The Return of the MEHR and the Return of Winter

The Return of the MEHR, the Return of Winter to Bavaria

Our first visit to Augsburg as a family back in last days of 2014 and the first days of 2015 were scheduled around an international Christian conference, the MEHR (“More” as in “More of God”) which is put on by the Gebetshaus Augsburg. Back then, the conference was still an annual event and attracted a modest 3,000 or so people. That number shot up the next year to 7,000, the year after to about 9,000 and after that to 11,000 where attendance has stayed since 2018. That year was also the year that the MEHR switched from an annual to a biannual event. At least that was the plan. There was supposed to be a MEHR 2022…only the panicked overreactions of various national governments to the COVID-19 virus caused that event and many others to be cancelled. So, within the limits imposed by state and national governments, the Gebetshaus held something called the WENIGER (“Less” as in “Less of everything that keeps me from God”) in 2022 and 23. Finally, we were able this last weekend, the fourth through the sixth of January, to hold the MEHR again. It looked a bit like this:

This is the auditorium on opening night as Dr. Johannes Hartl, the founder of the Augsburg House of Prayer, began his first teaching time. The audience skews heavily to the 30 and under set, which is a good sign in an age when people associate “Christian Events” with aging and ever-shrinking crowds. That 11,000 number, incidentally, is entirely driven by the capacity of the Augsburg Exhibition Center and the determination of the Gebetshaus to keep the event in Augsburg.

What were we doing there? Well, we were both present at the Toward Jerusalem Council II booth, presenting that ministry to the broader Christian community in attendance. We were there with other members of the ministry leadership from Germany and Switzerland, and we had some effective and challenging conversations with folks who stopped by. I was also involved as a simultaneous interpreter and this year had the task of assembling the interpreter team. They looked like this:

Well, three of them and me, anyway: Carmen, Carola, and Vera are in the picture. Doris and Simon arrived later. What does the work look like? Why, like this:

Interpreters for English and Croatian worked in pairs, where possible, though Latvian and Hungarian only had one translator each. It’s all live, in real time, and this is sometimes quite challenging. This year, interpreting involved learning to use a new digital platform called LiveVoice, which was developed in Austria. With that we have left the old analog consoles with manual pushbuttons for channels, muting, portable receivers for a central transmitter and all that behind.  

So that is what has kept us busy for the last few days. And I decided at the outset to avoid social media for the duration of the conference and even leave my laptop at home (!). The motto of the MEHR 2024 was “God is Here” and that being the case, I wanted to be fully “here” as well.

Other December Events

Thanks to our friends Claus-Stefan and Birgitta Merl, we got kittens:

Their names are Motte and Mizuki. These furry little brigands are quite well socialized to humans, and Felicia has been enjoying their company.

Felicia’s health, for those who I am sure will ask, is improving. She is adapting to taking medication to deal with the digestive problems and the restricted diet. Tomorrow, she returns to school for the first time since the end of November.

And, just in time for school to start and Susan to return to teaching in Augsburg, winter also returned to Bavaria:

The teachings at the MEHR gave much to reflect on and I will post some notes about them here later as time permits.