Slingshot Effect: A Report from Germany by Ralf NeumannRalf Neumann - 19 Jul 2007
Almost a year ago, some of my best friends and I moved into an old school building in Ramsdorf, Germany to be a part of the 24-7 'Convers' training community. Our dream was to get equipped as a community through seeking God, developing a 'monastically inspired lifestyle' and putting God's love into practice - to then allow Him to throw us back into some of the hot and needy spots of the world. That's the catapult effect we had in mind - and it's starting to become reality for us now.
North Eastern Germany
Quite a few years ago, myself and a group of friends felt like God was gently moving us to team up together and dream about moving back to the part of Germany that we grew up in. "Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania" is the name of our home state in the north east of Germany. It's a great place to be with its many lakes, large forests and beautiful beaches - yet it is one of the poorest and most needy areas of the country. Many people live on social benefits, opportunities to receive proper job training are very rare and there's a high unemployment rate (up to 25%). There are towns and areas in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania that have
lost a third of its population since 1990 because people were
emigrating away as fast as they could. Most of the young people from the area move away straight after the graduate from secondary school. Others are wracked with depression because they have no other prospect than staying where they are without hope to ever become financially independent. And then there's the very present problem of Neo-Nazi movement within the local youth culture that is quickly gaining momentum.
It's also quite a dark place spiritually. Forty years of communism have definitely created a lasting influence on peoples' mindsets. It continues to be neither cool or comprehensible to be a Christian in one of this, one of the most atheist areas in Europe. But people still seem to have a real and desperate need for the meaning and life that we believe Jesus offers them.
Neubrandenburg
Over the past year, our desire to follow Jesus back into Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has grown. After taking a road trip through the whole area a few months ago, we felt God calling us to the city of Neubrandenburg. Neubrandenburg is the third biggest city of the state and possessor of typical Eastern German "charm". It also has a small college and a history as one of the former Stasi strongholds. Having been impacted by what we've learned as a community in Ramsdorf, we were looking for an apartment big enough for us to be able to live together in community, yet still affordable for the six of us. That has shaped up to be a difficult quest, but a few weeks ago we finally found a possible apartment that had been used as an art studio before. It's situated on the ninth floor of a house in one of the poorer areas of the city called "Plattenbauten" (basically a district consisting of grey buildings made of plain concrete slabs). We think it's a cool place to be!There are, however, some doors that need to see opened within few days from now. We're aware of the fact that without us asking God, these doors will stay closed. So we want to ask you to join us in prayer.
The owner of that apartment is not very supportive in terms of creating good conditions for us to actually move in. There's quite a lot of reconstruction work to be done, which means that we would have to invest probably as much as 5,000 euros - which is money that we (quite frankly) don't have. We're under a bit of pressure now because we have to move out of the building in Ramsdorf by the end of July, which doesn’t leave us much time.
Would you please pray:
- for either the owner to change his mind and pay the money needed to reconstruct the flat and make it ready for us to move in.
- or for the money needed to do the renovations to appear somehow.
- or for God to do something completely different that's not even on our minds right now.
The Dream
Apart from these practical challenges, we are very much looking forward to finally getting to Neubrandenburg. We're in the midst of something that God is doing, something that's bigger than ourselves - and we know that He won't let us down now.We purposefully want plant a Boiler Room Community in one of the most deprived areas of our country. We want to be radical in the way we love God and the people around us. We seek to breath Jesus in and out in front of many who feel hopeless and lack perspective. We believe that functioning relationships are what people there need most, so we want to try and model some and form friendships with new friends. We want to contribute to bringing creativity into a colourless part of town, serve people and react to actual needs. We'd love to especially invest into teenagers and help them to feel loved, encouraged and motivated. And yes - we want to see young people starting to re-learn how to talk to God in their own style and language.
The journey is going to start very small. We're only a team of four people (plus 2 kids). But who knows where it's going to take us? Whatever God puts on our way will be worth picking up…
