"But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." (Matt. 7:14)
"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'" (Matt. 25,40)

We thank God for granting us a meaningful, joyful Bible conference at Hattingen "House of Peace." Pioneering chapters and children joined to study how "To do God's Will." Passages were mostly from Matthew's gospel with morning devotion on the respective Daily Bread passage. Shp. Rainer Wieland prepared the program and the messengers with much prayer and with all his heart. God blessed his faith and struggle so all of us received much grace. The thumb up sign on the invitation was a call, "Let me come along," a hint pointing up to heaven and also, an "OK, well done!"

Messages were well prepared and shared from the heart, delivered by Rene Richelshagen, Antonia Theis, Volker Keller, Sarah Helene Poliatskin, Dr. Lydia Kim, Michael Pohl, and Johannes Lee. Rene challenged us through Jesus' struggle with temptation (Matt. 4). Antonia exhorted us to worship God as Abel did (Gen. 4). Volker encouraged us to believe in prayer and to keep walking along the narrow road after Jesus (Matt. 7). Sarah pointed out the importance of a personal confession of faith (Matt. 16). Lydia helped us to have a deeply rooted longing for God and his salvation (Ps. 130). Michael explained that serving even one person is very meaningful in Jesus' eyes (Matt. 25). And Johannes concluded again that we need Jesus' attitude to do God's will.

"Surprisingly," almost everyone sat down to write a testimony on the main passage (Matt. 7), thus passing through the narrow gate. On Saturday night, M. Timotheus Yoon from Bonn served us with a video presentation on European mission. Then we had 3 life testimonies by Sergey Levitsky (Koeln I), Catherine Weecxsteen (Koeln I), and M. Gen. David Song (Freiburg). I will report separately on these because they are so precious. Four more people shared their Bible testimony on Matthew 7: Claudine Schaenzle (Freiburg), Shin-Ok Rohrmoser (Koeln I), Chan-Sik Seo (Koeln I), and Annika Fabian (Koeln I). Each of them was also very encouraging and strengthened our hope.

All in all there were 101 people at the conference - including newborn Paul Benjamin Youk ;-) They came from Koeln (I+II), Bonn, Dusseldorf I, Freiburg, Wiesbaden, and Wuppertal. We thank God for sending some new students with a learning mind. This time, we included most of the children in the main program and discovered that they responded very well. They also made a very good environment.

I thank all co-workers for your prayers upholding us. May the Spirit of God be always upon you to serve His worldwide ministry to the end.