waw...I don´t even know what to say...well, I do, ´coz I have lots I´d like to say, but I don´t know if I´ll have the time to do it now...It´s not easy to find a computer on the way where I can stop and write with time...and cyber cafes, besides the cost, don´t really inspire me...
oh well...now I´m in Berlin, at Kerstin Hack´s house, a wonderful friend and woman of God...she left this morning and let me use her computer, but I had a lot of e.mails to reply and now she must be coming back soon...
I do have a lot to say since I last wrote here...I ´d love to put some pictures too ´coz this page looks a bit boring to me...but I don´t really know how to do it, so, I ´ll have to wait for the time I´ll be with someone who´d explain to me :-)
After Köln (I think that´s the last news you had from me),I went to Karlsruhe...Wonderfull welcoming :-)...I hitch-hiked with a guy from Köln and the van who took us went purposely out of the high-way just to drop me at the train station in Karlsruhe...Mark Reichman, the contact I had from there, also provided someone to pick me from that place, because he himself was out of the city...it couldn´t be more perfect...I waited maybe 5 minutes...God has been blessing me so nmuch with rides and places to stay...I love to see His hand on that :-)...He´s such a caring father...
so, in Karlsruhe I found a great community and I was so blessed meeting Mark, his wife Nadine and their lovely child Noah... they´re basicly doing (or Being) what I envision in Lisbon...they have a cafe-house,"Kubik-entertainment" even though is kinda underground ´coz they don´t have the license to open it to the public yet...but the cool thing is that people already know about them and just go there...I came on a perfect week, they were running a 24/7 prayer room in the cafe :-)...I stayed sleeping in the 4th floor of the same building, in a flat where some young people of the community also live...Cristoph, Arnhild and Doro, they are great, it was so nice to meet them...they were all doing their things, but that´s how I like to meet Church, in the normal day life and not only in special meetings...I spoke a lot with Mark, as I said, and it was so encouraging to hear what God is already doing there...it´s so much like what we´re starting to do in Lisbon...trying to BE church instead of doing...focusing in relationships instead of activities...being an organism instead of an organization...being real with eachother as a family, instead of playing roles out of positions...etc...
we also spoke about the monastic way of living christianity and that is pretty much the "Blue House" project that me and my crew in Lisbon have in our hearts...some of you know what I´m speaking about, but it´s pretty much that, a urban monastery in the heart of Lisbon...it will have also a cafe-house open to the public, with place to have concerts and other performances, rooms for all kinds of art exhibitions, music and dance schools, recording studio and a room for bands to practice, etc... we will have also a prayer room with different atmospheres for all peoples to come in and we will be (as the foundation of all these projects) a living community of Jesus´ followers...a discipling and training place where young people and families will come in and out and take something more of Jesus...a Light house for the city where social work with the poor will be made from...a resting place for pilgrims...whatever God wants to do with it...That´s a dream I have in my heart since 1999 and now I share with more people in Lisbon, my crew, my family...That´s a God dream...and the more I meet people like Mark in Karlsruhe or like Markus and Andrea from 24/7 in Dresden, who share the same dream, the same basic idea of just being a life giving community in the centre of our cities, the more I believe it´s a God dream...and if it´s God´s dream, I´m sure it will come true...
I´ll take this opportunity to share also about the "Blue House"...that´s basicly an empty building with blue tiles :-) ...it has 5 doors to the street and 4 floors...it belongs to a catholic institution who has a bunch of other buildings in the city but is not really doing anything with them...before I started this trip I presented the project as a Social Centre for youth both to the City Hall and this institution and we´re just waiting for a reply...PLease pray with us for this building if God brings that into your heart...feel part of it !!!
Well, I do have more to say about Tübingen and the meeting with the crew who´s going to the rainbow gathering, Stuttgard, back to Kubik :-), Taizé in France,Nurenberg and Eva,Elli and Tod, the beautiful city of Dresden and the wonderful couple Kai and Conny...and Berlin, yes, I feel I´ll have a lot to say on that...But as I told you, my time is short now ...
O.K, I have to leave it to another day for the rest...gotta go...
:-)
Enjoy your days...
PEACE
Baba
