Pilgrimage to Germany
The two weeks of mission will see pilgrims involved in several days
of training with Germans from many parts of the country. Then they
will spend a week in an area working with local Christians putting on
community festivals or working in local high schools. A highlight is
the 3 day pilgrimage visiting Luther’s city, Lutherstadt Wittenberg
and the community of Mission of the Moravian Church established by
Count Zinzendorf at Herrnhut. For further information contact Marty
Woods marty.woods@fusion.org.au
Germany - 8th - 22nd June
Greece -
18th August - 2nd Sept
A Tri-Nations Sporting Competition
A school in Seelow, Germany, invites other schools to compete every year, and a team from Fusion in Australia and the UK made the trip this year. They competed against a team from a school in Poland in volleyball and soccer over three days. All had a great time.
Pilgrims in Germany this week
Twenty eight pilgrims from Australia, Uk and Germany will finish their two week pilgrimage on Friday. Last week the large team broke in three smaller teams and ran 10 festivals altogether. Three at Seelow, three in Prenzlauer Berg district of Berlin and four festivals at Iserlohn. The team in Seelow (which is 65km from Berlin near Poland,) has been working in schools all last week.
As a result of the festivals over the past week, well over a 100 local people of all ages have now volunteered to take the next steps in helping to positively transform their own communities and bring hope.
The local mayor of Seelow, who held a reception for us said, Today we helped bring more peace to the town. He commented, "We have never seen anything quite like this in Seelow for one day Seelow became an international city!" After his speech the pilgrims had an incredible German banquet!
Derfflinger Hof
It felt a moment in history for us as we visited our new centre recently, the Derfflinger Hof. We shared the story of how we got it, walked around the site. People were surprised by the size of the place - 10 acres.
Reflection from Derfflinger Hof, 15th June
"We had 90 people at the first community tea at Derfflinger Hof a few hours ago now!! This is remarkable. They included the reporter from the local paper who, after talking with Mal Garvin at the Festival, wrote an invitation in the paper inviting people to attend the Community tea! Many came as they have very warm memories of the place. Others were from local agencies, a good number were contacts from the weekends Festivals and others came just to be reassured that Derfflinger Hof was in good hands. Some were so keen they arrived an hour early!
After being welcomed they went for a walk around the 10 acres. The team spoke about Fusion and our dreams for the region. Three workers from Australian shared a little about Fusion and the educational side of the work. There was a chance for questions and at the end of the evening there was some time for preparation for a Day trip. Already 6 of the local girls have joined the Day trip team and the team talked with them about their role on the day.
And the schools are delighted with what the Team is doing there: taking classes each day and running Lunchtime Programs and making strong contact with many young people in the region. The Day Trip on Saturday is an historic one - our first in Germany. It looks as if we will have 50 people there including some from Germany."
Aussie Team in Schools in Seelow, East Germany
Reflection from one of the Aussie pilgrims:Bowen Miller
"Our aim has been to connect with the young people of the community. The East of Germany is almost poverty stricken compared to the rest of Germany. Russian control and communism has left the economy in a disastrous state and the social state of the east reflects this. The teenage pregnancy rate over here is nothing like I have ever seen and I have seen some of the hot spots for teen pregnancy in Australia. You just drive down the street here and you can see the extent of the need.
So we have decided to set up base here and by a miracle, the locals put together and bought us this property as a base. The dream for Derfflinger Hoff is for it to be a place where the youth of the region can come together, be trained and discover a future. Today was only the first day and we had 13 young people come to the property. It was an amazing success with the youth really loving being out here and ecstatically waiting for their return.
We have spent a significant amount of time in the schools over here and have also had three community festivals in the middle of the town."