Back home in Germany we celebrate the 4 Sundays before Christmas, called Advent, by burning a candle for each Sunday on the Advent wreath and by preparing our hearts for Christmas and the good news that came with it. Each of the candle symbolizes something different and we will write about the meanings for the next 4 weeks.

The second candle on the Advent wreath is also called the Bethlehem Candle or the Candle of Preparation. The time before Jesus was born was a preparation time for His family. They had to get ready to go to Bethlehem while being pregnant. If you think about the preparation it takes to go on a journey today, imagine that 2000 years ago without cars, busses planes etc. Traveling was a hard thing in that time so you had to be prepared for everything since you couldn’t just pick up things you forgot easily.

What about us and our journey with God? Advent is a time of preparation for our personal journey with him. Getting ready for Christmas doesn’t just mean to get all the gifts, bake all the cookies and clean the house. No preparation also means preparing our hearts. How do we do that? We do it by spending time with Him. It could be by meditating on scriptures from the bible, praying, spending time in silence in His presence or any other things that you do to spend time with Him. When our heart, mind, soul and spirit focus is on Him Christmas will be a different celebration. All the things we normally do at that time become secondary and the true reason why we celebrate Christmas is becoming the number one.

We want to encourage you this week to get ready for Christmas by preparing during your times with him.  Start reading the bible stories that lead up to Christmas. If you have the chance share the special things you got out of those times with a friend or maybe also people that don’t know Jesus yet.

Hey our friend

Wow this week was a whirlwind. I Markus was speaking at a Christian business man meeting which was a great time. Thank you God! Then we had a game night and a brunch at our house as well we celebrated early Christmas with our YWAM Bay area Family. It was a week of Christmas celebration and speaking. It also always opens the door for great conversations about our love for Jesus. Use this time to do that!!

Also we want to say thank you to all who support us in our work here through Prayer and finances! You are a huge blessing to us! May god bless you richly!

We have a request for you! To do the work we are doing we depend 100% on support. Over the last few months we lost about $287 in monthly support through changes of circumstances in people’s lives. So at this point we need about $1410 more in monthly support to be fully funded and about $8.950 more to reach our full budget for this year. We want to ask for your help in sharing with people you know that have a heart for missions and would be interested in joining our support team monthly or with a year end donation. Of course if you are not a part of it you are welcome to join as well! When you click on this link you find out more how to do that. All donations are tax deductible. Thank you for all your help in this area.

Spend every day this week some time with Him to prepare for Christmas.

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen