God restores broken things

When I watched a church service on New year’s day broadcasted from Frauenkirche in Dresden, I got reminded of how God is all about restoring. Let me tell you why. During the bombing In World War 2 Frauenkirche got totally destroyed. It literally looked impossible to rebuild. During the time of the separation of Germany in east and west, nothing was done to the ruins of the church for 40 or 50 years. After Germany was reunited a plan was made to rebuild the church stone by stone. For many years specialists looked through all the stones and started to mark them and display with a computer on how to put them back together. It was a huge and expensive effort. People from all the nations in the world donated to the project so that it could keep going. On the 30^th of October 2005 the impossible happened and the church  was put back into service, just in time for Reformation Day on the 31^st.

When I look at that church it paints a great picture of God and his plan for each person on this planet. God wants to restore everyone. He wants to rebuild us to our original design and get rid of sin and all things in our life that separate us from him and our original design. When you look at the story of Israel in the Old Testament you see how often they messed up, but God still choose to take them back and kept bringing restoration. It would have been easy for God to just destroy them and just start again at Zero, but no out of His love He choose to restore. The same is true for Frauenkirche, it would have been cheaper and easier to just build a new church, but if that would have been done we would have missed out on a reminder of Gods heart of restoration. God believes in us and wants to restore like the story of Frauenkirche and for that He uses each one of us. There are people around us that might exactly need that restoration in there live in order to see hope again. How? Easy: be the man or woman God created you to be and love on them. This can look different for every person. Example: If someone struggles with self-esteem, ask God how he sees them and then encourage them with the things God sees in them.

There are many ways to do this and it takes every single Christian on the planet to get the job done, so start this new year by joining God in restoring people.

Hey our friend

Wow we are already getting into week 3 of 2015. How are you? How are you holding up with your new years resolution? 46% of the new year resolutions are kept till June which is awesome. Lets try this year to get this number up by keeping the ones God gave each one of us for this new year.

We started well into the swing of things. For this new year our goal is to create more online content for the ministry to empower every believer to live the great commission practically. Please pray with us for someone who could help us in creating videos for that. I also start to work on a book that goes along all the other content. All those things are more of a long-term project and might take longer then one year, but pray that they are not put away because of the normal everyday things. Thank you for praying with us.

We also still need more monthly support. Pray about to join our support team. Every YWAM missionary is relying on support for all the expenses they have (ministry as well as personal), since none is paid. Our goal is to be fully funded by January and we had quite a few new people join our team last month. Find more info on how to support us by clicking on this link.  Thank you for considering us.

We wish you a blessed week.

Markus and Jen

Hey our friend

We hope you had a great start into this New Year. We made it back to San Francisco after a  time of joy and grief with family in Germany. Please pray for us for a smooth start with the ministry in 2015. Thank you for standing with us! Please let us know if there is anything we can pray for you!

Accepting one another

Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. Romans 15.7

This verse is the Verse that got picked by the Church in Germany as the verse for 2015. When I started to think about this verse, it made me think of a story I heard years ago. It plays in Russia during a cold winter. A old lady who had a small house heard a knocking at her front door. When she opens it she sees 2 German soldiers. They ask her if they can come in to warm up. She says yes if they would leave there weapons outside. They did and came in. After a while there was another knock. The lady opens the door and outside are 3 Russian soldiers and ask as well if they could come inside. She gave them the same conditions. When they walked in they were quite surprised to see the German soldiers. But then they sat down at the fireplace and warmed themselves up. That evening they ate soup, laughed and cried together and accepted each other. The next morning all of them left to go back out to fight the war. But all of them left with a love and acceptance for the other.

Like in that story we often have a hard time accepting people for who they are. Sometimes it might be cause of a different clothing choice or hairstyle. When we think about the story of the prodigal son we see how the father accepted that son even after he failed big time. He didn’t just accept him, no he embraced loved and blessed him. God wants us not just accepting people but loving them. When we accept people we give them the opportunity to maybe feel accepted for the first time in their life. When we do that we soften and open there heart towards there loving father in heaven who waits for them with open arms.

Let us live this year by this verse and love many people through that into the Kingdom of God.

Have a blessed start into this New Year

Markus and Jen

Hey our friend

We are on our last few days in Germany and will be back in San Francisco soon. It is such a blessing to celebrate Christmas and New year with family. Thank you to grandpa in heaven for getting us tickets to come!!

Please pray for San Francisco and North beach while we are gone since New Years week can be a little bit crazier. Pray for safety for the people of this city.

