Visions, LSD, and Odd Things I've Heard

I haven't updated in a few days and I feel little bad about that.  I just haven't had a lot of time.  Tuesday after bible study, Doug, Patrick, and myself went to a tent by Victoria Park and watched the Dutch triumph over Uruguay.  Yesterday, I didn't have a great conversation but I did spend a lot of time in prayer and really loved it.  That night I watched Spain beat Germany.  A lot of people were really upset, I guess it's understandable I am in Germany.  The Netherlands are going to beat Spain.

Today, I had a pretty good quiet time.  I woke up really tired and had a sore neck.  I haven't been sleeping well the past couple of nights, but I only a few more days in the bed I'm in.  In-spite of that I spent a good hour with God, asking for Him to refresh me and keep me burning for Him.  On campus today, Alyssa and I went sharing.  The guy we sat down with at lunch didn't speak English, so we just talked between ourselves since I don't feel confident enough to share in German.  When we went back to the south part of campus, the first guy we spoke with was from South Carolina.  He grew up in the church but fell away when he saw how people, in this case priests, can use God to do bad things.  But before we could really share and let him know that we are not called to live like that, he had to leave.  The next person we talked with, was this girl Ulli.  She was really nice but had some traumatizing experiences.  She said that she lost her faith at age 10 when something horrible happened in her life and that she didn't think God was with her through it.  We tried to say that God was with you through that, and His heart broke when it happened and that He can heal you.  As we started to explain that, she moved into how God was neither good nor bad and that Allah, Buddha, Krisna, YHWH, etc are all the same god.  When we asked her about what she thought would happen in death, she said that she had vision where she was approaching death and her grandma said it wasn't time for her to die but when it was she would walk with her through a purgatory type of place seeing everyone she's ever met before deciding if she wants to move on to something else or relive life.  It was very odd.  She somehow moved into how Jesus is viewed the same in both Islam and Christianity.  We tried to discuss that with her but she had to leave for work.

The last guy we spoke with was very odd.  I'm not really sure what he believed other than helping the poor and communism.  He was very smart, just very odd.  He kept talking about LSD, I kind of think he was on some sort of drug.  He believed that people have auras and energy but that Christians have weaker auras than the rest of society because we spend so much time serving others and that we steal other people's energy.  It was all really weird.  I spent some of the time in prayer and then the rest trying to figure out a way we could get out of the conversation since it was moving no where and we were supposed to be back at the hostel at 4 but somehow Alyssa found a way to share the gospel with him.  She was like "ok, you know how you keep talking about how there is so much suffering in the world?  It's because of sin and then Jesus came and He is the way for us to get out of it.  He came so we can find redemption and hope.  He taught that we need a relationship with Him to heal ourselves and then we're supposed to help everyone else."  We ended up giving him one of our pages that have the churches we got on it with our emails.  I hope he emails us and goes to one of the churches and sees how much people care about this world because God cares about this world.

For dinner, Austin, Alyssa, Jenna, Kathy, Patrick Martin, Christina, and myself went to this Spanish place for dinner.  It was so good.  I forgot how much I like Paella.

Pergamum

Today was kind of hard.  Aaron and I went out sharing together.  Within 3 hours, we initiated 10 conversations, 7 of those conversations lasted 30 seconds, shared the gospel twice, and were blown off three times.  It was kind of a rough day for us.  The first time we shared the gospel was pretty good.  We shared it with two guys, and one of them seemed interested in possibly learning more about God and Christ but didn't speak up much because his friend is against the church.  All in all, it was a good conversation.  We gave them a flyer for this thing some of the stinters are speaking at on who Jesus actually is.

This evening, I went to see the Pergamum Museum.  It was incredible.  The archeologists excavated the steps, the alter and a couple of other things.  It was really incredible.  To sit where ancient worshipers sat and to see what they saw was great.  We also saw some other artifacts from Syria, Babylon, Arabia, and Islamic Spain.  Two of the coolest things was a room from Damascus, that had verses from Exodus and Deuteronomy written in Arabic on it.  The other really cool thing was another room brought back to Berlin that had Psalms in Arabic and pictures of Mary and the child Christ, the last supper, and Isaac's sacrifice.  That room also was from Damascus.  It was just really cool to see some of Biblical history in real life.  One of the guys Patrick Martin talked with today was a history major and said 90% of the New Testament was 100% reliable which was kind of cool.

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.