The Sudbrock Scoop

Beautiful Music

I had a exciting exchange with our children's Russian Violin teacher. He is a very intelligent and complex man. Please pray for another opening for the gospel.

Paul

Hear yee, hear yee

It is City Festival time in Wittenberg again. Every year the city of Wittenberg celebrates the wedding anniversary of Martin Luther and his bride, Katharina von Bora. This year we will have a booth in front of the church where Luther posted his 95 Thesis. We will be demonstrating how paper was made in the middle ages using common plants. A book table will also be set up with Bibles, tracts, and other printed materials about Luther, God and salvation. Please pray for us during the next three days. We will be downtown from mid-morning till sunset (10 pm) each day. Some of our prayer concerns include:

• safety for all involved
• safe and easy set-up of our booth
• good weather
• that many will receive the Gospel
• That those already seeking Christ will be drawn to the church
• that all of the materials we have purchased will get into new hands and be read
• wisdom in managing this undertaking
• God's blessings that we will find favor in the sight of the program coordinator
• for our children during this long, very busy weekend.
• health and stamina for our workers
• wisdom as we speak to thousands of people this weekend

Thank you so much for praying with us.

Blessings,

Chelli

A good neighbor

I hope you all are having a wonderful Easter week. We are throroughly enjoying having our kids home with us all day. I wish spring break could last a month.

God has called us to love our neighbors. We generally apply this to everyone we know, but today, I would like to take a minute and apply it directly to our physical neighbors. Of the many different neighbors we have had in Germany since our arrival 14 years ago, we have only seen 5 of them come to Christ and only one is currently attending our church. At present, we live in a 7-apartment house. Ours is on the bottom floor which means we have a lot of contact with all of the other neighbors. One family in the house is open to the Gospel and has visited our church a couple of times. Four others are friendly, but not open to any discussion about faith and the last family is hostile towards us. Our prayers are two-fold. We would love to see our neighbors get saved. We pray that our witness would be consistently God-honoring. Secondly, we pray that if the hostile neighbor continues to harden his heart, that the Lord would remove him from our apartment building. We have lived here for 10 years now and he moved in 3 years ago. He visited our church soon after moving in and started disliking us from that day on. His hostility has only grown with the years. Please pray that his hostility would not be a daily burden for us. There are so many other positive things that could use our attention. May the way we respond to him be a witness to the others in the house.

Please pray for an openness of the German people towards the Gospel. Just the mention of faith causes most eastern Germans to turn and walk the other way. This is a very strongly atheist area. Pray that the children here will receive a clear presentation of the Gospel. Pray that God will call Germans into full-time Christian service and burden our lay-people to serve more faithfully.

We are currently trying to acquire German New Testaments that we can distribute. Most East German children have never held a Bible, let alone read one. We were successful in obtaining 12 copies of the Gospel of John to give away at Easter, but our city has over 40,000 people. It will take much more than that to make an impact. We are praying for the blessing of the loaves and fishes with these Bibles.

Thank you again for your faithful prayers.

Blessings!

Chelli Sudbrock

writing for Paul,

Skyler, Samantha, Serenity and Sadie

Weeping for the lost

Samantha came home from school on Wednesday praising God. She was able to lead one of her new friends to the Lord. While on a school trip, the girls began discussing God and creation during the bus ride. Samantha was able to explain to her friend all that the Bible has to say about Heaven. Her friend professed to believe in God, but didn't know whether she would go to Heaven or not. Samantha told her she could know for sure and explained salvation to her. Reminding her friend that this is serious and not just a "club for kids", she lead her in prayer asking God for salvation. The girls in the seat in front of them then popped up and said, "Tell us more. We want to know too." They discussed God and the Bible during the whole trip. The next day, Samantha took devotional books to school for each of the girls. Now she keeps a couple of extra ones in her backpack, just in case. Oh, so cool!

