Dear Friends of Akebulan,
again, we look back to reflect what the last year has brought us. How are you? How was 2015 for you?
For Akebulan, it was a rather calm year. We are grateful for the faithfulness of our long-standing members and also to have the privilege to welcome “new faces” into our midst. Especially one new member, Karlheinz, joined us at a perfect time: Our old, simply built church was pretty much in need to be renovated. The two of us, Peter und Steffi, are not so skilled when it comes to this. But Karlheinz is a professional painter and he offered us his help for a more than fair price. What a blessing!
First, he painted the washing rooms. Everybody was excited because the result was more than good looking! Then, Peter planned for the summer that the hall should be painted, too. Karlheinz did not only do a great job here, too, but he also repaired parts of the roof and the building outside, painted the façade and washed the sidewalk flagstones which lead to the entrance.
Now they look like new. All this was accomplished in only one week: Sunday morning, everything was ready for the service. Wow! Our heartfelt thanksgiving goes to Karlheinz and his diligent helpers Bro Adam and Bro Mawuli; God bless you all for this marvelous work!
Also at summertime, our church got a new member by birth: Karlheinz and Wachuka gave birth to a babyboy whom they called Noel. As our youngest “brother” and because he is a very peaceful and sweet character, Noel is everybody’s darling.
For the continuous stability of our finances, we are very grateful. Our thanksgiving goes especially to our members. Also, we are very grateful for receiving a second sponsoring by Aktion Mensch e.V. for our Inclusion- Gospel- project with the Evangelical Blind People’s Service of Berlin. We are offering the project for three years, now. The planned short- trip with the choir will come on at the beginning of February 2016.
At the beginning of October, Steffi’s guard mother turned 70 years old. She was able to celebrate a party. Even though she lives nearby Bremen and her friends don’t know our church, she asked them to donate the amount of money they would have spent for buying her some gift, to Akebulan. Many of them did so. Counting together what they were able to give, it was a sum that was a very useful help for our church work. Our whole-hearted thanks to Christa Brandenburg for this wonderful idea and also to all of these cheerful givers!
At this occasion, we renewed our church prospect. Unfortunately, the pictures in it do only show our longtime members. This was because in the meantime, we didn’t have a camera to take pictures with. Now, we finally got a nice camera, again. We are very grateful for this.
Peter had to delimitate his voluntary cooperative activities with our network partners. The reason was a good one for our family:
He got two paid part-time-jobs which help us financially and allow him to continue his intercultural theology studies at Hermannsburg as well as his pastoral work for Akebulan. On the one hand, Peter works as a social counsellor at a Berliner Stadtmission’s emergency accommodation for refugees. During these politically challenging times, he can serve and help out, here, with his good gifts and experiences.
On Tuesdays, Peter plays music with handicapped people in Biesdorf. Once in a month and in Advent, he also holds devotions for them. The people in Biestorf are always very happy when he comes. They even “celebrate” him like a popstar! At their summer party, they presented their songs. Also, they have already cooked together and watched a special film.
In addition to these two permanent jobs, Peter also got two other job opportunities with a honorarium. One was to work at his university where he helped to create an exhibition called “black.white.German”. It is about Africans in Niedersachsen it is currently being shown in several German cities. The other opportunity is at an association called “Together for Africa e.V.” Here, Peter already could overtake an active part at a teachers’ further education and created an African school project.
Now a more chronological reporting: In February, the pastors of APPA e.V. (African Pentecostal Pastors Association) had a conclave meeting and together with their congregations, another Half Prayer Night. In June followed their yearly conference. Also, the Ghanaian pastors of APPA and others together with the Ghanaian Chief Imam of Berlin
organised a special joined service to celebrate Ghana’s independence. The offering was supposed to be for the youth. After Pastor Jere had added a good amount to it, we were able to invite them for a so-called “Sankofa Youth Day“. We started with bowling and continued with refreshment and a program at Gospel Believers International Church. The idea behind this youth day is to help young people with an African background find their identity between the different cultures. This is why we offer them to do researches and learn about famous personalities who also were of African roots. They shaped their societies and influenced history. Many of them “moved mountains” with their faith.
In April, Peter and Steffi travelled to Mülheim to take part in a conference of our umbrella organisation “Mülheimer Verband e.V.”
There, the new concept of the association, which they call “DNA”, was introduced and confirmed by the attendances. The regional coordinator Pastor Hans-Peter Pache continues to coach us as pastoral couple and also is the contact person for our church.
This time, one of the joined, intercultural baptism services at Südstern Church was in May at the Pentecost weekend. Peter was honored to baptize two of our brothers in Christ; Flavour und Jack. Considering our rather small number of members, we regard it as a real blessing to continuously have been able to baptize people from our church during the last years.
