Tag Archives: Hope

It is well with my soul

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it is well with my soulLast year when we were on our way to Germany to go to the funeral of my grandpa we had to go on a 6 hour drive to LA. On that drive we listened to worship music and the song it is well with my soul just kept coming back on. It really encouraged me and brought me hope during that time. When I looked into the story of the song I was amazed. It was written by a Chicago lawyer after he went through many tragedies. First he lost his son, then he lost most of his wealth in the big Chicago fire and then he sent his wife and daughters to Europe for a vacation on which trip the ship collided and all 4 of his daughters died. On his way over to meet with his grieving wife he wrote this song:

1. When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
when sorrows like sea billows roll;
whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say:

Chorus:
It is well, it is well, with my soul. It is well, with my soul!
It is well, with my soul! It is well, it is well, with my soul!

2. Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
let this blest assurance control, that Christ has regarded
my helpless estate, and hath shed His own blood for my soul.

3. My sin, o, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

4. For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live: if Jordan above me shall roll,
no pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

5. But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
the sky, not the grave, is our goal; O trump of the angel!
O voice of the Lord! Blessèd hope, blessèd rest of my soul!

6. And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
the clouds be rolled back as a scroll. The trump shall resound,
and the Lord shall descend, even so, it is well with my soul.

His life was hit by one tragedy after the other, but in all of that he kept his focus on God. I’m sure he didn’t understand why things happened the way they happened, but he choose to keep believing that his Father in Heaven is good and does not want any bad for him. Ask yourself those questions:

  1. Do you truly believe that God is good even in times of challenge?
  2. If not, what do you think makes you believe it is not true?
  3. Spend time praying and ask God how you can see this truth again in your life!

Hey our friend

We hope you had a wonderful week. My brother and his wife left to go back to Germany. We had a wonderful time with them and look forward to see them again!! I was also meeting with a friend who uses the ministry concept to bring hope to his community. We also shared with one of my old students from Switzerland on how to impact his area with the ministry concept. God is starting to bring in more people who have a heart for their neighbors and community and want to use the concept there. Keep praying that all those starts will be fruitful.

Thank you for your Prayer and financial support. You are such a huge blessing to us. We are still in need of $1440 more monthly support to be fully funded. If you or someone you know would like to join our team in that way click on this link to see how!

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen

Invest in your neighborhood Part 2 Strategy

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strategyWE hope you had some time to look at the different areas in your neighborhood in which help is needed. This week we want to write about on how to be strategic in moving forward in those areas.

  1. Time: This is a really important point to plan a successful strategy. Think about how much time you want to invest each week. Plan realistically and don’t forget the areas that already use time in your planning(Family time, Church, Hobbies, Rest). Also think about how long you would like the project to go 1 year, 5 years etc.
  2. What do you need? In order to have a good strategy you need to realistically asses the things you have and the things you need. As an example, if you start helping out at a project that already exists you don’t need a lot. Or if you start picking up trash in your neighborhood all you need is some gloves and a trash bag. But if you are tackling a bigger thing, you might need more people and resources. Also think about if you can work on this project together with your family. Ok start thinking about what you need!
  3. Come up with a plan! Now you are at a point in which you have planned for resources and time but you haven’t come up with a schedule. To move things forward it is always important to have a plan, since often things that are not planned moved back on the priority list and eventually are forgotten. Write in your calendar the times that you want to do the work. Write down what you plan to do in those times, as an example: Thursday April 30th 5-6pm Prayer time for the new project, 6-8pm Work on the project, pick up trash on Ellis street.
    As more detailed you plan, as more you can make a difference. But really important, planning should always come out of praying. It is really important to get Gods heart and His plan! We often saw how God gave us different strategies then we planned during times of Prayer.

And now it’s time to start! Have a wonderful time coming up with a strategic plan!

Hey our friend

We hope you had a wonderful week. We had an event with a local neighborhood association we are involved with. During the evening the new President was elected and different other board members for various roles. Jen is still part of the board in her role as the social event planner. Please pray that we can keep being a blessing in every part we are involved.

May God give you a strategic week! Remember that you are amazing and loved!!

Markus and Jen

What is the Devil really after? Part 2

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What is the Devil really after? Part 2

Last week I explained with some stories of the bible what the devil is really after. Today I want to look at how it looks like in the modern world.

