October 9, 2000
Abilene Baptists find open doors on German prayerwalk
___By Roy Jones
___Special Correspondent
___ABILENE--Seven Texas Baptists said they were the ones blessed the most by participation in a recent Texas Partnerships prayerwalk to Gotha, a former medieval capital in what most recently was East Germany.
___Fred and Marylou Levrets, retired Southern Baptist missionaries to South Africa, ledthe delegation from First Baptist Church of Abilene. They didn't plan the Sept. 6-18 mission trip around two significant events in Gotha, "but God obviously did," they said.
GERMAN PASTOR Herbert Mueller (left) joins First Baptist Church of Abilene members Susan Pigeon, Joyce Daffern and Fred Levrets in praying outside the government house during a Texas Partnership prayerwalk in Gotha, Germany.
___First, the Texans got to participate in Gotha's observance of 2,000 years of Christianity. They joined hands and hearts with hundreds of Gotha residents of various faiths who flocked to the town plaza to give mutual support to each other and show the vast majority of curious onlookers the joy of the faith. Although Gotha is a city of 53,000, its handful of churches appear small in comparison to the masses turned off by religion.
___Janet Erwin, a retired minister to children, church organist and volunteer missionary to Germany for four years, said she was most impressed by the vision of the small 80-member Baptist church that hosted the Texans. Rather than just struggling along under their own power, the believers "not only invited us to come pray over their city but also asked a team from Sweden to come lead a revival," she said.
___"They asked us to come pray with them, but we are the ones who learned about prayer," said Susan Pigeon, a dental hygienist. "We depend on prayer, but they depend on prayer. We pray about something then turn it over to a committee, and God helps it get done. They have no committees; they depend on God for everything, and their faith is inspiring."
___The other significant event had to be planned by God, said Joyce Daffern, a retired schoolteacher.
___"When we came out of the city hall after meeting with the mayor, which was a miracle in itself, we 'just happened' to run into a group of Jews who were visiting Gotha for the first time since their ancestors' synagogue and homes were burned and they were sent off to Buchenwald (the infamous nearby concentration camp where Nazis tortured and killed more than 65,000 people) during World War II."
___The visit was unannounced because of the strong neo-Nazi presence still in Gotha, and the Jewish delegation was heavily protected by police.
___"We had visited Buchenwald the day before, and I think all of us wanted to apologize to someone for what their loved ones had suffered, and that gave us the chance. It was a very emotional, healing time for us all," Daffern said.
___There was one unanticipated response.
___"It is we who owe you an apology for what we did to Baptists in the Middle Ages," said one man. He turned out to be a Lutheran pastor in New York City. His wife, a Jew and native of Gotha, had been sent away as a young child by parents who later were unable to escape the Nazi fate.
___One of the highlights for the Texans was visiting in nearby Weimar with Southern Baptist missionaries Rick and Nancy Dill from Alabama. When they came to Weimar in 1992, there were 11 Baptists worshipping in a small rented "hole in the wall" downtown. Today, thanks to help from hundreds of Baptists from Texas and six other southern states, the church has a spacious new building that is packed with more than 200 members each week.
___
Get printer-friendly version of this story
Send this story to a friend
Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!
