THE TEAM IS HOME

The India Team made it home this evening. So thankful for each one of them. Gary and Dr. Lobdell are scheduled to fly home Tuesday. Also, be in prayer for Karen as she flew on to Indiana from Chicago to try and get to her father before he passes away. The weather is bad in Indiana so keep her and her family in your prayers.

Thank you for praying for the team and being a part of this amazing trip!

HEADING HOME

As many of you know Gary suffered a heart attack while in Germany. He had and angiogram and a stint was put in early this morning. He is doing well and is at a great medical facility. Dr. Lobdell is staying behind with Gary and we hope they we head home on Tuesday next week. The rest of the team has begun their journey back to Frankfurt and then on a plane to arrive home Friday afternoon.

Pray for them as they travel. I can't thank the team enough for the care they gave to Gary and for making this trip an amazing experience for everyone involved. Thank you to Keith Gandy the missionary they were with in Germany for helping Gary make it through this terrible ordeal. For Dr. Lobdell, Savanna and Pastor Eddie for staying with Gary at the hospital and keeping me updated every couple of hours. It was a horrible helpless feeling to be so far away.

There were people praying for Gary literally all over the world. There is no way to say thank you for everyone who prayed for him and for us. Our High Street Family is an awesome and the love and support they have shown to our family during this ordeal has been amazing. God is Good.

Thank you for following this trip! Come to High Street this Sunday, Feb. 7th at 8:30am or 11:00am to hear more about how God used our team on this mission trip.

Lisa

TOURING AUSTRIA

Here are a few explanations for the above photos:

Dachau Concentration Camp

Baptisten Gemeinde, Aschaffenburg, Germany

House behind we are staying

Autobahn sign

Frankurt and Aschaffenburg our main places to be

Hard to drive fast on the autobahn with weather like this

Nurnberg is where Hitler trials were held

Letters in entry gate mean " work makes free".

Locker & table they beat them on

A NOTE FROM PASTOR EDDIE

Yesterday we made it to Germany. We were met at the airport by Keith Gandy who has worked here as a missionary for 27 years. We asked how he had come to realize this was where God wanted him so he told us his story. As a teenager he graduated early from high school and began working. In spite of the fact that he grew up in a Christian home he did not follow Jesus with conviction or passion. Then one day while working at a Jack in the Box fast food restaurant he offered to take a fellow worker home because it was so late. She refused his help and said she would make it on her on. That night she was taken abused and left for dead. He described how that so shook him up he was compelled to decide to follow Christ “really” or not. He chose to follow Christ and to totally surrender to Him. God during this time put Germany on his heart in a very unexplainable but real way and that is how the story began. It is still in progress.

We left the airport in the snow and drove to Mainz where Gutenberg was the first in Western Europe to develop a printing press. In a lot of ways he changed the world by bringing in the era of the printed book. This impacted every area of learning, history and communication. One of his most famous printing successes is the Gutenberg Bible. There is a copy on display and it along with a few other rare books are in a special vault. The Bible is still the best selling book in the world today and throughout history since it was first printed. Looking through the museum I grew to have a renewed appreciation for the fact that I can carry around a Bible and read it anytime. I bought a reproduction of John chapter 1 printed on one of their working Gutenberg presses. Come see me and I will show it to you.

From there we went to Frankfurt and walked around downtown in the snow/rain and wind. It was painfully cold walk through the downtown area but it was very cool (no pun intended) and memorable.

Next we met with some people from the church for dinner at the church where the men are also staying. It was a great time to get to know people and hear their stories. One young lady shared that she is a teacher in a public school teaching religion. She described how she feels very much like God has placed her there for His purpose. Already she has formed a student club and these young students have grown to have a vision to start small groups in order to reach out to their unbelieving classmates. Another couple I met told me how when they were both baptized that their family did not understand what they were doing. She had as a teenager been invited by a friend to a youth group meeting. She said that she was moved by the joy that those in the group had. At first she to just be with the group. Later she began to understand the gospel and accepted Christ. Her husband described how a friend at work pestered him until he went to church and over time accepted Christ. He said that after he accepted Christ he was amazed at how the Bible came alive as he read. In his words “It is a living book.”

The church here has a wonderful facility and can seat somewhere around 250 in their main meeting room where it is standing room only on Sundays. They have to overflow the crowd into the next area, which is the coffee shop with a video feed of the service. It was so great to be with people who have the same heart for God and to reach people with the gospel.

Our mission is to LOVE GOD, SERVE PEOPLE AND REACH THE WORLD. There is something very strengthening about visiting people across the world that has the same heart and mission.

I look forward to being back home next Sunday. We will begin a study in the book of James. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be just a nominal Christian. I want everything Christ has for me. I want His truth to show up in my life in practical ways. This year my prayer is that the work of Christ will change who I am and keep me growing as a person. I invite you to join our study on James. Here are some famous themes from James.

· Don’t just be a hearer of the word, be a doer.

· You say you believe in God, so do the demons, so what?

· If you want wisdom, ask for it.

· Control your tongue.

· And this week – “no pain, no gain”.

Our city needs us to be “real Christians”, our study in James will teach us how. We have a few more days in Germany and then back to the States. See you Sunday.

Pastor Eddie

TOURING GERMANY

The 1st collage of pictures is of downtown Frankfurt, Germany. Two things we've never seen, two story Apple store and Chiquita banana store. Mercedes taxi's (only in germany) and a group from missionary Keith Gandy's church in Aschaffenburg, Germany that we had dinner with and great fellowship with our first night here.

The 2nd collage is our tour of the Gutenberg Museum. The Gutenberg Bible (also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42) was one of the first books printed in Europe. It was printed by Johannes Gutenberg, in Mainz, Germany in the 1450s. Although it was not Gutenberg's first work, it was his major achievement, and has iconic status in the West as the book that marks the start of the "Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of the printed book.

The 3rd collage of pictures is of The Mainzen Dom, what it is called, but it is a large catholic church in the town of Mainz.

The 4th collage of pictures: drawing of church on marble in the courtyard, statue on Gutenberg museum, buildings in the square by the church, statue in the courtyard, where we ate our first German meal today, adecco building (for CT), airport, top of train station which Oskar Schindler (Schindler's List) lived next to at one time.

We will be traveling to Austria on Wednesday to tour the Dachu Concentration Camp and drive on the Autobahn! Hope to have more pictures up soon.

Gary for the India/Germany Team

TOURING THE TAJ MAHALtop

Monkey's hanging around the Taj Mahal

Team with their Host

Red Fort

My Chinese Friends Pastor Eddie and I met

Balcony where the King could see the Taj Mahal while he was a prisoner, by his own son

Taj Mahal

Mosque

Top of the Taj Mahal

King and Queen's tombs

Large wall and mote around the Red Fort

Boy with a Cobra

Governor's tomb

Supreme Court building