But let’s start by looking back 200 years. The world was industrialized and instead of families working together on the farm the father goes to work in the factory. Many times he gets home exhausted from the day at work and doesn’t want to really invest into his relationships. That starts breaking down respect in the children for their fathers. They don’t see them most of the time and when they see them they are exhausted and don’t want to spend time with them. But for a child it is important to get affirmation from their father to grow up with a good self-esteem. But how do they get it if Dad has a hard time to be fully there. Now that generation grows up and tries to prove every day that they are good enough. But some do it in a way that it will take them even further away from true relationship. Some People in San Francisco actually live at work and just go home for sleeping. How do you want to have relationship if you never have time? So again the enemy throws a lie into the life of the people that value comes out of what we produce. Look at today’s society, every 2nd marriage ends up in a divorce. Why? It is because the enemy is in the business of trying to destroy relationship. Today we are the most connected in the whole history of mankind, but many people don’t even know anymore to have face to face relationship. It’s easier to put something on Facebook then actually sharing with someone face to face. We start believing that we have so many relationships, but how many of those are real? How many of those people would come to your house if you need some help?

broadwayOne last one: Pornography. When you look at that 14 Billion industry, it tells you something about our society. Sex was created for marriage because of relationship and intimacy we share there. It was created as the closest intimacy we can find. But with more and more people addicted to porn it takes them away from that deep intimate relationship. It gives them something counterfeit and at the end people are feeling worse than before. I read a statistic that 93% of boys and 62% of girls are exposed to porn before they are 18! Many young people are addicted to this lie and it makes them grow up in a way to not understand what true relationship means (if you know people that are trapped in it and want to be free, this website has some great resources and help http://xxxchurch.com/ )

So when we look at sin, we see: the issue with sin is actually not sin in itself, the issue with sin is that it cracks down in relationship and starts to separate and isolate us from our Father and also from other people. We get this feeling of guilt in us and then we are afraid of God and what he will do to us when we tell him what we did. When we are isolated we are an easy target for even more of his lies and eventually for his destruction. The enemy knows that.  He destroyed his relationship with God the day he wanted to become God, and pride took him over. But instead of fixing his relationship by repenting, he chooses to take as many down with him as he can.

I hope you start seeing the picture. Relationship is the key thing that the enemy is after. Let’s all do 3 things.

  1. Let’s pray for our relationships. If we see something in our own relationships with God or people lets pray for restoration. Also let’s do that if we see something in other people’s relationships.
  2. Let’s fix our relationships. If we did something wrong lets repent if someone else did something wrong to us lets forgive. Let’s start restoring relationships.
  3. Let’s be someone who gives relationship. Let’s build relationship to people that live right around us, or people we know that don’t have any true friends. Let’s invite them into our life and into relationship. We will help them by that and destroy the plans of the enemy to isolate them.

Let’s do this together and take as many people away from Satan’s plan and bring them back to a loving father.

Hey our friend

We hope you had a great week and had a chance to think about the last blog and your relationships. We are writing those blogs to encourage and challenge all of us in the body of Christ to grow in our faith and our relationship with Him as well as our neighbor.

During our last week we had many meetings to move things forward in different areas of the ministry. We are moving into a new season with streamlining the ministry to be even more focused and effective as well as moving towards the new name. We meet with a coworker who is working on our web and presentation stuff for the ministry and things are really starting to come together. Keep praying that God gives us time in the process to get things done.

Please also keep us in your prayers since we are teaching in the DTS School this week on the father heart of God. Pray that God will really encourage and challenge the students as well as connect with His father heart in this time.

Thanks for all your Prayers.

Have a blessed week.

Markus and Jen

What is the Enemy really after Part 1

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What is the Devil really after

Question markMany times I got words of encouragement as well as prophetic words from people about the significance of the ministry we are doing and teach to others. One morning I woke up and started to totally understand why. Let me start this week to go through some situations in the bible to explain.

