Beginning in mid-March, Germany, along with much of Europe, entered lockdown to combat the spread of COVID-19. In Berlin, all schools, shops, and public gatherings shut down. We had to radically retool some of our outreaches to continue reaching the people we serve, including our Arabic-speaking ministry center that ministers to Arabic-speaking immigrants.
Watch the video.
Our Syrian pastor partner has done a great job of going online; as a result, he’s actually been reaching more people both near and far through that medium. Our relationship-based house church ministry moved to Zoom, and our new team members in language study also transitioned to learning at home and online. What a challenge!
An important team value here is volunteering and serving those in our neighborhood and apartment complexes. Sewing masks for our neighbors and putting up signs offering to help are some of the new ways we’re assisting during this time—an extension of how we’ve already served the community.
Community gardening and hallway conversations have created special times of connection; conversations are jumping more quickly to questions about faith compared to pre-COVID chats. We’re able to engage in these conversations because of the relationships we’ve built over eight years of living and serving in this community. Consistency over the long haul is the way it works here for people to come to faith in Jesus.
Thank you, Alliance family, for your generous, faithful giving that keeps us here! The conversations we’ve started over the last couple of months will continue in the months to come. Please keep praying for us and our team.
by Mike and Elissa Picconatto, an Alliance international worker couple serving in Berlin