March Update

Hello Prayer Partners,

Hope this finds you doing well. I'm enjoying a beautiful spring sunny day - the sun doesn't shine a whole lot in Germany, so we've got to enjoy it when it does! Sorry to those of you experiencing blizzard conditions in the upper midwest... spring is near, hang in there!

Would you please be in prayer for our upcoming Spring Break retreat to Italy, April 8-15. We've had 30 students register from our community and AJ and I are really excited about who's coming. Some of the students are solid believers, but the majority of them don't seem to have a personal relationship with Jesus. We are stoked that the Lord has called them to this camp, and we're excited that they will have opportunities to hear the Gospel and experience Jesus. Would you begin praying for their hearts?

We're excited for camp, however, due to the events taking place in Libya, the retreat is currently in limbo. Heightened security measures have led to canceling all DoD (department of defense) sponsored activities occurring off base, where more than 20 people are involved, until further notice. Our youth group is a chapel sponsored program, and therefore we fall under this order. It doesn't effect our weekly Bible studies and youth group times, as those take place at the chapel, but it does impact anything we have planned for off base - mainly retreats. We hope that this order will not last too long, but that it will be lifted in the coming days as things hopefully settle in Africa. We realize that having 150+ Americans in one location, could potentially pose a security risk. And bottom line, we want to keep our students safe.

Some of our families have been directly impacted by the movement in Libya - parents have deployed and others are working very long days to support the efforts. There's no timeline on the events taking place, so we don't know how long parents may be gone or working longer hours. These unknowns cause extra stress for families and presents us with ministry opportunities. Would you pray for our families, active duty members and the leaders who are making decisions.

Please pray for Nate, our CSM field leader and camp director, as he meets with chaplains to discuss the security situation and determine how to proceed. He's coordinating with the team coming from the states to lead the camp, and is also working out logistics with the Italian camp facility and German bus company. Needless to say, he's got some extremely busy days ahead of him.

Thank you so much for covering our ministry in prayer. It's a huge blessing and encouragement to know the military community in Germany is being lifted up before the Lord.

Know that God is at work here!! In the past weeks, my high school girls Bible study is growing and we've had some great conversations about who Jesus is. In our middle school girls Bible study, we've been looking at different women in the Bible and looking at the lives of women missionaries. We began a series on community in our middle school youth group, where we've looked at what community is and how we can build it. We're almost done with the book of Luke in our high school youth group and will finish Easter week. It's a blast doing ministry here and a privilege to serve the families and students of Ramstein! Thanks for joining with me!!

Praise Point: You may remember that my dad left for Afghanistan a few days after I left for Germany. He's been working as a contractor maintaining the predator drones. He made it home to Wisconsin this past week!

Because of Christ,
Beth