Work & Witness Team 2009
from Hamilton, Ohio (USA)
Wir sind sehr
dankbar, dass wir in der Zeit vom 07. - 16. März 2009 ein Team aus unserer
Kirche in Hamilton, Ohio bei uns haben werden. Dieses Team, unter der
Leitung von Kurt
Johnson, setzt sich aus Männern und Frauen zusammen, die eigens
für diesen Einsatz Urlaub nehmen, Geld für Materialien aufgebracht haben und
handwerklich zum Einsatz kommen wollen.
We are grateful
to have a Work & Witness Team from the Church of the Nazarene in
Hamilton, Ohio with us. They will stay in Gelnhausen from March 7 to March 16. The members
of the team (which is managed by Kurt Johnson) spend their holidays and money to
help us with the work on the new kitchen rooms.
Geplante Arbeiten
Planned Work
Das Work &
Witness Team wird uns helfen, mit dem Bau der neuen Küchen-Räumlichkeiten im
Erdgeschoss voranzukommen. Dabei sollen z.B. neue Wände gezogen werden, um Räume
für bestimmte Aufgaben zu schaffen (Anreiche, Küche, Lagerraum, Spülküche). Die
geplante Aufteilung der Räume ist in nachstehender PDF-Datei gezeigt:
Raumplanung
Küche (deutsch, PDF)
The team will
help us with preparing the new kitchen-rooms in the ground floor - e.g. building
up walls to divide it into separate rooms (kitchen, stockroom, scullery,... ).
The following PDF-file shows the planned rooms and walls:
Planned
kitchen rooms (english, PDF)
Zeitplanung
Time Schedule
Neben der
Arbeit im Erdgeschoss unseres Gemeindezentrums stehen natürlich auch kulturelle Dinge auf dem Programm, wie z.B.
Abendessen bei deutschen Familien aus der
Gemeinde, Sightseeing in Gelnhausen, ein Ausflug nach Frankfurt und ein Ausflug
zur Ronneburg.
Beside the work
in the church building, there are other "activities" like Dinner with german
families from church, sight seeing in Gelnhausen, a trip to Frankfurt and to a
castle. The
whole time schedule can be found here:
Time
Schedule (english, PDF)
Tagebuch
Diary
Um ihre
Heimatgemeinde über die Erlebnisse in Deutschland auf dem Laufenden zu halten,
kann das Team hier ein Tagebuch führen.
To keep the
families and church in Hamilton informed about the experiences in Germany, the
Team will write a diary or working journal here.
Sunday (March 8) - Church service and first impressions from Gelnhausen
The Work & Witness Team was introduced in our service on their second day in
Germany.
In the afternoon the team did a guided tour through Gelnhausen. Here are some pictures:
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| Historical upper market place ("Obermarkt") and fair. |
"Petersiliengasse" in the old part of Gelnhausen. |
Old tower called "Halbmond" ( = half moon). |
Monday (March 9) - Starting the work
Monday was the first working day for the team. The following panorama picture
shows the prospective kitchen rooms before the team began to work:
(Click to enlarge!)
The next pictures show a
part of the fellowship hall (which was prepared to not get dirty from the work
in the nearby kitchen rooms) and also the prospective kitchen rooms itself before
and after the team started the work.
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| Fellowship hall next to the kitchen rooms. |
Door frame and aluminium profiles for building
a "new room". |
A part of the kitchen rooms before... |
...and after the team attached some new wall
segments. |
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| Tools and wall segments (green dry walls on the right) in the fellowship hall. |
Building a new "wall" with an aluminium profile
system in another room. |
Tuesday (March 10) - The team at work & greetings
First of all we want to show you again some pictures from the work in progress - this time also showing the members of the team:
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There are also some greetings and thoughts which the team wants to share...
Joseph - "Donna, Ashley, Aaron, and Jordan: I miss you all. We are having
fun."
Darlene - "Hello my precious family, God is awesome in Germany. Miss you
all."
Pastor Dan - "Hi to all! We are enjoying the work of the Lord here in
Gelnhausen. We miss you, wish you were here."
Greg - "Hi everybody! We are having a great time and are accomplishing
much. Had a great church service with the congregation on Sunday and great time
of fellowship having dinner with church members. They are so appreciative, and
although you can't always understand them, you can see the love of Christ in
them. See you soon."
Kurt & Melissa - "This is a great work and witness. I am really enjoying
getting to know some others from the congregation who I knew in passing.
