Amazing grace!

I am continually amazed at how God surprises me. I shouldn’t be – amazed or surprised. He has done it so often in the past, showing how good and mighty He is. I imagine He enjoys surprising us, giving us way more than we could even imagine. That is just what He is like. I get lost in my everydayness, forgetting that He has created each of those days so that He can surprise me with what He can do.

What amazed me was our recent trip to Switzerland. Listen Up! was asked to come sing for five congregations – Bern, Thun, Lucern, Zurich and Schaffhausen. (Shirley got to come with us and the boys stayed at home alone – but that is another story). We were looking forward to singing for them, being able to sing about Jesus – but I was surprised by how we were encouraged and challenged by those wonderful brothers and sisters.

At each city we were welcomed and showered with love. The natural beauty (every direction you look seems to bring another amazing shot of God’s creation to view) and joyful sharing (chocolate, cheese, fellowship) showed us what we were singing about in each city. These people know God and know what it means to be part of His family!

In Bern, Lucern and Schaffhausen Shirley and I stayed with families willing to give up their living room so that we could have someplace to sleep. In Thun the members took a day off work so that they could follow a song workshop and help with the concert and outreach.

In Lucern we sang in the streets as the members handed out flyers inviting people to the concert. The concert itself was in the small room where the 10 members meet to worship and which is usually used for teaching karate on the fourth floor. But all of the 12 visitors came because they had been given a flyer in the streets of Lucern.

In Schaffhausen the young people who had come for the singing workshop sang with us in the market to invite people and then helped change a dungeon into a fairy tale theater for more than 100 people who were willing to sit in the cold for two hours listening to our ‘preaching’.

All of these people opened their homes and their hearts to us, sharing their positive attitudes, their love for God. We went expecting to encourage and help and we were the ones encouraged and challenged to live what we saw in them. God is so wonderful and His family continues to amaze me!

Now we are looking forward to hearing how God will continue amazing us as they talk to the various visitors to these concerts. We are so thankful that we had this time with them – to get to know them and to be challenged to live with their faithfulness. God is truly amazing – and so is His family when they are following His lead.

(I am still uploading pictures, but if you want to see some from Schaffhausen, you can check out the ones from Anina - click here.)