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| 23 october 1999 |
To all my dear and precious friends I shared time with during the DTS Oct.98
Dear friends,
A long, long time has passed by since our big far well in Guinee and only some people have heard what I´ve done in the last couple of months...sorry ! Different times I was reminded of the DTS webside and of doing my part for it, but you know...sometimes everything else seems to be more important, but it really wasn´t ! In my mind I often thought of our wonderful and blessed time together and thanked God for this special and precious time ! When I read the last Mercy Ships News and about the tiny baby, who was so undernourished and at the same time the name of the doc, who treated him, Oliver Gemperle, I was touched deep within, because I could sense a little bit how important our time was, not also for ourselves but also for God and his kingdom. I felt honoured that I could be part of this DTS class.
O.K. but now I should tell you something about the way God led me in the past.
Arriving at the airport in Berlin I got a big and warm welcome from my friends and youthgroup and at this moment I knew ,that it was the place God wants to use me for the next time.
After sharing about my experiences in my youthgroup and with my pastor, who reacted very positivly, our youthgroup staff went to a congress, organised by the Willow Creek Church Chicago, which topic was youth evangelism. There I met a friend that I haven´t seen for years and after telling him what I have done and also confessing that I don´t know what I should do until in October my study starts, he offered me to come to his church and spend some weeks there, workíng in every ministry of that church and just get to know how it feels being a full time worker in a church. So I came to the western part of Germany and had a wonderful time there,
I met a lot of precious people and it was great that I had many times alone with God, so it was almost like being in the DTS again. I learned also a lot about my skills and personal boarders and I hope I have been a blessing to people there. The time also gave me the opportunity to see my Dutch boyfriend, to whom I started "officially" dating in March (some of you know about who I´m talking..), because it wasn´t as far as Berlin is from the Dutch boarder.
Coming home in June I immediately started preparing a children´s camp at our church, which took place in July. I had the leading and it was a very challenging and "streching out of my comfort zone" time, but God blessed it. After that ,I went on to another children`s camp near by, where we slept in tents and lived like the first settlers in America the whole week.
There were a lot of children, who haven´t had a christian background, didn´t even know about God and it was a present to see their openness for God and to watch their first try to find Bible verses.... Some things, which seem to be normal to us ,were so new to them and it was great to hear that stories from the Bible were exciting for them. I hope that they will get to know God !
After this week I spent two weeks with my youthgroup, one week evangelizing on a camping place and the other week in Poland, where we had a wonderful and blessed time together, where even two people decided to follow Jesus.
After these exciting and also exausting weeks I got to make plans for my "job future". I had to think which study I´m going to do in October and until September I didn´t have a clearity whether I should study a kind of social study or psychology. Some of you may know that God gave me burden for families and couples ( it "happened" during an intercession time ) and often showed me through many different people that he has given me a talent to listen to people and to give them the possibility to open themselves.
I often ask myself, if I should use this skill for my profession or only for counselling people within my church. Psychology was always something I was really interested in, but I knew that it is a dangerous field for christians and didn´t wanna go without knowing that God has brougth me there. To become a familiy therapist you can study both social studies and psychology and to make a decision was very hard for me.
There were some hints for both of them and on the last day , that I had for this decision, I went to a good friend of mine, who is also working in a university as a teacher and who is an example for my christian life. Speaking and praying together with her I got peace about going to university and start to study psychology.
Since Thursday last week I`m occupied with studying ,why people do what they do and I enjoy it. I have met a lot of nice people, but I also noticed that I am in the enemy´s camp. Knowledge and science but also spiritual things are the ruling gods there and being a confessing christian you sense a lot of hindrances and rejections. But God cares for me again: a christian friend of mine is already studying psychology in the same university in Berlin for two years. She prays for me and offered me to be my mentor during this time. Isn´t God good ?!
I notice that I´ve written so much and I feel sorry for it ,because I know some things could have been said in a shorter way.
One thing at the end: God is also amazingly working in my youthgroup and we can see people´s lives changed. Of course there is more , but I believe it is just the beginning ! In some weeks we will have our first and new room for ourselves and I hope we will bring to reality what God put in our hearts as dreams.... This is also my wish for everyone of you !!!
Safe in God´s love
Dorte.