With the year coming to an end pray about giving a year end donation towards supporting Markus and Jen. Your donation will help us to keep bringing the hope of Jesus to many lonely and isolated people and to train Christians in how to live the great commission daily by reaching their neighbors. Also consider joining our monthly support team. Our goal is to be fully funded by January through monthly giving.  Click on this link then choose monthly giving choose the amount, under ministry Staff support and write under comments Markus and Jen. For one time gifts click one time donation type the amount and on the next site it will give you a point ministry designation, write down Markus and Jen. Thank you for partnering with us in bringing hope to North beach and beyond!

But for me its good to be near God

But for me it is good to be near God. I made the Sovereign Lord my refuge,… Psalm 73.28 NIV

2014 is coming to an end. It was a wonderful year with great moments and challenging moments. In Germany the church picks a verse out of the bible which stands for the year. For 2014 it was the verse at the beginning of this blog. It is so great to see how the Psalm writer knows how important it is to be near to God. And it is true. God is always near to us even if we are not near to him. In all the great moments and in all the challenges we are facing God is with us. When we are near Him we will automatically choose him as a refuge. I want to encourage you to reflect on this verse in the last few days of 2014. Look at your year and remember moments where you were near to God but also look at moments where you were not near. Think about why you were near to him in some of them and why you were not in others. When you did that pray and ask God for ways on how to always draw near to Him. When you do that, it will help you to change your perspective.

Have a great Start into 2015 and remember this year that you are amazing and loved.

Your friends

Markus and Jen

Hey our friend

We hope you had some time to enjoy this Christmas season in all of the busyness of life. Jen and I are able to enjoy our time here in Germany while missing grandpa. Please pray in this Christmas season for people that don’t have a family and maybe invite some of them for Christmas to be part of your family.

We have only 2 weeks left to reach our goal to be fully funded by January. Please consider partnering with us through becoming a monthly financial supporter. You can do that with $25, $50, $100 or any other amount you would like. Click on this link then choose under monthly giving the amount, under ministry Staff support and write under comments Markus and Jen. Thank you for partnering with us in Engaging a city with a loving God

Be a family

This year Jen and I are spending Christmas with our German family. It is such a blessing to celebrate the birth of our Savior with people that knew us our whole life. Christmas is good news. Christ came into this world to reconcile us with the father and open the door for us to come home. I don’t know if you remember the movie home alone but it has a great scene of reconciliation. Kevin talks to an old man in a church and challenges him to call his son and reconcile with him. The man does, and at the end you see him coming over to his sons house and they hug and celebrate Christmas together.

How many people are out there who wish they could come home but there is no Kevin who challenges them to do it. Many have a family but through disagreements they cut of any contact with them, others might have no family to go to. But Christ came to reconcile and we are called to do the same. Let us live the Christmas message by reconciling with people in our family and if needed forgive them for what they did in the past. God wants to bring redemption and hope in this season. Let us bring it to our earthly families like God brought it through Jesus to us.

We wish you a blessed Christmas.

Markus and Jen

Being in a Family

2 weeks ago we wrote about that we are born into a family, this week I want to look at being in a family. When we look at any family we see many needs. It might be the need of listening to someone or just standing with someone in a hard time. It might be to help clean up a mess.

But it is important that each of us uses there giftings inside of their family. If you have a gift of encouragement, it is your job to encourage people. Of course it is not exclusively yours and others can do it as well, but you are the one who is setting the standard. If you are the practical one use the gift to fix things in the house. If you are the one who is good in gardening, take initiative to take care of that area. Of course never use any of your gifting as an excuse, like I encourage so I won’t help with the dishes. The important thing is, that you bring all of who you are in. Never do that out of duty, but do it out of love for all the others.

Ask yourself this week how you bring yourself in to help your family and in which areas you have to grow. And I am not just talking about your biological family, no I am also talking about your family of believers. Think about it and make adjustments as needed.

Hey our friend

This blog reaches you from Germany. It is so good to be with family in this time of grief. Family is just something really special also with Advent beeing around us. A time to look ahead to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Please pray this week for people in North beach as well as your town that are without a family. Pray that God will put them into a family (Psalm 68.6). Also please pray for our Staff who keep running things while we are gone.

During the last weeks we saw $418 more in monthly support come in. We are coming closer to the goal to be fully funded by January. Praise God. Pray about to join our monthly supporter team. You can do that with $25, $50, $100 or any other amount you would like. Click on this link then choose under monthly giving the amount, under ministry Staff support and write under comments Markus and Jen. You can also support us through checks; find more info on how under this link. Thank you for partnering with us in Engaging a city with a loving God.

Your friends

Markus and Jen