For the next few weeks we will have a series on Dreams. Today we start the series with a testimony. Be encouraged and inspired!!
How was your week? We hope fantastic. We are in Germany till the end of July for 2 my brothers weddings and also for my birthday. We will also be sharing at different places during our time. Please keep us and our friends and neighbors in San Francisco in your prayers. Thank you!!
Enjoy the blog series!!
God bless you
Markus and Jen
Community is a very essential thing for each one of us. In this blog I talk about it with the example from the movie breakthrough. Be encouraged!
Happy second June week!! We hope it was a good one for you!! After we got back from PA, we had a wonderful week in SF with the Seniors, the youth and everyone in between. On Saturday we had another meeting with a friend who we help to get involved in his neighborhood and to reach out to that community. God keeps spreading the idea to more and more places and inspires people to take Jesus command to love our neighbor serious. Its exciting!
Jen and I are doing well too!! We got to go on a date together which was awesome!!
We wish you a blessed week and remember both are important to find community and to bring community!
God bless you
Markus and Jen
14 You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Matthew 5.14-16
Recently we drove back to the city after dark. But even it was dark outside through all the lights in the city you could see perfectly. Jesus gives us an example about that that I really love in Matthew 5.14-16. Jesus compares us to a city on a hill that shines light and through that can’t be hidden.
What does he mean with that? He is talking about that we are the ones who let the light of our faith shine through everything we do. People can see in us the love of Jesus through the way we live and how we treat others and also how we share the good news. Our faith should not be a hidden thing, but it should shine all the time. It should shine in our work in our homes in our neighborhoods in our areas of our hobbies and all other areas of our life. When we shine the light of Jesus through us it attracts people and they want to know more. I saw this many times in my life, when I showed people how special they are how much more they were interested in what I had to say. They saw that I genuinely cared about them and saw through that Jesus shine through.
I believe that is true for you too!! I am sure you are bringing hope to people and shine the light of Jesus! I want to encourage you to be intentional this week to do that with people around you!! Let the light of Jesus shine through you to your neighbors at home, at work and maybe in the sport group.
We hope you had an awesome week!! We had a normal week here in San Francisco with dinners small groups, meetups and many other. We also went to a workshop of a group who plants little house churches to learn about their approach on sharing the gospel. It was an encouraging time!! Jen and I also had personally a wonderful week since we had a short vaca for our anniversary which was a lot of fun. We are so thankful that God opened the door for that!
We wish you a wonderful new week and let the light of Jesus shine through you to your neighbors!
God bless you
Markus and Jen
The first blog of 2019 is about a really important topic that can help us to change our relationships and communities. Be blessed.
First of all if you didn’t read the last Blog we want to wish you a blessed and happy new year! We had a wonderful few days with family in Pennsylvania and got back on New years eve to San Francisco to a lot of firework. When we got back we had a few days with friends. Sadly at the end of the week both of us got sick with a cold. pray with us for quick recovery! But we are excited for this new year and all the awesome things God has planned for it. Our prayer for this year is, that more people in our neighborhood and your neighborhood experience His love through you and us and fall in love with Him. Lets love on our neighbors extra in the year 2019!!
Have a blessed week!!
God bless you
Markus and Jen
The more easily you get to wealth, the less good it will do you. Proverbs 20.21 (GNB)
San Francisco and the bay area are a place where many people try to find quick riches. That is not a new thing. Long time ago we had the Gold rush, were people from all over left everything behind to come because they were hoping for an instant gratification and riches. That rush for instant riches stayed in the bay area to this day. People tried it through the .com boom in the late 90s and today through the whole startup world. Yes there were people that made it quickly, but many times with the riches came big problems. People didn’t know how to deal with all the money and spend it on things that were just bad for them. But so often we long for that instant gratification and that easy way of getting to it. But if we miss the process it is often bad for us. Another example is lottery winners. Many of them end up broke and worse off than they were before since they were not ready for the instant gratification.
Lets look at David and his life. David was young when he was promised to be king. But then it took many years of being under the current King, persecuted by the King and living in the land of the enemy. He definitely didn’t have an instant gratification. But in all those years he learned perseverance, grace and many other things that he needed to be a good King. So when he became King he was ready and he was ready to lead well. You see a bad example of that in the story of the prodigal son. He asked his father for his inheritance and he got his instant gratification. But he was not prepared on how to spend the money or how to deal with it, so in a short amount of time he spend it all and all his riches were gone. 2 very different examples but they show the point well. So it is very important to walk out the process whatever we do in life. God wants to teach us something along the way so we are ready when we hit the next level.
Why do we share all this with you? Because it is a very important for loving our neighbor and build deep friendships. When we invest in relationships with our neighbor we don’t get an instant gratification. It takes a long time to get connected and to go deeper with each other. But those long-term friendships are the ones that last and are deep. If you have a friendship with someone for many many years a little disagreement won’t break it.
We want to encourage you in this Christmas season to build lasting and long-term relationships like the one the father wants to have with us. Ones that don’t have instant gratification, but have long-term depth. You will see how much it will bless your life!!!
We hope you had an amazing week! Christmas is approaching fast!! Don’t forget to involve your neighbors into this time!! We had so many Christmas related things going on in the last week and were so blessed through them. We had a neighborhood Christmas party, a ywam fundraiser Christmas party and all our normal weekly things. We also had a baking time to bake some wonderful Christmas treat for our beloved neighbors, and give them a Christmas card. Many have been blessed through it including us. Its so simple but makes such a huge difference and shows that you love people. You can do that too!!!
So don’t forget its not about instant gratification, but its about the process in life and relationships!
Have a blessed week!!
God bless you
Markus and Jen