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December 2009

A Trip Back

William and Kathleen were invited back to Dresden for the 50th birthday celebration of a good friend. Turning 50 is a really big thing in Germany! This friend reserved a hotel for the evening and rooms for the night for those that needed a place to stay. We were able to see several old friends, two of these were Sven and Andrea. We had given them a Bible before we moved to Darmstadt. As Sven saw us, the first thing he said “I have read the Bible through 3 times since I last saw you. He still has many questions we are working on with him. Of course the 500km (310 miles) is a great hinderance in that area, but we continue to witness and pray for them. We are also praying for the birthday boy, Uwe. He is now 50 years old and continues to search for someone/something to fill the void in his life.
Our boys – Willi, Stefan and Phillip led the services in Darmstadt, with some from the church helping with set up and transportation on November 8th. Stefan (19) preached his first sermon and it was even in English! Everyone was blessed by the message. You can listen to it for yourself at our website. German has been Stefan’s first language for the last 17 years.

Friend Day
November 15th, we celebrated Friend Day with a contest: 1st place - Nice Dinner with the pastor and his wife and a Study Bible, 2nd place - Study Bible, 3rd place - Gift certificate from Starbucks.
One University student, Yvonne (25), brought 11 visitors. Kevin (21) and his mother, Christine brought 7 visitors. We had 3 tie for 3rd place! All together we had 24 first time Visitors on one day with a high attendance of 62!!! This makes over 120 visitors this year!


Christmas Day Service
Germans typically celebrate Christmas on the evening of the 24th, but many have to work until 4pm. Therefore, we chose to hold our services on the 25th (the 1st day of Christmas) at 10:30 am. We had English/German services with William preaching and our son, Stefan translating into German. 40 attended the services that day with 4 first-time visitors!

Thank you so much for all your prayers and financial support to support the Lord’s work here in Darmstadt! Please pray that many churches will have the ability to raise our monthly support or to start supporting us financially.

Serving Together,

William and Kathleen Busch

Tags: Trip, Friend Day, Christmas