Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving and is the first time I have ever celebrated either Thanksgiving or Christmas without one of our families in America. It does not feel like a real holiday because everything is open and there are no parades and no football game to digest food to. On our way to Berlin Julia told the flight attendant that we are going to Berlin to “ wir essen und danken”, we both looked at her as it sounded weird in German to say “we eat and thank”. These are the times I think we go through “missionary growing pains” when we have to be without family for this special time of eating and going around the table to say things we are thankful for, which in the Rudolph home ends with people in tears and hugging. It is a true blessing to be able to have other friends to celebrate with though in Berlin, as you are all pursing the same goal, to bring the nations to worship God through Jesus Christ. It has already been a joy to spend a little time in Berlin with Kristi, who we are able to share and exchange funny stories about our time in Germany. We were also able to sympathize with each other after going to the grocery store and laughing about the frustrations we have there, as you must race against the clerk to put away all your groceries into your bag before she is done so you do not hold up the line and get dirty looks from the Germans. There is not the same feeling of Thanksgiving here as it does in the states, but there is a feeling of friendship and our thankfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ, who I do not thank enough for the grace He bestows upon us abundantly through the Gospel.

What are Germans like?

So many people have asked me what is missions in Germany like...so I made a video about Germany


My pastor is guy driving the truck at the end...He looooves his schnitzel

are you listening?

On Wednesday night we watched a film that was made in Germany called “Jesus Liebt Dich”. It was filmed by unbelievers about Christians coming to Germany during the 2006 world cup to witness to people. The people coming on the missions trip let these filmmakers follow them from before they went all the way until they left Germany. I laughed in amazement in the movie when they share the Gospel with others they don’t listen to the people they are trying to tell about Christ, nor do they really share the Gospel. Time and time again in this film they seemed to have little concern about what the people had to say, but insisted to pile “christianeze” on them. That night I laid in bed and thought about when I share the Gospel do I really know what I am saying and do I listen to the people’s questions. I know to the world the Gospel is foolish, but we need to be able to share it understandably. I also thought how many times we add religion into it instead of just the Gospel. I have prayed for opportunities to really share it and today I able to. I was talking with 3 of my co-workers on a break when the topic of religion came up. It was my turn and they asked me what my religion was. I shared what the difference was between religion and a relationship with Jesus Christ is, and shared scripture and the Gospel with them. We had a great discussion for 30 minutes if not longer. At the end of the day one co-worker talked to me more about it and I told them to read the book of John and I would bring them some good sermons too. I thank God for his Gospel and letting it be by grace through faith in Christ and not in myself or anything I can do. Here is a clip of the movie on youtube, I would recommend you buy this dvd, it is very interesting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLIABeXhB84&feature=related

only hope

What would I do without a living hope? Today when I was at work getting hit in the face with a basketball and restraining kids from killing each other, I wondered how aimless and hopeless my life would be without an infinite living hope in Christ. I have to continually check my heart about what it is I am living for. If we make our hope a finite object it will sooner or later bring no joy and disappoint us, like a new car, a relationship, vocational success, a vacation that is around the corner, money and ect. As a Christian, I would agree with that factually, and say Amen in a sermon, but do I really believe that? It’s easy to voice agreement, but our actions will lead us to what we really believe. My flesh wants to stay away from any sort of suffering and bail out when it seems unbearable. The beauty of the Christian life is that our suffering, sorrow, and tribulations drive us into our hope and bring us joy in a greater way, this is unfathomable to anyone who does not know Christ. I have been feasting on I Peter and enjoying a great sermon by Timothy Keller on I Peter. They focus on how our sorrow and suffering, that will happen in this life, will actually drive us into joy and love for Jesus. Our suffering is what brightens our hope and makes it precious to us. What is the object of that hope? It is Jesus Christ, who not seeing we love and with a joy inexpressible we live life for. Are there times I need a hope adjustment? Definitely, but this hope drives me to wake up, go to work, and do everything we do for God’s glory and pray to see many saved and churches planted. We must all be faithful to pray that many will go into the harvest to live out the living hope and bring it to those in need, because the harvest is ripe and ready.
Here is a link to the Tim Keller message, http://sermons2.redeemer.com/sermons/born-hope

Welche sprechen sprichts du?

Friday we had our first meeting with our 20+ age group. We met for dinner at our apartment, at 8 30 which ended up being the earliest possible, but really perfect while getting off of work at 6, and needing a little time between. We had only given a late notice to the few at our church who fit this age group, and to our sister church in Kaiserslautern, where Rich made his announcement previously written about. We had belated the visit to the “K-town” church due to schedule detours, and God clearly planned out our ways. We made our announcement just over a week ago now, which happened to be the week our friend now, Anne, was attending for just the second time. She is a student at a local university, and had been searching for a church to call her own. She came Friday and brought her friend Simon, both of whom are originally from Freiburg, Germany. We spent two plus hours over dinner AND speaking mostly German. Granted ours is far from correct, it was so encouraging to spend an evening like that, able to communicate with our minimal language, and able to enjoy it with these girls who are excited to be part of a group and grown in the knowledge of Jesus Christ with those who are likeminded.
We may begin with choppy prayers, and broken “D-English,” but regardless it is encouraging to gather with fellow believers, with like mindedness and age too, as God’s Word exhorts us to “increase and abound in love to one another so He may establish our hearts blameless in holiness before God.” We feel a whole other sense of “our” God here in a country where we often don’t even hear prayers uttered in our own language. God is not English, He is multi-ethnically reigning, and it is powerful to hear prayers offered up, of which all of, He understands.
We are excited to see this group grow, as there are only a few from each church even in our age group. It is a missing piece in the churches, but we are determined to help change that! Thanks for your prayers, we have faith in our God for greater things to come!

