Sunday 1 July 2012

Fires in the Dark...

Three weeks have rushed by since i arrived in Krogis, Germany. It seems like an age ago that walked through the gates after 24 hours of hitch-hiking with a rucksack full of art stuff, my suit case and my portfolio case. (i think my arms grew a few centimetres on that trip.) Living at an international Christian Missions centre is defiantly eventful. I arrived to discover i was the only English student at the base so i am surrounded by Brazilians, Ukrainians, Americans, Polish and the Occasional German. The people here are amazing though and i am loving being surrounded by so many different cultures.
The last 3 weeks have been intense but really incredible, i am learning so much everyday. Every friday we have a day alone just to find space to pray and seek God. So i have found myself going for very long walks exploring the beautiful countryside talking and listening to God - Amazing. Its a breath of fresh air in such a busy timetable.
There is so much to do living in such a large community and the buildings need a lot of work too. Cooking and cleaning up after a meal for 70 people is quite some task! I have found myself doing lots of painting and now i am working on preparing an art studio which i hope to finnish next week.

For me though the last few days have been the the most exiting of all. Every saturday we will be going into dresden which is our closest city to share with people about the love of God and invite people to a festival we are running in August. I am now leading a group of musicians, actors and circus people in preparing a piece of street theatre to perform in the city. The group are incredible, and i am really excited to see what will come out of it.

So this saturday was our first visit into Dresden. after lots of complications with trains will finally arrived at about 7pm. We spent most of the evening walking around the new city where there are lots of bars and cafes and quite a big punk scene. It was quite overwhelming and i suddenly felt very small, we just walked and prayed: "God, would you do something here this summer?" Our plan was to meet at 10pm outside the train station to do a fire show there but after discovering a park packed full of young people we decided this was a better spot. so we walked all the way back to the centre of the park to make the show. The show was just me spinning the fire staff and one girl who spat fire. So we made a half circle and then started to make a loud noise hoping the people would take notice. the drums started and i lit the staff and started to dance. i had planned to speak after the performance and my heart was pumping with fear and excitement. after i finished i was to scared to speak so i lit up again and danced some more. I shouted for people to come closer and danced away. When i stopped for the second time i shouted out "let me tell you about the man that changed my life" my heart pounding i shouted at the top of my voice to the people around us telling them how much God loved them. So people listened, some ignored and some shout back abuse. When i finished i invited people to come and speak to us if they wanted to know Jesus. None came but we went around handing out flyers anyway for the festival and promised people we would be back next week with more fire. It was a crazy night. I don't understand what God was doing, all i could do was speak the truth and let him do the rest.

So that was the first Chapter, We'll be back next week and who knows what will happen. I do know that God is good and the message of the cross is to important not to speak about it.