Dear Friends of Akebulan,

Now the year 2012 is over and we reflect what it has brought us. How was this year for you? In our church, it was not really the strongest year when we relate it to the number of visitors of our services or our activities and capacities. But still, we are thankful because we realize that the quality of our work helps people to find a place of refuge, help and a spiritual home where they get encouraged and strengthened in their inner man and they do grow in their faith. All this together allows them to get on in their lives and we regard this as grace. But it is not a one way road- we ourselves are being blessed, too, while we do this work, through the people who take part in it. They enrich our lives and help us and the church through their strengths and abilities.

What happened during 2012? The observant reader will realize: Our official name is now only „Akebulan e.V.“- this is why we have put „Global Mission“ in brackets. This is a formality and does not concern the contents of our work. We have changed our constitution which now says that our remaining name is „Akebulan e.V.“ We regret this, but we had practical reasons to do so. As a small association which is self- organised by immigrants, we regularly need financial support from people and organisations outside our church. But the state as well as most social organisations do not further any religious activities. This is why the shorter name helps to get their focus more on the social aspects of what we do. At the end of 2012, it is our pleasure and joy to be able to announce that we received a support from Aktion Mensch e.V. for a one year Gospel project in cooperation with the Evangelical Service for Blind People of Berlin! We have already held a „test“ workshop in November where 26 people from kindergarden age up to high retirement age were involved. Some were almost professional singers, others were totally new starters, but everybody took part with a lot of joy and we really made beautiful music all together!

The highlights in our church were the baby dedication of Onyi, several birthday celebrations, the RACIBB- service in May at our place, the ordination of Brother Alexander Bierhals and the 50th birthday of Pastor Peter. At the Feast of the Churches, we represented our church with an info table. At the Ecumenical Pentecost Service in our church neighbourhood, we were, again, actively involved. In August, we had an intercultural meeting organised by ÖRBB at our place. Another meeting of this kind took place at Pastor Okito’s church.

At Good Friday, we were able to baptise Sister Christine and Brother Oschieng from Kenya at the big yearly baptism service at Südstern Church. Praise God! Andi also got baptised a little later at Café Mandelzweig!

At Desendance Day, again, together with GfB, we went to Himmelslfels where Pastor Peter had already been in March for a study day. This time, we were able to stay with almost 50 young people from Berlin at the following International Youth Bible Camp. Thanks to Brother Samuel Doodoo and Sister Vivianne Ondo for their help! Unfortunately, Brother Samuel recently moved to Ghana where he now teaches at a university. We are glad for him because of this opportunity, but we and especially the youth from I.C.C. Church miss him here, too!

There were more people moving away from Berlin. Pastor Rey now lives and works in Köln to where his wife and children came back from the Philippines so that their family is finally reunited. We are very happy for them! Sister Lydia and her family first came for a surprise visit to Berlin and then moved further to the U.S. Thanks to a Greencard, Pastor Simon was also able to move there. We miss them in our small church- but we also thank God for the grace He has given them to go where their hearts wanted to go! We had another surprise visit from Brother Bobby and Sister Paulina with their children, and a special visit from our senior pastors Muutuki from Kenya. Brother Juan recently came to report about his last visit to Israel- we continue praying for his visions to come true! In autumn, we were witnesses of the very joyful baby dedication of Daddy Ben Akpalu’s and his wife Florence’s son Mount Zion at G.B.I. Church- it was awesome!

The APPA Conference in June was greatly blessed as every year. In addition, the Ghanaian APPA pastors organised a 55 years jubilee service on the occasion of Ghana’s independence. We were specially blessed to have the Ghana Embassador among us! Unfortunately, only a few weeks later, we were part of a mourning service for president Atta Mills at the Ghana Embassy. At these and many other occasions (for example, the two yearly RACIBB services), the I.C.C. Youth Choir, sometimes enlarged by the youth of G.B.I., came to sing- thank you! I.C.C. also organised a youth conference this summer. During the autumn holidays, thanks to a donation from the Ghana Embassy, APPA was able to finance a bowling event for our youth. At the end of the year, Pastor Jere asked to be released from the responsibility of being the APPA president. So we voted for Pastor Joachim Bekou to be the new 1st chairman and Pastor Nimo as his representative. We highly respect and are very grateful for what Pastor Jere accomplished for APPA during so many years of a dedicated and faithful service!

Together with GfB, we again celebrated one of their blessed yearly Open Air Services at the 1st May in Kreuzberg. Before in February, they had organised another Transforum Conference which was very inspiring. Since he took part in an advanced training in intercultural pedagogic, Pastor Peter could not work so intensively together with the forum FIKB like before. Now, he has started a postgraduate studies on intercultural theology in Hermannsbourg. Also, he is working part time at a Jewish High School in Berlin.

In autumn, Pastor Joshua Lupemba was also ordained as pastor at his church, and in December, together with other youth leaders from Berlin, he organised the second “Youth United Day” which was specially blessed and very successful.

Inside our church, we continued with our regular meetings. At our Children’s Sunday School, we often had only a few children because of the generally weak attendance. But I still tried to continue extra programs for the three age groups of kindergarden kids, school starters and our teenage girls. The men and women meetings as well as our prayer nights had to be reduced a bit. Instead, we started to regularly held prayer meetings with our co-workers. Our worship team has been blessed with Brother Alex Okoh, Prisci und Phini, which we are grateful for. Since the early summertime, I was able to continue the free homework help, again. The offer is now on Tuesdays at 17.00hrs. In Hennigsdorf, the Bible studies are also being continued. As many asylum homes in Germany these days, Hennigsdorf is totally overcrowded. This occurred because the use of the homes had been minimized for many years. Now that we again have a larger amount of people who have been accepted in the homes, the problem is that the empty houses need to be renovated, first, before people can move there. This situation produces a lot of tensions, conflicts and aggressions. Please pray for the people there and for the politics to improve!

Some old church friends who lead a Ghanaian Church in Spandau asked us if we could work together. We liked the thought and asked our co-workers to think and pray about it. But after some exchange of thoughts among us leaders, we realized, that our churches have very different concepts and our expectations for a cooperation are different from one another. This is why we decided to leave things as they are at the moment. In the New Year, we hope to finally be accepted at the Mühlheimer Verband as our head organisation. God is good!

At this start of a new year, we again don’t want to forget to say our full heartedly thanks for any support of our work, be it through prayers, practical help (special thanks to Dr. Ansgar Sander and his chambers for the multiple help to register our formal constitution changes and to Michael Fleischer for his further help with the administration of our finances and with applications for financial supports), natural offers like fantastic international food, as well as every financial offering! Many thanks to all of you! And many thanks, too, to our great God Who carried us through the year and blessed us more than abundantly!

We wish all of you a happy and blessed New Year 2013!
Yours Pastor Peter and Sister Steffi Arthur +Akebulan

Räuschstr. 37, 13509 Berlin, Tel.: 030/ 773 28 489
e-mail: info@akebulan-gm.org; Website: www.akebulan-gm.org
Tax No: 27/ 656/ 55070; District Court No: VR 25928 B;
Chairman: Pastor Peter Arthur, Bahnhofstr. 4a, 12207 Berlin
Bank Account Akebulan: Ev. Darlehnsgenossenschaft, Bank No: 210 602 37, AccountNo: 743534