Köln

“My heaven is to please God and glorify Him, and to give all to Him, and to be wholly devoted to His glory; that is the heaven I long for; that is my religion, and that is my happiness, and always was ever since I had true religion; and all those that are of that religion shall meet me in heaven. I do not go to heaven to be advanced, but to give honor to God. It is not matter where I shall be stationed in heaven, whether I have a high or low seat there; but to love, and please, and glorify God is all. Had i a thousand souls, if they were worth anything, I would give them all to God; but i had nothing to give when all is done. It is impossible for any rational creature to be happy without acting all for God; God Himself could not make him happy any other way. I long to be in heaven, praising and glorifying God with the holy angels: all my desire is to glorify God. My heart goes out to the burying place; it seems to me a desirable place: but O to glorify God! that is it; that is above all. It is a great comfort to me to think that I have done a little for God in the world, O it is but a very small matter; yet i have done little; and I lament that I have not done more for Him. There is nothing in the world worth living for but doing good and finishing God’s work, doing the work that Christ did. I see nothing else in the world that can yield any satisfaction besides living to God, pleasing Him, and His whole will. My greatest joy and comfort has been, to do something for promoting the interest of religion and the souls of particular persons; and now, in my illness, while I am full of pain and distress, from day to day, all the comfort I have is in being able to do some small piece of work for God, either by something I say, or by writing, or some other way.” – David Brainerd

Not many people nowadays know who David Brainerd was, in fact I admit that if it was not for a friend giving me a book on him I never would have known who he was either. Brainerd lived in the early 1700′s and was a missionary to the Native Americans along the Delaware River and surrounding areas. When reading the quote above one might have the impression that Brainerd died at an elderly age with many years on the mission field under his belt, however, it was actually not the case. David Brainerd died at the age of 29 after only being on the mission field for 4 years! Not only that but during those years he struggled with depression, extreme illness and on top of that for most of his ministry he had no one to help him. Yet, after 4 long years of literally working himself to death he was able to look back on it and count it all as being worthwhile, because the name of Christ was lifted up and the Gospel was advanced. Brainerd was truly a man who could look past his present circumstances to see God’s plan for greater good in the distance and keep going. This, we all know is not the easiest of things to do, especially when things get rough, it’s in times like these that I am thankful for the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us. As Hebrews 12:1 says, there are people like David Brainerd who are living testimonies to the fact that the Christian life may not always be easy but regardless of how tough a situation may be, Christ is always with us and that gives us the hope we need to persevere.

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Also, I added photos from our wedding!

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!

God bless,

Ricky

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.