We have been studying the great commission in Sunday School and focusing specifically on China. This morning we talked about the great population of China and the number of people who die there every day. Have they heard? Have they read the Bible? Were they saved? Where do all of those souls go? One of the boys piped up and asked about all of the "good people" in the world who don't believe the Bible. Where do they go? Knowing that his Dad is an Atheist, this question was very pointed and real. During the discussion that followed, I noticed another child with her head down. She is a very shy little girl, so I did not think much about it. Then, Samantha stood up and walked over to her and put her arm around her. Then I saw it. This dear little girls was weeping. Both her mother and father are atheists. We immediately stood together with those children whose parents are unsaved and pleaded with God to save them. The hour ended in sweet songs of praise as we all thought about God's love and salvation and how sweet it will be to join Him in Heaven one day.

A lesson about missionaries half way around the world hit home with our kids. Will you please pray with us that hearts will be softened and lives changed here within our city as well as half way around the world in China? Please pray for the five children in our Sunday School who have unsaved fathers.

Thank you for your faithful support in prayers and finances.

Chelli Sudbrock

Skyler's leg

We received the blood work back and they have ruled out Lymes Disease. On Thursday evening they did an MRI and we will go to the orthopedic surgeon tomorrow to find out the results.

We have been having a good week. With Ibuprofen and herbal supplements, Skyler hasn't been having any pain. But then this morning he woke up in great pain again and is having difficulty moving. Please continue to pray for his healing and for wisdom on the part of the doctors.

Thank you!

Chelli

Still thankful for Today!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and for those who are celebrating this weekend, I hope it is a special day to remember.

We just finished cleaning up from our dinner. We were able to host a family with 5 children and a single mother and her daughter. Two friends came over and helped me prepare this morning and all went really well. We had such a good time. One of our guests is an Emergency Doctor and was on call, so he was here with his ambulance driver. That was a new experience. They missed the opening prayer and had to leave before dessert, but we are so glad that they were able to enjoy part of the evening. We didn't figure out how to tape the parade, but we did watch clips of it on YouTube. All in all the day ended so well and we have so much to be thankful for.

Our day didn't start out so well though. When I went in to wake Skyler up this morning, he said he couldn't come down out of his bed because he couldn't move his leg. He has been having "growing pains" lately and I just thought he was exaggerating, so I told him to come on down and stop stalling. He did come down, but was soon in tears, so I got Paul to take a look at it. He tried stretching it out and massaging it, but he still couldn't get his hip movement up to 90°, so he started to get concerned. It was 6 am and we considered the emergency room, but decided to wait until 7 when the pediatrician would be in.

Back in July, Skyler was bit by a tick and a week later spent some time in the hospital under suspicion of meningitis. So, the doctor took blood to check for Lyme's disease. We will have the results back from that on Monday. She then sent Skyler to an orthopedic surgeon. He took Xrays which showed extreme inflammation appearing to be a type of arthritis. He then scheduled an MRI for the 8th. The doctors that were here for dinner suggested we also have Skyler checked for an illness called (morbus Perthes) Legg–Calvé–Perthes syndrome.

The good news is Skyler is thrilled to be excused from Sport for a while.

It was just yesterday that I was sharing with you how thankful we are to all be so healthy this year. Well, . . . we are still thankful to God for today.

We would really appreciate your prayers for Skyler's health and for wisdom on our parts.

Thanks so much!

Chelli

The Paper is coming

I just got a call from the local newspaper and they will be visiting the church tomorrow morning to interview us about our Christmas outreach program. Please pray with us that God will give us favor in their eyes and that the article they print will encourage people to seek Him.

Thank you!

Chelli

August

August has just spun by. On the tenth, we had a baptism at the church. Adela surrendered herself for baptism and completed the discipleship classes necessary in order to be baptized in spite of the fact that her Atheist father is quite open about his unbelief. What an awesome experience to be able to see this nine year old girl give her life to God. God has used he in our lives since her birth. You see, her mother and I first met at mother/baby aerobics. It didn't take God long to bring us together and build a friendship between us. Soon, Adela's mom began attending Bible study in our home. Now, 9 year later, she is an active part of our church and brings all three of her children to Sunday School on a regular basis. We were able to see Adela accept Christ as her Saviour two years ago and this past spring, she came and asked if she could be baptized. I asked her how her father felt about it and she replied, "I wanted to ask you first." After Adela and her mother talked to her father, he agreed to let her choose Christianity if that is what she wants. Her father even attended the service along with 40 other people and spent the afternoon as we celebrated our newest member. Please pray with Adela for her father's salvation.