In May, we also held the annual general meeting of our church. A group of Diakonia students from Hermannsburg made a short trip to Berlin. We invited them for lunch at our church.
In June, our sister Ines, again, invited the members of Akebulan for barbeque at her house’s yard. We had a happy gathering and didn’t feel disturbed when a thunderstorm rose up. We could move into the big house floor. Also in this month, Peter, Steffi and Phinissia travelled as family to the Evangelical Church Day at Stuttgart. There, we could meet some family including Peter’s guard son. We went to huge concert with the famous “Frey” couple, Judy Bailey and band, as well as a group called “Young & Free” from Hillsing United. In addition, we were able to go to a colorful, festivity Lord’s Supper lead by Steffi’s stepsister Pfr. Susanne Fleischer.
We, Peter and Steffi, are grateful to have got more contact, again, with our “old” pastor friend Dr. Kingsley Arthur. So we were able to celebrate his birthday, his son Patrick’s wedding and the memorial service for his father with Kingsley, his family and the congregation.
We had to bury, too, the famous Ghanaian medical doctor Dr. Mends and Pastor Owusu’s youngest son Rich. Pastor Owusu is the financial secretary of RACIBB e.V. We also mourned with one of the professors in Hermannsburg Prof. Richebächer. He, too, had lost his son at a young age.
Sometimes in life, mourning and celebrating hit us very close to each other. Minister Ashley from GBI Church got married. It was a joyful service and a big party!
As we announced in the last report, Prof. Dr. Ludwig from Hermannsburg held a workshop in Berlin to give an insight into the diverse African Christian community of this city to the master students. The title of the workshop was “building bridges”. In February, he had already come over to do some preparations together with APPA e.V. and CSI (To be an Intercultural Christian), which were hosted by our church.
The group “CSI” is a mainly Ecumenic group, but it has got another perspective, too, through Dr. Triebel from SSIP e.V. (Social Science’ Studies for Intercultural Perspectives). We meet on regular basis. In November, we had another workshop in a similar shape like 2014. Its title was “We remain imperfect in Christ- how to cope with Ecumenic difference”. In 2016, CSI will join the continuation of the intercultural encounter meetings which had had an involuntary break in 2015.
At the end of November, RACIBB e.V. (Council of African Christians in Berlin/ Brandenburg) had a crisis meeting. The association was short before closing down. But thanks to God, some creative strategies to bundle activities plus the cooperation of the Africa Center and the “White Fathers”, the council can continue. We are very glad about this!
On the 27th December, we had our Akebulan Christmas service. We had invited the members of the Gospel choir as well as other friends of our ministry. It was a joyful celebration, a blessed fellowship and a delicious international buffet. At the end of the year, we had our traditional Half Prayer Night with witnesses about what God has done in our lives.
We give thanks to all Akebulan members for their loyalty, team work, support of different kind and the more than blessed fellowship in our church. We give thanks to the pastors Alex and Ralph for their regular preaching and worship leading ministry in our midst. We, too, give thanks to our network partners and our umbrella organisation for the fruitful cooperation and we hope to be able to continue our engagement with Together for Berlin/ Forum Intercultural Relationships and Himmelsfels in 2016. We give thanks to Aktion Mensch e.V. for their second donation for our inclusion Gospel project and to all our supporters for their friendly contributions. We also give thanks to our landlord Dr. Knappe for the new pump, for the more than fair renting conditions and for the peaceful neighbourly relationship. Last but not least we give thanks to everybody who carries us in prayer and of course to our good Lord for all the grace and blessings He has shown to us!
We wish all of you a joyful and blessed New Year 2016!
Yours sincerely;
Peter and Steffi Arthur and Akebulan e.V.
Links:
http://www.muelheimer-verband.de
https://www.aktion-mensch.de
http://www.blindendienst-berlin.de
http://www.absv.de
http://www.racibb.org/index.php/de
http://www.afrika-center-berlin.com
http://www.fh-hermannsburg.de
http://www.ssip-web.de
http://www.berliner-stadtmission.de/fluechtlinge/notunterkunft-traglufthalle
http://www.gemeinsam-fuer-afrika.de
http://www.akwaba-gospelchor.com/index_ger.html
http://www.kunstwerkstatt-fischerhude.de (Christa Brandenburg)
Räuschstr. 37, 13509 Berlin, Tel.: 030/ 773 28 487; e-mail: info@akebulan-gm.org;
Website: www.akebulan-gm.org; Chairman: Pastor Peter Arthur
Tax No: 27/ 656/ 55070; District Court No: VR 25928 B; Bank Account Akebulan:
Ev. Darlehnsgenossenschaft, IBAN: DE38 5206 0410 0003 9085 18, BIC: GENODEF1EK1