Everyone is working and enjoying the fellowship of the group and the
congregation. They have been wonderful as they open their houses and arms to us.
On a separate note, I wanted to share that my brother Jerry, who many of you
have been praying for, passed away today. I am making arrangements to leave the
day after we get home for the funeral."
Wednesday (March 11) - Wednesday Thoughts
Kurt & Melissa Johnson - This has been another great day. Last night
Melissa and I were hosted by Manfred and Edeltraud Dannewitz. These are old
friends from when I lived in Germany and who were one of the founding families
of the Gelnhausen church, and have now helped plant the Waechtersbach church. We
will be worshipping and eating with the Waechtersbach church on Saturday and
look forward to another great worship time.
Each day is hard work with wonderful lunches made by our cooks. Darlene has
mastered the art of German grocery stores and walks down to get us more snacks,
drinks and whatever else we need. Late in the afternoon we walk back to the
hotel, get cleaned up and ready for the evening. We have been treated to dinner
at church member's houses in small groups of 2 to 4. These have been memorable
evenings in everyone's houses and have been treated to great food every night.
No one is losing weight!
Tonight is dinner at the church with Sauerkraut and Pork ribmeat, a German
specialty. We then get to enjoy the wednesday night service.
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Hi, this is Debbie Johnson, we (Larry & I) are having a great time here in Germany. The people here are the nicest bunch, we have spent the evening in several of the families homes for dinner. They have gone out of their way to make all of us feel at home. I have enjoyed the German food, it is not too different from our own, their sausages are the best!
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Hello all, I will have to make this fast, I am hard at work, don't have time to
linger here at the computer. Today I am painting. Last night Darlene and I
had supper with a wonderful family who fixed us a great Italian meal, so much
for German food. All the family members (the Paul family) played instruments, so
we sat around after supper and entertained each other. One young boy, age 12,
played the piano, his name was Amilka, so we nick named him Milky, he loved it.
Darlene and I just finished lunch, must get back to work. Thanks to each one who
wrote us sweet notes, we get them each morning at breakfast, they are
encouraging. Someone please send our kids and grandkids (and spouses) our love.
Tell them, we said >No sun, no fun, send mon.< Just kidding.
On a more serious note, please have the church pray for Kurt Johnson and his
parents. Kurt's brother, Jerry passed away yesterday from a long illness, and
the funeral will be held over until next week so that Kurt can attend when he
returns from Germany. God is faithful. We are having a wonderful, life-changing
time here, but look forward to coming home as always. You are loved!
Pastor Dan.
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Darlene... What can I say about this trip? Well, an experience of a lifetime. What a blessing to be with some of God's finest people. Everyone is working very hard and doing excellent work. Have a wonderful time in prayer this evening and pray for us and the comfort of the Johnson family in the loss of Jerry Johnson. We miss you and love you dearly. Much love to our children, and Ki Ki and Sidy.
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Hey! So this trip has been amazing! Germany is so different from America, they
have good food, nice people, and they are (so far) great cooks! I must admit
though that I do miss you all back in the states, especially you, Emmy. I can't
wait to get back and talk to you face to face instead of over the skype phone!
But I suppose I'll live. The church here is really nice, and no matter how small
you think it looks on the outside, it's huge inside. It's really really nice too!
Everything is state-of-the-art and I wish that you all could see it. Well that's
about all I have to say today I guess I'll go into more detail about it when I
get home because I know for a fact that I will have a lot more to say.
See ya'll when I get home!
This has been a broadcast of your emergency Neal system.
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Todd Goodwin – Hi all! We're having a great time over here. The people are great and we're staying in an 850 year old town. All of us are feeling pretty medieval right now (another word for old and tired). As always, when you get the chance to do this, you find that God's people are fantastic wherever you go. Also, we always get much more than we're giving! Looking forward to seeing you all next week. Have a great week in your warm weather! It's not that warm here (about 45 degrees each day). Going out to sightsee tomorrow in Frankfurt. Emmy, I'll make sure Neal gets you something good!
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We also have some pictures from Wednesday:
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Thursday (March 12) - A trip to Frankfurt
Kurt & Melissa:
"Late last night after the Wednesday night prayer meeting, four of our group
(Joe, Kenny, Tom and Neal) all decided to go back to work. They worked from 9:30
until 1:00 putting in another half a day (see pictures below). They still showed
up on time to breakfast, even after being out really late.
Today was an off day for most of us. Melissa stayed at the hotel and wrote
papers and studied for tests next week. The rest of us had a great day out.