When God created us, He created us for relationship with Him and other people. When the devil came to Adam and Eve and tempted them with the fruit, what was his intend? He wanted Adam and Eve to be removed from the garden, but way more important, he wanted to put a crack into the relationship between them and also between them and God. Then the next one is Cain and Abel. Cain kills Abel cause of jealousy. He was jealous that his brother seemed to have a better relationship with God and instead of working on his, he rather kills his brothers and destroys it. What does Cain say in the moment when God asked him where his brother is, am I my brother’s keeper? Let’s go further to the Tower of Babel. The enemy encourages people to strive for the same as he wanted, to be God. So they build a tower to heaven to show that they are greater than God. They don’t remember that God gave them everything and loves them so much, no but they want to overpower Him and be greater. God stops it and I’m sure he was sad about how he had to do it, he gave each of them a different language, which makes relationship even harder. If you can’t understand each other how can you have a great relationship.

Another example is David. David commits adultery with the wife of one of his soldiers. That day 3 things happen. He breaks the marriage to his wife, as well as the marriage of the soldier. He also brings a crack into the relationship between him and God. David tries now to fix things but his fixing doesn’t work and 2 people have to die, the husband of the woman he slept with and her child that was conceived through that situation. But after the prophet came to him, he repents with all his heart to fix the crack in his relationship with God. I believe that repenting heart was the reason God called him a man after his own heart.

But now let’s go to the new testament. Let’s look at Judas. He was a great friend and disciple of Jesus. He walked with Him during pretty much his whole ministry time on earth. But then the enemy tempted him with money and he accepted and he betrayed Jesus. Of course this created a big crack in their relationship. Later on, in the Apostles ,often the enemy attacks relationship through different theology and that kept going pretty much till today. He uses something that can be good and drives it between us to destroy our relationships. Now these were some examples from different stories in the bible, but I think every story of sin in the bible is going against relationship.

Read the Stories I described on the top and get your own picture of the importance of relationship. With the next Blog I will talk more on how relationships got attacked in the last 200 years and what we can actively do!

Hey our friend

We hope you had a great week. Sadly I (Markus) caught a cold and was sick in bed for a few days. The great thing was that it wasn’t on super busy days! Please pray with us for the work since we are working on a restructuring in one of the areas. Thank you so much for your Prayers.

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen

Alfred Nobel’s (peace price) legacy

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Hey our friend

20141004_165423_Richtone(HDR)We hope you had a wonderful week. Here in San Francisco we are experiencing right now our summer months with temperatures up to 96F which is very unusual for here but we wont complain since we actually really enjoy it! About 6 months ago we started an encouragement group at Café Roma. It is amazing to see how each person that comes is encouraged when they leave. It is a very simple concept but it literally brings hope and courage to people. Start one in your area. Email us to learn more on how to do it.

Please keep praying with us in this season for North Beach San Francisco. Over the last few months we had many car break ins in our neighborhood as well as robberies and other violence. Most of that violence is located on Broadway which holds 8 strip clubs in a very small area, which draws many other problems. Pray for protection over the police while they are doing their job and pray for the people that go into the clubs as well as the women that work there. Pray for Gods peace and love to come to those places. Thank you for praying with us!

Alfred Nobel’s (peace price) legacy

20141004_165257A little while ago  I heard the story of Alfred Nobel, the founder of the nobel prize (see more of his story on Wikipedia). Nobel was the one that invented dynamite. Many years into his life his brother Ludvig died while being in Cannes. But the French newspapers thought Alfred died and wrote this as an obituary: “Le marchand de la mort est mort (“The merchant of death is dead”) Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.”

After Alfred read his own obituary he came to the realization that people would remember him of something he doesn’t want to be remembered for. So he created the Nobel Prize. In his will he left 94% of all his money towards those prices. The most famous one is the Nobel Peace price and that is also the thing Nobel is remembered for.

If a newspaper would write a obituary about you today what would they write about you? But more important what would you like them to write about you? But the most important what would God want them to write about you?

These are good questions to ask when we go on with our everyday life. Ask yourself and then write out a obituary for yourself with all the things you want to be remembered for as well the things God called you for. Read it every morning and live your day focused on that finish.

Remember!!

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen

http://youtu.be/JPOVwKPMG8o

P.s. Any fulltime ministry always comes with a cost. For Jen and me it is the cost of San Francisco. City ministry is expensive, but in the same way really needed since more and more people in the world live in cities. Consider joining our support team. We still have a way to go, but we are praying for that by January next year we are fully funded through committed monthly support. During this year we lost a few monthly supporters, so to reach that goal we need about $2852 more monthly. You can support us with any amount you like since no gift is too small or too big. Click here to find out more on how to do it! Thank you for considering us.