„On angynne aerst waes word“- welcome to 2023

How was your Christmas? Ours was rather exhausting, really, with Felicia´s school orchestra and choir performing Bach´s Christmas Oratorium (one version of which- not by her school- you can listen to here) and the two of us being occupied with writing and translating right up to the night of the 23^rd. Oh, and when we could, we lent our assistance to the “Lebendiger Advent” that we perform here at Koinonia every year. The event, which retells the nativity story with music and activities for families with school-age children, drew its biggest audience with the Nativity Play on Christmas Eve.

There were perhaps one hundred people in our tiny little Koinonia courtyard this year, including some of the Ukrainian refugees living here,  though I know the photo does not reveal that well. 2022 was the fourth year of “Lebendiger Advent”, so we are on our way to having a local institution here, in the good sense.

And it´s good to keep in mind what the celebrations were all about, namely about God the Son stepping into human history. As John the Apostle put it …or as an unknown monk writing in Old English wrote during the reign of Alfred the Great:

“On angynne aerst waes  word ac þaet word was með Gode ac þaet word waes God…Ac þaet word is flesc gewordan ac eardede on us.”

God-spel aefter Iohannem

That fact that the eternal word of God became one of us, that he “eardede”- neat word, eh? Means “earthed” or “grounded”. He, Jesus, Yeshua, left the celestial realm to take on earthly life, die and be interred, then rise again in victory over death for all who have been laid beneath the soil…and will be raised to life as he was, then to outlive galaxies.

That´s what we have celebrated in these last weeks. The single most important event in the history of the cosmos. That`s all.

Oh, and the excerpt from the Gospel of John, Chapter One should be familiar… and you no know how close you are to being able to read Old English.

What we´re doing these days

Early in 2022, Reasons to Believe , a ministry in the area of science and apologetics, contacted me and asked if I would be able and willing to translate content on their website into German. There´s some history to this. Back in 2004, I had contacted them, asking if there were any projects they would like to have translated, but at that time, their schedules and mine did not permit any fruitful cooperation. Then, eighteen years later, they contacted me and the results, in German, can be found here: https://de.reasons.org/ . The work will continue this year, and I ask you to pray for it to be mightily effective in tearing down strongholds that raise themselves up against the knowledge of God and strengthening believers in an intellectual defence of the faith.

We are also working with Toward Jerusalem Council II right now on translating papers from the Messianic Jewish Theological Symposium at the University of Vienna into English. Please pray for that work to go well. I am also working on translations for a new film series being produced for TJCII. Details forthcoming.

I have been writing for Salvo magazine. You can find examples of my recent work  here:

https://salvomag.com/post/dueling-protests-dueling-worldviews

https://salvomag.com/article/salvo63/frothy-view

And there is lots of good content on the site from Robin Phillips, Mark Eckel, Neil English, Terrell Clemmons, Emily Morales, Hugh Ross, Günter Bechly and others. In short, there are regularly many articles worth reading there.

We continue as “Familienmitarbeiter”/ “family workers” at the Gebetshaus Augsburg, where we are in prayer with the morning shift two hours Mondays through Thursdays. Fridays we are in the Israel prayer group, which needs a new prayer leader. Please pray that someone be found soon.

Unexpected Expenses

After many years of faithful service, my beloved Dell Inspiron gradually showed signs of giving up its electron-fired ghost back in December. I tried to copy the data onto an external drive before it failed completely, but two partitions were already entirely gone, and the experts at the shop were unable to save any data for a price I could pay. They recommended getting a new machine, which I did, putting it on my monthly Amazon tab. This was an expense we had not planned on, but not the only one we have accumulated in recent weeks. The other was Felicia´s new glasses. We are expecting payment from a commercial client in Berlin any day now (the client pays well but never on time) but the outstanding amount will only cover the computer and glasses, leaving nothing to live on for the rest of the month. If you can help us meet these needs by donating below, please do.

 I will be posting more frequently in 2023, I hope. In the meantime, the Lord be with you all.