn becomes our audience or even just stopping someone in the freezing cold street and asking about their faith in Christ.

We are just learning to take the risk.

I feel so far out of my comfort zone a lot of the time here. We get lots of really weird looks with the name tags and skirts alone. Then when we start talking about God people run. Seriously.

Yesterday I stopped a man and said "Hello we are from the church of Jesus Christ. It is Easter time and we are talking with people about Christ." That is as far as I got before his eyes got big and he ran away. So probably no baptism there...yet!
 

We got some other good responses too like "Not with me, you're not." and "It is too late to talk about Jesus. Come back after the weekend." We were excited with that last one. We're counting that as a return appointment :)
 

I found a scripture that I really liked this week. It is in Matthew 17:20. This is where Jesus is teaching and comparing faith to a mustard seed. He teaches that if we only have the faith of a mustard seed "nothing shall be impossible unto you."

Mustard seeds are tiny! In the MTC they gave us one and read us this scripture. I taped it to the back of my name tag so I can always remember this idea.

If I have even the tiniest bit of faith my Heavenly Father can work miracles with that. If I can have a mustard seed of faith I can talk to Germans about God. If I can have a mustard seed of faith I can find someone here in Dahlem who is ready to hear the gospel and be baptized.

I think that is a pretty cool promise!
 

Have a great week!
 

Love you all so much.
 

Thanks for all the love and prayers.

Heavenly Father loves us all so much!
 

Love,

-Sister Brown

My Hilde found her street! ~Kim Brown