It was Back-to-school Sunday at church today and we had 25 people there for services and dinner on the grounds. School starts back up tomorrow and I think I am more nervous than my children. Skyler will be going into the 5th grade, which is the first grade in the high school here. After a year of homeschooling, this will be a new start for him, new friends, new school, new opportunities. Samantha will continue with her class into the 4th grade. In our city, the children have the same teacher and classmates for the first 4 years of school. Serenity will start the 1st grade. She is ready and eager, nervous and scared. But she has everything ready for her first day and is sleeping soundly. Sadie will be attending kindergarten this year. We are praying for good friends for all of our children. In this Atheist society, it is not easy to find good friends, so we are praying extra earnestly for God's provision. We are praying for wisdom, guidance, protection, and just overall blessings from God for our children for the new school year.

Our church is just a 5 minute walk from Skyler's new school, so we are praying that God will show us how to minister to this large group of Germany's future. We are considering using the church as an after school activity center, offering music and English groups. The details are not clear yet and we are still praying for God's guidance.

Thank you for praying for the our financial needs. The dollar has been gaining strength! What a blessing that has been.

I'm eager to hear what your fall has in store as well. Write and tell me all about it.

Chelli

Mothers in Need - Babies in Need

A recent survey published in the Spiegel magazine in Germany stated that 33% of Germans would abort a disabled child. In 2006 12,753 minors got pregnant in Germany. 42% chose to have an abortion.

Please pray for us as we seek God's guidance as to how to reach these young ladies with the hope of the Gospel.

In the meantime, we have a success story of one unwed mother who turned to us for help when she discovered she was expecting. She gave birth last week to a beautiful baby girl, Jodie Anne. Mother and baby are doing fine. Please pray with us for Jodie Anne and her mom. They are precious to us.

Thanks!

Chelli

Dad's Cancer is back

We received news this week that my Dad's cancer is back. They will begin radiation treatments soon. Please pray with us for Albert Sudbrock's healing. As you can imagine this weighs heavy on our hearts, especially with us being so far from home. Dad is also my pastor and carries many responsibilities that will need to be delegated out to others. We are all praying that God will send a young pastor who has a heart and a vision for Newton, IA, to help in this time of need.

Thank you so much for holding us up in prayer.

Paul

May Day

Happy May Day!

May first was a national holiday here in Germany. Parts of the country celebrated Ascension Day while the others celebrated International Men's Day. The day was sunny and warm, a great day for a BBQ at the church. Our regular Thursday night Bible study decided to meet at the church for a BBQ and spend the evening together. We had 13 people in attendance with 1 first time visitor. It was a good evening.

June 1, is International Children's Day and we will celebrate by hosting a Children's Festival at the church. Please pray for us as we make all the necessary preparations. Pray that we will have lots of kids visit and that they will have a great time and want to come back on a regular basis.

Now for the bad news, on May Day, I lost two very important things. First, while eating chips and salsa, I broke off part of a molar. God was so good to me. My regular dentist is on vacation, but his office referred me to a great dentist who did her best to save the tooth and spare the cost of having it crowned. The total cost was $100. More than I had expected to spend on dental this month, but a whole lot less than a crown. Second, while cleaning up after the BBQ, I looked down at my left hand and saw that my wedding ring was missing. I have no idea what happened, when or where. We had just gotten sized down to fit better while we were home on furlough. We spent yesterday morning (after the dentist appointment) at the church looking for it, but it is still hiding somewhere. I have an infection in my right shoulder, so I have been doing everything with my left hand for a couple of days. I remember having it on Monday and am pretty sure that it was there on Wednesday, but with the pain in my arm, I have been a little preoccupied. As you think about us, would you pray with me that I find my wedding ring. It makes me ill to think about the fact that it could be gone forever. I am so glad my treasure is laid up in heaven. The idea of having to protect such a treasure here on earth exhausts me.