comforters

I have just had a birthday and I think the older I get the more boring my gifts get. I have seen the progression in my life that started out with toys, then video games, then clothes, and now I am at the stage where I buy house hold items. This year, my choice of gift was affected by living in Germany. For some odd reason in Germany nobody has a big comforter nor sells them. A bed for 2 people will consist of 2 small comforters. You might find this odd, but let me explain this to you. Each person is given a little slat of comforter and is to thin to cover you when you turn and is to short to cover your feet if you are over 6 feet tall. I had to get 2 extra blankets to sleep at night to cover my back and my feet, there is nothing worse than being uncomfortable at night. I wonder how they sleep and have for years with this discomfort. I am not sure why they have their comforters like this but maybe either to make them tougher or for some eco reason, I don’t think anyone has a real answer. So for my birthday I asked for a real king size comforter from my parents and they got me one. I am wondering if I can bring a revolution of big comforters to Germany, by setting them free form sleeping hardships to sleeping joy.

Hold the Applause Please

Today Julia and I had the opportunity to go to another church to invite their 20-30 year olds to join our 20-30 year olds group here at church. The ministries that we are involved in are all in German, so I had to make this announcement in German. I speak some German, but not enough to make a coherent announcement. I asked Michael to help us write it all in German. I did not want to chance splitting their church by something I might say wrong. We arrived at the church and were greeted by the man in charge of the service and asked when I would give my announcement. He told us that it would be during testimony time. The hard thing is sometimes it is a time of prayer request and sometimes it is time of testimonies, so I had to make sure that I picked the right time. The service started and half way through people started sharing prayer request so I waited, then decided this might be the time to make the announcement, because it seemed to shift to testimonies. I whispered to the leader and he told me it was a good time. I waited for some silence and had my statement all prepared in perfect German. I read through the announcement and at the end said, “I had to read it because I am learning German”. After I was all done, the church applauded me. I was somewhat surprised that they would applaud an announcement but didn’t think much about it till I got home. Immediately after the service a lady came up to me and asked how much I understood and I told her things here and there, but understood what was going on, she seemed surprised. She then said she was very impressed at how perfect my German was in the announcement. I just said, “thank you” and carried on to another conversation. Then another lady told me how great my German was especially the written part and then another comment came from another guy. It was not till I got home that it dawned on me that these people thought I, Richard Rudolph had written this, not a German translating it from English to German. I had a good laugh about it later, and thought that I have set a pretty high standard if ever make another announcement in that church again, which means next time Julia will make the announcement.

Life is harder than it looks

You name it, almost anything in life is easy to talk about or watch, but much harder to practice.

God gives us gifts which thankfully come easier than others, but then there are the times of proving what we can do, whether through marriage, school work, jobs, sports, music, etc. I've found that by working in a day care- it's easy to say I will persevere in this atmosphere where weeping and gnashing of teeth are a daily occurance, but when my spirits are low, I'm hungry, alone with ten wild ones, and my voice seems to be heard by none, my body wants to give up. Thank God He gives us strength to endure these times of weakness.



I also attempted to defeat the temptation to keep the same hair style I've so much enjoyed for the last ten years, and after braving the purchase, was surprised to come out with an evenly distributed reddish brown hair color. I began to doubt, as Peter did in the Bible when he stepped onto the water; as I squeezed the bottle filled with dye that contrasted very greatly the highlights that have become my usual thick head of hair, fear arose that had before reared itself during the first few disasters of this long lasting highlighting trend. The thought once again came to mind, that things are always harder than they look.



Happiness begets an accomplished choleric, but we must not readily accept this as a constant state, because once we get comfortable "acheiving" we should know all too well, that there will be yet something else to stump our abilities.

Man or Chicken

Julia and I have just gotten back from a great time in Vienna spent with my parents and some dear friends of ours. We flew back to Frankfurt and were taken from there to a huge mall in Frankfurt. We decided to eat dinner in the food court after we did some shopping. In the food court was a place called “greatest wurst in town”. Our young friend Micha was with us, he loves this place because they have the hottest wurst you will ever eat. They range from A heat to F heat and you’re unable to buy anything past a C until you are over 18. Micha is only 17, but has had everything up to a C, but was dying to try something a little hotter. I decided that I wanted to try “F” and show my manhood. Micha was very giddy as I went up to the counter to order the “F” wurst, and he coached me with what to say, in fear that I might order something wrong. I got up to the counter and asked for the wurst type “F”. After I said that it was as if, I just said a curse word or mentioned a word that was illegal to be spoken. Both of the men working behind the counter looked at each other and then at me and could not believe their ears. They said something to each other, and then said something to me that I could not quite understand. I asked Micha what they were saying, and the one who knew English asked me if I had ever had the “F”. I was a little nervous at this inquire because usually people give you your food that you order without questioning you. I answered and told them no, and they said, “you want ‘F’, we’ll let you taste a little ‘F’ before you eat it. They were telling me these ridiculous stats on the F as they were putting just a little bit on a plastic fork. They handed me the fork and I licked it off, not knowing what would happen next. This was the hottest hot thing I have ever had in my mouth in my life, and I believe Micha thought the same as he tasted the fork as well. As it was burning its way down my throat, my head was sweating and my eyes were watering. They asked if I still wanted “F” and as I could barely talk, I told them I would just take the “D”. I asked for a cup of ice and they said no sorry…but gave me some extra bread. I brought the “D” back to the table and chanted with Micha “man or chicken” at everyone at the table till they ate it and had tears in their eyes. On the ride home, I was in a little pain and I can say, when It came out of my system it did not feel the greatest either. This is just another great thing to offer our guest when you come to visit…the hottest wurst in town!