Living in Köln!

So it has been about a little over a week of living in Cologne now and it has been great! Its such a great city with lots to do and even more to see. I recently got a train ticket for traveling to Siegen which also lets me use the Subway and trams in Cologne as well, it took a bit to get used to but now I can navigate my way around the city without getting lost. Recently I have been running around doing things to register for living in the city but I finally got that out of the way, also I signed up at the Volkshochschule which is a place for adult education to learn German. In all my time here I have never had the chance to take an official German course due to either my schedule or finances and was forced to just learn on my own which wasn’t too bad but now im looking forward to filling in the missing gaps I may have created. A more in depth update/newsletter will be up soon, as well as pictures from the wedding!

I’m a married man!

Ireland Update

Right now I am sitting on a train from Dublin to Cork…. I love free wifi! I figured that I would use the time to  give you all a little update. Last week was my final week as a resident teacher at the Bible College, I have spent the past 6 years (wow) either living in the villa or in one of the various staff apartments within walking distance from the college.  Its a bit sad to say goodbye but I will still be around next semester just not as much. For those of you who dont know I will be getting married in 11 days and my wonderful wife-to-be Jody has a job in Cologne as a teacher. After praying about it I felt the Lord impress it on my heart to move to Cologne with Jody, however, this doesn’t mean that my work at the Bible College or Skatepark will  diminish, Cologne is about an hour train ride from Siegen and there is affordable monthly passed that I can get that allows me to travel back and forth freely. Right now I have it planned to be in Siegen at least 3-4 days out of the week both teaching a class at the Bible College and working at the skatepark. As it turns out there are some cool opportunities for us in Cologne, we live right down the road from a newly built outdoor skatepark called the Skateplaza, so there is the chance to start reaching out the the skater community in Cologne. My hope is to start having overnight skate nights when the weather gets better and go down to Siegen with a big group of kids and start building relationships with them in that way. There is also a chance to help out with a church plant in Cologne with a friend Tobi, right now we are having monthly meetings with those interested in being a part of it and I am really looking forward to seeing what God has in store for that. I will keep you all updated.

God bless,

Ricky

Reflections on the prison outreach

Hey everyone, sorry I noticed that I actually never sent out the post and only saved it as a draft but I decided to put it up just the same. I know some of you knew through Facebook and were praying so that you for that. We started the morning off pretty early and drove about an hour to get there. It was funny because we were in the middle of the city and I guess I was expecting it to be a bit secluded but it was smack in the center and surrounded by apartment buildings, it was just surrounded by barbed wire.

Going into it I really didn’t know what to expect but it actually went really well, we started of with about four songs in German led by my friend Aden Knepper. It was great seeing some of the guys joining in and singing. After the time of worship my friend Danny Keating from Ireland gave his testimony and just shared some of the things God has brought him from and how he has directed his life in a completely new direction. Then it was up to me to tie it all together, I really didn’t have a set text but I focused on “Three gifts of the Gospel”, things that are freely given to us when we put our trust in Christ as a savior, regardless of who we are, where we come from, or what we have done in the past. Those things being: Forgiveness, Restoration, and Purpose. Before hand I asked Danny if he could maybe hit some of those things during his testimony so it really helped to bring the message home and sink in.

Afterwards a few of the inmates thanked us for coming and one of the men who regularly helps out with this ministry said that they were more attentive than usual. I think one of the highlights of the trip happened as we were waiting for one of the doors to open a guy stepped out of his cell and thanked us once more and said that he really had respect for us coming and sharing and how through Christ we turned our lives around. Overall I think we all were pleasantly surprised about how well it went, in fact we all said they if the opportunity should arise that we would love to come back again.

Going to Prison this Sunday

Don’t worry, its nothing I did haha. I have the great opportunity to lead a Sunday Service at a local prison here in Germany with three students from the Bible College. I have been told that this is not very common in Germany because each prison is overseen by a pastor and he controls everything and so unless you know him personally then there is really no way to be able to do something like this. The director of the Bible College Arne came in contact with one of these Prison pastors a few months ago and was able to arrange for us to come and do a service. There is a strickt time constraint of 45 minutes and everything has to be inside that or else it gets cut off. Within that time we are planing to do a small worship set (done by Aden), have a 15 minute message (done by me), and 10 minute testimony (done by Danny)all being translated! (done by Jan) The way we look at it we have 45 minutes to potentially change the lives of men we will likely never see again and so we are really looking to God for wisdom in what to say. We are going into this a bit blind because Arne is unable to go with us due to a bike accident he got in earlier in the week (Pray for him, he’s ok but got banged up a bit). We know God is going to do great things

Frieburg Outreach Video