Thank you for your prayers! Please mention our name the next time you talk with the Father.

Chelli

financial prayers

Many of you are praying for the financial situation of the European missionaries on a daily basis. Thank you so much. A few have even raised our support in the past couple of months. Thank you. I know things are tight in the states as well. Prices are going up eveywhere. We pray for you as well.

As I was finishing up our financial accountability worksheets for the month, I thought you might be interested in seeing how fast things are changing around here.

In February, 500€ cost us $724

In April, 500€ cost us $792

Just 7 years ago, 500€ cost us $430.

The same price increases you are seeing in the states are happening here. The prices are going up. The dollar is going down and the bank account is burning at both ends.

I am so thankful that I serve a God who knows where I live!

Thank you for your faithful prayers and support.

Chelli

Educational hazards

Attending Bible College can be dangerous. While I was there, I broke my ankle. Paul broke his nose. Others that we knew broke arms, legs and even one who broke his neck - and lived! But this week, we experienced a first. Vivian discovered that dorm life can indeed be hazardous. All of her limbs are in tact and she is doing well. From first glance, you wouldn't know she had experienced so much pain this week, but as soon as she flashes her new smile, you will know not all is as it appears. While goofing around with her roommate, Vivian lost her balance and wasn't quick enough with her hands to catch herself. The floor came at her fast, and her mouth broke the fall. The first of her front teeth broke off upon impact. The sound was so strange, she came up laughing more than crying, but unfortunately that was not the end of her tears. The evening of her accident, she visited the ER with her roommate. They referred her to a specialist and the next morning she went to the dentist. He then pulled her second front top tooth. The two eye teeth are damaged as well, but the dentist believes they can be capped.

Please pray for Vivian as she heals. Pray for wisdom for her as she deals with insurance companies and dentists, seeking the best treatment at the best price. With just one month left of school, Vivian needs our prayers that her year at Bible college will end well.

Thank you so much for your love and prayers.

Chelli

Praying for Germany

Recently I was asked how someone could best pray for Germany. Well, Germany is a diverse country, so I won't pretend to know what the many needs are throughout the land. After some prayer and consideration though, a list began to form and I wanted to share it with you. When you pray for us and our work in Wittenberg, Germany, please pray with us for the German people we minster among.

- church growth – We need to see the Biblical churches that are here grow.

- Depression – 70% of all Germans receive clinical treatment for depression at some point in their lives

- New leaders – Our young people need to raise up and take leadership for the Lord.

- Prayer warriors – our elderly need to wake up and see the importance of their role as prayer warriors

- Islam – The Muslim religion is growing by leaps and bounds and in Germany

- Truth – May the truth be known throughout Germany. The majority of east Germans are Atheists. May their eyes be opened.

- Need – Germans are generally a wealthy group of people who see no need for God. May God remind them of their ultimate need.

- Families – Germany is in need of good strong, large families. Most Germans only have one child and many never marry. The German population is shrinking rather than growing.

Thank you for your love and prayers.

Chelli

Dorthea doing well

The surgery went well. The only problem that she has is with the

morphine: it is keeping her really sleepy. They took her off of it at noon today and said it

would take a few hours to get out of her system. Thanks to all of you for your prayers and your

response to my e-mail. You are great. But please continue to pray for Dorthea's recovery now.

God Bless all of you.

Al Sudbrock

Newton, IA

Pray for Dorthea Sudbrock

Please pray for Dorthea Sudbrock, pastor's wife at Newton Baptist Temple, Newton, IA, and Paul's mom. She will be having knee replacement surgery on Monday morning. The last time she had a major surgery, we almost lost her, so we are a little concerned about this one as well. Please keep her and her family in prayer Monday.

Thank you so much!

