Europe really likes their bread and enjoys serving it at every meal, so once again breakfast consisted of bread (it is too good to pass up) and fresh fruit!
Today was full of adventure and being a tourist. We started off at the Berlin Dome where we had an ecumenical worship service primarily in German. This time the sermon was written on a piece of paper instead of translated as she was speaking. Mieke Bethke spoke to us this morning about the importance of one person doing something. Our world today has information at their figure tips through the internet, we are able to know updates in a matter of refreshing the page. But Bethke wanted to step back and see “In what kind of society do we want to live?” Very simply she challenged us to lead a change in our personal community to help those in need. If everyone where to help their own communities and show the impact of change, the world will begin to see the change. Following the sermon we had spiritual stations that consisted of personal blessings from the Bishops who are here, praying for others, thanksgiving, liturgical song, and image-focused meditation. These were really cool to experience as one body, coming from different backgrounds and struggles, to pray.
Up next our first Berlin Excursion! My excursion consisted of going to see part of the Berlin Wall that is still up. This section of the wall is now an official gallery where there are many paintings on the wall. Each of the individual paintings expressed the impact of the wall. It was redone in 2009, with each image filled with history. After the wall we headed to a street with shops, cafes, and markets. Where we did a little bit of shopping and looking at the different foods and styles Berlin has to serve.
For dinner tonight our excursion group went to Evanfelisch-methodistische Kirche, the second United Methodist Church in Berlin. It was really neat to see the connectional aspect of the United Methodist Church in another way here. They survived us a couple different salads and other German food homemade for us. Following dinner we had a devotion/ evening prayer with the church members that were there. “Danke Gott, dass du uns Einheit schenkst” means Thank God for giving us unity. They taught us this in German reminding us once again the importance of unity in the church and our connectional ministry we have that is so powerful.
Once everything was officially over for the night myself and a couple others decided we wanted to be tourist a bit longer and found our way to souvenir shops, walked past the Television Tower (tallest building in Berlin), and made our way to the Brandenburg Gate.
So today was a full day of relaxing and seeing the city of Berlin. Tomorrow we have excursions once again but we have some business of legislation in the morning. The trip has been amazing so far but I still ask for continued prayers as we move into legislation and traveling around the city.
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