Nord Mensa

Today we went to the North Mensa.  It's farther away from main campus, but a nicer cafeteria and better food.  Aaron, Patrick, and I went out sharing together again and we were only able to share the gospel once.  But thats ok, numbers aren't everything.  The time we shared it, the guy intellectually agreed with everything we said but when we said if he wanted salvation he would need to accept Christ, he said he didn't believe  in God and all everything became kind of moot.  Patrick did an awesome job sharing with this guy.  Ever argument he had against Christianity or God, God provided Patrick with an answer.  God provided all of us with answers, but really with Patrick.  It was really incredible.  At first I was slightly disappointed with our conversation with him, but looking back I don't feel so bad about it.  I think that God maybe just wanted us to break the soil of his heart a little bit and somewhere down the line he might be willing and ready to accept Christ.

After our time at the North Mensa, we went back to south campus and met up with the girls and talked about The Reason for God.  It's a really good book so far.  It has really helped me to know there are some strong arguments for when people act like Christopher Hitchens and think they know all of the answers.  Ultimately it comes down to if people are willing to let God work in them, or else these points become moot (much like with the guy we spoke with today).  We all really seem to like it.

This evening we went to the biergarten by the Berlin Zoo to watch the Germany-Ghana game.  It was pretty great.  On the way home, people were rioting and partying.  Some people were shaking an entire subway car before breaking out a window and lighting off fireworks in the station.  It was pretty cool, yet really scary to see the Germans go from being so calm and laid back to this intensity.  I don't think people in America are even this intense during OSU-UM week.

Humboldt

This morning, I had a much better quiet time.  Alyssa, Kenny, Jenna, Christina, and myself went to the Tiergarten around 7:30 this morning to do our quiet times.  It was so much better than trying to do it at the hostel.  I think I might make this a regular thing, getting away and going somewhere else and spending time with God.  I read my daily devotional, Colossians, then a little bit of The Reason for God.  It was really good for me.  We're going to start doing Colossians as a group bible study this summer, and they asked that we read it and write down a summary of each chapter.  It was good.  I read the book a week ago, but each time I read it, I get more and more out of it.

Today we were given our campuses for the rest of the trip.  Aaron, Patrick Martin, Alyssa, Jenna, Stephanie and I were placed on Humboldt.  All of us except Jenna were really happy about this.  I really like the campus and the feel since it is the more philosophy, literature university.  Aaron, Patrick and myself went out sharing.  The first two people we tried to talk with was ok.  We just talked about food and I guess trivial stuff.  But the second and fourth conversations were really great.  The first guy, Fabian, was open to taking our survey about spirituality and we eventually got to share the gospel with him.  It was really great.  It wasn't just one of us talking the whole time but each one of us said something useful throughout the whole conversation.  By the end, he seemed really interested in wanting to know more about God and continuing the conversation.

The last guy, Sebastian, was kind of the same way.  He started off saying he was atheist, slightly adamant about that.  But as we started to share what God has done for us and share the gospel, he started to see that maybe God wasn't all bad, that maybe there is some hope in Christ.  By the time we left, we said he really wanted to know how to believe.

I think the best thing of the day was something that none of us initiated.  Stephanie and Alyssa were sharing with this girl when a guy interrupted them and said "hey, I really want to learn more about this Christ guy but I have to go to class.  Can I get your email so I can talk with someone about this?"  As Alyssa got his info, he told her he was Iranian and Islamic but that he wasn't happy with his faith and wanted to learn more about Christianity.  God really does work in great and wondrous ways.

God really blessed this day.

First day on campuses

I lead worship this morning.  It definitely didn't go as planned.  I played Walk by Faith and definitely forgot the words.  We only have a few lyric sheets since we forgot to print more off and when I get nervous I forget what I'm saying.  But tomorrow will be better hopefully.  Olivia and I are going to get together and rehearse a bit since when I play if I don't know the rhythm, I play in 6/8 instead of 4/4.

Today was the first day that I was on campuses and I spent the afternoon on Humboldt Universitaet zu Berlin.  It's one of the 3 main campuses that we'll be working on.  It's the philosophy, literature, economics school.  It's really nice and really old.  Austin and I were paired together and worked in the Mensa, which is the cafeteria.  We grabbed some lunch before going to the south Mensa and finding a place to sit.  We sat with this guy Stephan and had a really deep conversation.  Our goal for today was just to have a conversation with someone but we moved into a pretty deep conversation.  Stephan wasn't really interested in having a relationship with Christ, but we still spent time talking with him and trying to show him Christ.  He grew up in East Berlin and was in communist training when the Wall came down.  He said he was actually sad when the wall came down.  We did our best to share God's love with him during the conversation.  He wasn't against Christianity, or Islam; he just didn't feel that he needed a relationship with Christ.

After we got back to the hostel, we went over using the Knowing God Personally booklet as a way to start conversations and evangelize.  I hope tomorrow the people we meet are just as willing to have spiritual conversations as Stephan was, and that we can actually share the gospel.