We started with the train to Frankfurt. From there I found this new restaurant
which was just what the doctor ordered for Pastor Dan.
Called McDonalds. He was right at home.
We then boarded the subway and rode out to the suburbs close to the
Frankfurt
Hügelstrasse church. This was the first church of the Nazarene in Germany. We
walked through one of the old American housing communities. This one held
10-20,000 Americans up until about 1993.
There were approximately 100,000 Americans in Frankfurt alone at the height of
the cold war.
We made our way to the church and had a great tour by the current pastor, Cris
Zimmermann. He pastors the church with his father, and is the third generation
of his family to pastor this church.
We then went to a family friend who owns an antique book and map gallery. He
showed us beautiful maps and drawings from the 15th through 18th century of
Frankfurt. This culminated with a first edition 1740 illustrated travel guide to
Frankfurt.
We travlled downtown by subway and spent about two hours shopping in the
bustling shops of Frankfurt. It is a huge downtown and very busy. it reminds me
of Manhattan. Shopping was ended with dinner at the roof-top restaurant of a
department store.
We finished the day out with the S-Bahn to the train station and then took the
train back to Gelnhausen to relax after our day out."
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As described above, some of the team kept working in the night after the prayer meeting. On Thursday (while the team had a day off) there were also craftsman who did professional water installations. The results are shown in the next pictures.
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Friday (March 13) - The last full day at work
First we have an article from our project coordinator Peer:
"Dear Work & Witness Team,
you are great! Our week together with you is so inspiring. Our building provides
lots of opportunities for our church, but setting it in use has often been quite
demanding. So it is a great encouragement for all of us to have your team come
over to Germany and invest so much of your time, money and energy in this
project. We appreciate that exceedingly! You work with much commitment, swiftly
and accurately; and with joyful eagerness you've got so much done during this
week and pushed the whole project forward. You show so much love and dedication
that you even put in a night shift.
Thank you very much indeed. Not only for your work, but also for your witness.
It is a wonderful experience to have fellowship with you. You come from so far
away and yet we feel so close as we are one family in the Lord."
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Friday Thoughts:
Pastor Dan: "Hello everyone, its Friday, and we are working very hard and
fast to get as much of the project finished as possible. The kitchen is taking
shape, the team has done a wonderful job. Yesterday, we took time to visit the
church in Frankfurt that Kurt's father started and pastored. We also toured the
city of Frankfurt, it was a tremendous experience. I received word that Inis
Goforth's brother passed away yesterday, and we had special prayer for her this
morning at breakfast. I just finished talking with her by phone just now. Larry
Johnson is calling for me, so I'll have to run now. No rest for the weary!
Love you all, see you on Sunday if all goes well!"
Pastor Dan
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Kurt & Melissa: "This was a great final day. The sun is shining and work is moving. All of the team is working very hard. They are fantastic and a joy to be with. We are almost finished with the walls and are planning on some coming back early tomorrow to finish up. The church's cleaning crew is arriving at 8:00 so we need to show up earlier."
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Pastor Dan, Darlene and Melissa will travel home tomorrow – pray for them. Also pray for Tom Lindsey as he has a cold and is heading back to the hotel to recuperate.
Saturday (March 14) - Working results and sight seeing
On Saturday the team did some work in the early morning to get finished. So here you can see the last pictures from the construction site and a description of what the rooms will be used for in the future:
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| View on the entrance from inside the new kitchen. |
Entrance to the kitchen rooms (left) and floor to the side exit of the building. |
New wall segments in the floor and side exit to the parking lot. |
Stockroom. |
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Scullery. |
New room for a current distribution board in another part of the building. |
Here you can see two panorama pictures to show the results of the whole work:
(Click on the images to enlarge them!)
The kitchen rooms before the team started to work...
...and after they were finished.
The rest of the Saturday was free and the team visited an old castle called
"Ronneburg":
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Restaurant in the castle where they had lunch:
http://www.restaurant-ronneburg.de/
Ronneburg website:
http://www.burg-ronneburg.de/
In the evening the team joined the service in the Church of the Nazarene in
Wächtersbach:
http://waechtersbach.nazarener.de/
Sunday (March 15) - Saying goodbye
The team said goobye in the service and got some little gifts to bring home. We wish them a good journey home and are thankful for what they did for us!
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Now we still have some website-links about Gelnhausen for you:
Official website (english)
History of Gelnhausen (german)
nach oben / go up
Seite drucken / print page