We thank you for your interest
and engagement in our work here in Berlin!
The decision is made – we thank God that He heard our prayers, and your
prayers, and has given us clarity about our next steps. Our work of sowing the
Gospel here in Hohen Neuendorf has come to an end! We are now fully involved in
the work with the Vietnamese and plan to move to the south-east side of Berlin. I have been
called to the position of “teaching pastor“of the Vietnamese Church;
Hue Nhat (Joshua) is the main pastor, the evangelist and shepherd. We feel very
blessed to be working together as a team within “Team Berlin” of DIM.
Home Bible Study
Berlin and beyond. There are around 30,000 Vietnamese
in Berlin, including
an estimated 20,000 illegally here. Our goal extends
much further than Berlin.
We want to reach out to the Vietnamese living in the relatively near-by cities
of Frankfurt on Oder, Potsdam and Cottbus and plant
cell-group churches of mature Christians. This is our goal:
Maturity and self-sufficiency
of the believers
Support of further church
plants and training of Vietnamese as church leaders and planters both here
and in Vietnam
Around
200,000 Vietnamese live in Germany.
This is a huge mission field! 100,000 are so-called “boat people” and their
descendants who, after the Communist conquest of South
Vietnam,
escaped by boat over the South
China Sea. The other 100,000 come from Communist Vietnam and this
is the very special group of people with which we have begun our work.
Unfortunately, these two groups feel contempt for – actually hate – each other.
(Even the Christians in each group want to have nothing to do with each other.)
However, we dare to dream: perhaps it is possible to reach all of Germany’s
Vietnamese and unify them under Christ! First of all, it would be wonderful to
reach all the poor, lost “illegals” with the Gospel before they are caught and
sent back to Vietnam!
Think of Dinh who travelled illegally to Germany,
came to belief, turned herself in, was returned to Vietnam and under threat of death
has led dozens of people to belief. All of this has led to the creation to a
church planting movement in Vietnam.
This is the “fruit” which we want more of! Please pray!
Home Bible Study
Vietnamese Church: Great joy: Six Vietnamese were baptised Easter Sunday! Great sadness: Our small Vietnamese Church
group has recently experienced a division and now consists of 16 adults and
older teens, plus a number of children. An influential brother whose bossiness
and hunger for power led him to chose to finally leave the church. He was being
used by the Vietnamese Secret Police which attempts to destroy churches led by
pastors not chosen by the Communist leaders. This man took his family, some
other adults and their children with him. For the sake of the Lord, and this
man’s wife and children (12 and 18 years old), I go to his house for Bible
teaching on Friday evenings; please pray. I meet with the adults remaining in
the church weekly in four different home Bible studies. Additionally, I will
soon begin discipleship training for the older teenagers.
Joshua: He has begun his 9 week speaking tour in the US and Canada. Please pray for him;
including prayer that he will be able to build up a support group even though
the Vietnamese there are “Boat People” who want nothing to do with the
Vietnamese coming out of Communist Vietnam…
Barbara: Besides doing Sunday School class, she has found a good, practical way to help
and, in this way, to promote the Gospel: she offers Vietnamese teenagers, and others,
free help with English. All students here inGermany learn English as their
first foreign language.
Thanks for:
God’s mercy with us
Clarity of our “path”
Conversions
Baptisms
Brotherly, practical help – for
example, extremely low-priced printer cartridges
Support in prayer and
financially
Our children
Prayer Requests:
An inviting apartment south of Berlin
Progress in learning Vietnamese
Openness to the Gospel in the
Vietnamese population
Conversions and stabilization
of mission work in Berlin
Expansion of the mission field
Dinh in Vietnam
Toan in Berlin
Increased contributions to DIM in
support of our mission work
Your
thankful missionaries,
Albrecht
and Barbara
PS: Are we
worshiping a “left-over” God? Isaiah 44:12-17: “The blacksmith with the tongs
works one (an image) in the coals, fashions it with hammers, and works it with
the strength of his arms. Even so, he is hungry, and his strength fails, he
drinks no water and is faint. The craftsman stretches out his rule, he marks
one out with chalk; he fashions it with a plane, he marks it out with the
compass, and makes it like the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a
man, that it may remain in the house. He
cuts down cedars for himself, and takes the cypress and the oak; he secures it
for himself among the trees of the forest. He plants a pine, and the rain
nourishes it. Then it shall be for a man to burn, for he will take some of it
and warm himself; Yes, he kindles it and bakes bread; indeed he makes a god and
worships it; He makes it a carved image, and falls down to it. He burns half of
it in the fire; with this half he eats meat; he roasts a roast, and is
satisfied. He even warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm, I have seen the
fire.” And the rest of it he makes into a god, his carved image. He falls down
before it and worships it, prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my
god!”
Here Isaiah
is mocking the Gentiles who make gods for themselves from their “left- overs.” This
is naturally a very grievous action which will bring judgement. Apart from the
truth that even as Christians we tend to create our own gods – because this is
a tendency of the human mind – we also tend to give to God our “left-overs.” Most
non-Christian Vietnamese have their little alters where they offer food
sacrifices to ancestor and/or other spirits. They offer little dabs of food; it
doesn’t hurt them to do so. How is it with us Christians? Do we also only give
to God what doesn’t hurt to give away? Let’s pray to God that we are willing to
adopt a life-style in accordance with Romans 12:1.
If the Lord should lead you to
support His work in the Berlin
area:
UK: Stewardship
Ministries, Oakwood House, Oakwood Hill Industrial Estate, Loughton, Essex, IG103TZ. Please include our account number at
Stewardship Ministries: 83072, Schmidt
USA and Canada: Northside
Christian Fellowship, 4400 Colburn-Culver Road, PO Box 772 Sandpoint, ID 83864
USA ; for work Schmidt
