DNA International Trip - Herrnhut, Germany

Each year DNA sends its trainees for on an international trip to a European country, and so I have just got back from two weeks in Germany, and thought I would share some of my experiences from my time away.

I was part of a team of nine that visited Christliches Zentrum, a church in the village of Herrnhut in south east Germany, near the borders of both Poland and the Czech Republic. Although small, with a population of only 1400, Herrnhut has an amazing history. If you know much about the modern 24-7 prayer movement, you’ll probably know that they were inspired by a group of people called the Moravians. After being persecuted in their home land (now part of the Czech Republic), they sought refuge in Germany from Nikolaus von Zinzendorf, a wealthy count. In 1722 they started to emigrate to Zinzendorf’s land, and there they built the village of Herrnhut, which quickly became a base for prayer and mission. In fact, for a period of 100 years the people of Herrnhut prayed continuously, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Before leaving we only had a rough idea of what we would be doing when we arrived, so we didn’t have too many expectations. However, we were hoping that it would be a time when we would deepen our relationships with God, and a chance to hear from him more clearly. We left before dawn on a drizzly Sunday morning, and after flying to Prague, we travelled on various modes of public transport before being driven the last few miles to Herrnhut. Our home for the two weeks was the Jesus-Haus, an old hospital owned by the church, still undergoing renovation, but with a completed guesthouse, where we stayed. Our hosts for the two weeks were members of the UNITE team, who live in the Jesus-Haus, working for the church as well as being trained for leadership and mission, along with Frank, the pastor of the church.

The first couple of days were spent settling in, finding out what we would be doing, praying for the week ahead and learning some basic German, and “useful” German phrases. Thankfully one phrase we learnt, ‘Ich denke wir haben Phil verloren’ which means ‘I think we have lost Phil’ never had to be used!

Towards the end of the first week, we started what had been titled a ‘Pilgrim Tour’, planning to walk to various locations close to Herrnhut to visit people and churches who had links with Christliches Zentrum and praying for the area as we walked. Fortunately, this was far less strenuous than we had expected with just a short distance to walk each day, and it was all at a relaxed pace. The first day the plan was to walk to the nearby town of Löbau, just a few kilometres from Herrnhut, although the weather had other ideas, and we found ourselves caught in a thunderstorm just a couple of kilometres from our destination. Sheltering under a tree, Frank called for someone to pick us up, but as the rain subsided we continued walking to the outskirts of Löbau. We eventually met Renée, piled into the van, and were taken back to the Jesus-Haus to dry off and change, before going straight back to Löbau for the evening! Here we met Mathias, a local youth worker and were able to pray for him before spending the rest of the evening meeting the youth at his youth club.

The next day our tour continued across the Czech border, to the town of Slucknov, where we thought we would be meeting a Lutheran pastor before being taken to Varnsdorf to do some street outreach. However, soon after arriving in Slucknov, other members from the church started arriving, and before we knew it carpets had been laid out in a nearby carpark, and a speaker plugged into a socket in the police station. Our outreach consisted of a couple of testimonies, with the aid of an interpreter, and a skit (which you can watch on facebook if you have an account) interspersed between dances from one of the church’s youth group, called the King’s Kids. What was really amazing was that lots of people quickly gathered to see what was happening as we set up, and many stayed for the whole time we were there - something that would never happen in Britain.

Afterwards we were driven to the home (and also church!) of the Lutheran pastor, where we would be staying for the night, which was in Varnsdorf. We just had time to drop off our stuff, and were then driven to the home of a gypsy family who were members of the church. The pastor came with us, as well as a missionary couple who acted as translators for the evening. When we arrived, we were sat down, given coffee and cake, and then watched some videos from our translator’s missionary work in Estonia. We then worshipped together (all in Czech) and prayed for the family. Our hosts had several children, and it was amazing to see them all worshipping and praying together, and even the youngest - a toddler - was joining in! We returned to the pastor’s house in Varnsdorf and spent the evening sleeping on the floor in the church, ending off what was an incredibly surreal day!

The next morning started with an hour of worship led by the Czech pastor and his wife, before we set out on the final day of our tour, walking back across the border into Germany and to the town of Zittau. Here we visited a church that has links with DNA, and is hosting a DNA-Deutschland trainee, the equivalent DNA course in Germany. We went expecting to serve the church, and we performed the skit again and three members of the team gave a couple of testimonies and a short talk, but came away very blessed by the church, whose elders prophesied over us, all with amazing accuracy.

The focus for our second week at the Jesus-Haus was Baumwoche, a week of work doing gardening and renovation work. We worked alongside other members of the church were volunteering their time and also the 1€50 workers, who are unemployed, but on a scheme run by the government which means they receive extra benefit by working at the Jesus-Haus (1€50 an hour, hence the name). This week we also took on more responsibilities in leading and contributing to the various services that the church holds. The church has services daily, with worship services most evenings and devotions most weekday mornings, which we were joined for this week by the 1€50 workers (none of whom are Christians). This meant we were asked to give short devotionals and maybe to try to sneak in a gospel message. I was asked to talk one morning, something I wouldn’t usually be too keen on doing, and then was challenged a couple of days beforehand not to prepare anything but talk on what God was saying to me. The plan was to perform the skit (again!) and then for me to explain a bit about what it meant, so pretty daunted I attempted to work out what I was going to say while we performing the skit and somehow managed, definitely with God’s help, plus being given thinking time while what I was saying was being translated, to give a short message!

On the Thursday evening the church held an Alphafest, which was a celebration to mark the end of the Alpha course. It was also a chance for church members and people who had been on the course to invite friends to as an opportunity to find out what the Alpha course is about. We were really pleased to see some of the 1€50 workers there, and we were particularly touched by a gesture from one worker in particular, whose name was Frank. That lunchtime we had decided to give some words of encouragement to everyone we had been working with during Baumwoche (taking the idea of a ‘snap cup’ from Legally Blonde 2 if you’ve seen it, which I can honestly say I haven’t). Even though the language barrier had meant we hadn’t been able to have any conversations with the 1€50 workers, we’d noticed that Frank had always been smiling, and definitely seemed to be leading the workforce. Our words of encouragement had only been short, and we’re not even sure how ‘Frank is a tank’ had carried after being translated into German, but as a thank you Frank had bought all nine of us gifts that evening, particularly amazing given the small wage that he earns.

We spent lots of time over the two weeks meeting with God in prayer and worship. The church holds prayer and worship as key values, with multiple services most days, starting with the devotional prayer time in the morning, and an extended time of musical worship in the evening. It felt like day to day life at the church had a real rhythm to it, and I really noticed the presence of God closely at these times, going deeper with God, allowing the Holy Spirit to move and strengthening my faith.

One thing we really noticed over the two weeks was how welcoming and generous everyone was everywhere we went. We went everywhere with an attitude of service, but found people and churches giving back so much more and felt really blessed by all those that we met. Personally, I felt that through God I grew in self-confidence over the two weeks, in comfortableness in being myself, and stepping out of my comfort zone, putting my trust in God.