Letter from Elsa - February 22, 2008
posted in Missions, Europe |Dear Friends,
Thank you so much for your continued prayers. Being in the States with my daughter Diana and her lovely family in January did me a world of good. Imagine, three weeks of being pampered without any responsibilities. It was wonderful. Please allow me my one “Grandma” photo. Since getting home, I have a little more energy, “melt-downs” don’t come as often and my brain seems to be starting to work again, which is certainly a good thing. There is a lot going on here at the moment, but fortunately, I am just helping rather than being responsible for it.
ETM
I know Jim would be happy to know that this ETM Basic Course will be the largest group yet - with 14 participants ranging in age from 24 to 69 from the churches in Bremen, Chemnitz, and Munich in Germany, and Bern, Lucerne and Zurich in Switzerland. A very special thank you to those of you who have helped financially to make this possible. I’m in the process of ordering the books as well as printing the handouts and we will come together for the Intensive Week seminar March 31 - April 4 with missionary Larry Sullivan doing the teaching. Larry, his wife Pam, Stephan Kallus and I will share the mentoring duties during the nine weeks of project work. Please pray for us all in our preparations - especially for Larry.
Directly following the Intensive Week, we (the five of us now coordinating ETM) have invited all the past ETM-ers to join us for an ETM retreat weekend April 4-6 to share what has changed in our lives because of the ETM training and to plan together what future advanced courses would be most beneficial. Hopefully a good number will be able to be there. I’m looking forward to a great week/weekend - which even includes my birthday!
THE BREMEN CHURCH
As you can imagine, I am not the only one in the Bremen church dealing with new challenges and responsibilities. It has also been an insecure time for the men in leading the congregation. To make matters more difficult, one of our regular visitors seemed to see this insecurity as his opportunity to have center stage - debating, accusing, and stirring up discord and factions among the members. Unfortunately, no one felt “in charge” enough to set the necessary boundaries and despite a lot of intensive Bible study and the good seminar held in January, the discord — not just with him but also with each other — grew way out of proportion. Two weeks ago, however, the men of the congregation decided to meet to take stock, stepping back from the dividing issues until they found common ground that they all agreed on, thinking they would then study the other things together from the position of unity. I think they surprised themselves how quickly they found that common ground by using Bible words to state Biblical truths and that the “hot” issues had cooled down as they did so. Last Sunday in the worship, they shared the results of the meeting with the rest of us, and it was as if someone had blown away the tension. That is, only one person was still tense (the visitor) and his tension didn’t spread to anyone else. God is good! This unpleasant situation has truly been a growth opportunity.
CAMPAIGN
For the first time in several years, Lord willing, we are looking forward to having a group of Harding University students visit us for five weeks to offer Europeans the opportunity to practice their English by reading and discussing Bible texts with them. I say Europeans because the people we have met through these campaigns in past years were not just Germans, but also Russian, Turkish, French, Brazilian, Chinese, Polish and several other nationalities as well. MARK ABERCROMBIE will be coordinating this effort, though several of us will be assisting. Please pray that it is a good experience for all and that the students will be able to introduce us to a number of people open to spiritual things.
LIBRARY
ALICIA continues to work diligently to put more order in the chaos of Jim’s library, and has recruited a growing number of helpers. There is still a long row to hoe, but progress is evident and books continue to be checked out and used by the helpers. I, too, keep discovering more and more “treasures” that I had no idea were here, but probably the greatest blessing in it for me is having Alicia here with me so much. She has become “family” and is a great comfort.
MY NEIGHBOR
Saturday afternoon the women of the Bremen church are having a Women’s Coffee with a guest speaker. When I dropped by to invite my neighbor HEATHER (She is Irish.) to come, she had a stack of old Christian Woman Magazines on the table (probably from me from years ago) and said she had started doing the Bible lessons in them. She wanted to know if I would be willing to study the Bible with her! Now we have been friends for about 25 years and trust me, I’ve tried many times to get her interested in spiritual things. I can’t help wondering if this has something to do with Jim’s death. In any case, I praise the Lord and ask your prayers.
PEPPERDINE
Much to my surprise, I have been invited to the PEPPERDINE LECTURES the end of April to report in a class on the challenges of 35 years of mission work. I graduated from Pepperdine and it was the Pepperdine Year-in-Europe program in Heidelberg that first brought me to Germany, so I am very thankful for this incentive to go back for a visit. Hopefully I will get to see some of you there. You will certainly be a part of what I have to say, because the progress of the work in Bremen has been directly proportional to your prayers for it and us. Thank you for your love and faithfulness! Gott mit euch!
Your fellow servant,
Elsa Springer