Victory

We are praising the Lord for His blessings! Many of you have been praying for our children and their schooling. This week, we recieved an answer to our prayers. The week we arrived back in Germany, the grade school principal called and said that a complaint had been registered against us saying that we were keeping our children out of school. At that point, Samantha was back in school, but apparently, at least one of the teachers was frustrated with us because we hadn't put Serenity into the first grade. We placed a call to the Minister of Education for our state and found that he was sick. We continued to call back each week and he was always sick. This week, he came back to work, though not fully recovered, and called us. After a short talk over the phone, he told us to inform the school principal that Serenity would be starting the first grade in the fall and that we did not have to enroll her now. Any questions regarding this decision were to be directed to the Minister of Education. It is official! We have received government permission to follow through with our children's schooling as planned. Skyler will re-enter the public system in the fall and be in the German fifth grade. Samantha will continue with her class at the German elementary school, attending the 4th grade in the fall and Serenity will start the first grade this fall, leaving Sadie to start the first grade next fall.

Please continue to pray for our children as they attend school in an ahteist area of Germany. This means the number of other children claiming to believe in God is very small. In Samantha's class, there is only one other girl who claims Christianity. It is not an easy path that is before us, but the Lord placed us here and will continue to guide and protect us.

Thank you for praying with us through this victory!

Success!

We made it! We survived 141 days of living out of the car and cooler. We visited 10 states and 30 different churches. Now we have made it back home to Wittenberg, Germany. We took a week and rested and tried to get realigned with the sun on this side of the planet.

Samantha has started back to school and is enjoying the third grade in the German public school. Yesterday on the way to school, she said, "Mom, thank you for bringing me home. It is so exciting here!" The kids really are more at home here than anywhere else in the world.

When we left, the closets were full of summer dresses and short sleeved shirts. Though February in Germany is nothing compared to the blizzards in Iowa, it is still sweater weather, so we have spent a few days cleaning out closets and finding all the winter apparel that was needed. The kids have grown so much while we were traveling, especially Serenity.

Our church people welcomed us home with an 8 foot square banner and a song that they had written in our honor. What a tremendous blessing they were. After church, we enjoyed lunch from the grill and an afternoon of fellowship. We are excited to be back with them. Please pray for us as we seek God's will considering the future of our building.

We are eager to get things rolling again. The Iowa Pastor's Fellowship was generous enough to commit the money needed to fund the printing of full-colored introductory fliers for the church. Now, with a little more funding, we would like to put together welcome packets and get geared up to see a lot of visitors come through our doors this spring.

A generous supporter in MO donated a set of children's handbells to our ministry. I was able to introduce these to the kids on Sunday and they are all so excited. We will be planning our initial presentation for Palm Sunday. Please pray with us that God will give us wisdom in using this tool to reach the children in our neighborhood and their families.

The two youngest children, Serenity and Sadie, have lost some of their German, so we have enrolled them in preschool and kindergarten respectively starting the 3rd of March. Please pray with us that God will allow us to be a witness in the schools and that He would provide good Christian friends for our children. As you can imagine, being the only one in the whole school who believes in God, can be quite a strain on anyone, and especially on a child.

We appreciate you all so much. Now that we are sitting still again and have reliable Internet access, you should be hearing from me on a regular basis again. I hope to write to you again soon.

Blessings!

Chelli

Furlough

Our 2007 ministry video is ready for viewing.

Please pray that our calender will fill up with new churches or churches that are in a position to increase our support.

Dollar Falls

Dollar Falls to 15-Year Low Against Euro

The U.S. dollar dropped to a 15-year low against the euro today amid speculation that continuing signs of slowing U.S. economic growth will prompt the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates on Sept. 18, “reducing the appeal of assets denominated in the U.S. currency,” observed Bloomberg.

The latest fall caps what may be the dollar’s longest losing streak since October 2004, the news source offered.“We’re still in a weak dollar environment. Concerns about the U.S. economy have intensified, and that’s played negatively for the dollar,” a currency strategy expert in London told Bloomberg.

from MoneyNews.com

Please pray for us as we minister here in Wittenberg, Germany.

Paul and Chelli Sudbrock