A POLISH CHRISTMAS IN GERMANY
December 25th, 2009 | 0 Comments
After the Christmas Eve service at church, we were invited by the secretary of ETS, Violetta Bogatzki, to come to her home for the evening meal. Our fellow-American missionaries, Benson & Cathy Vaughan, also were there. Violetta, a native of Poland, cooked us a delicious Polish Christmas meal. We had a great time of fellowship and are grateful for the wonderful staff at ETS that work so well together. Merry Christmas to all our supporters in America!
Our local church, Crossroads International Church, had a Christmas Eve service where we sang, the children did several presentations, Johana played a beautiful violin piece, and Pastor Jeliazkov preached. Most Germans celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, so this is a wonderful church family time before we celebrate with our families. I had preached at Crossroads on 20 December and Carol did the moderation for this service .
The semester began the Christmas break of three weeks on 18 December, but we enjoyed our annual school Christmas dinner on 17 December. The students, their children, the staff, and faculty spent a great evening together with a delicious meal cooked by our school chef, Joachim Seitle. We had selected a “secret pal” the week before and shared the final of three small gifts that goes to him or her. The two previous gifts are hidden on different days and had to be discovered. We have a wonderful school community at ETS.
The Ministers Internship Program for the Church of God in Germany is called ILD. Once a month an ILD group meets on a Saturday at the European Theological Seminary. I began teaching a class to them on Christian Ethics on 5 December. It will be extended to the January session also. Seven students attend this class.