Greetings from Frankfurt! Today we left Croatia. Donna and Reba headed for Munich to spend a couple of days with Sigi, a very special part of KCBT before returning to her native Germany a few years ago. Flying a cheap, discount airline, I flew into the Cologne/Bonn airport, as close to Frankfurt as I could get. I was going to take a train, but my friend Luis Alberto picked me up and we enjoyed the two hour drive to Frankfurt.

Luis Alberto and his family is my only purpose in passing through Frankfurt on my way to Amsterdam. My goal is to do whatever I can to minister to them.

Luis Alberto is a Peruvian who has spent most of his adult life ministering in Germany and is married to a German. He visited with us at KCBT last year. He is part of a small network in Spanish-speaking ministries here in Germany that we have had contact with for many years. Sergio Blazquez, the Mexican opera singer who has sung for us on occasion, and his family are members of Luis Alberto’s church.

Luis Alberto’s wife Martina has battled with cancer for the past ten years and I can only imagine the depressing times they have experienced. In praying for them I was burdened to simply stop by and take them out for a nice dinner in Jesus’ name and on behalf of the generosity of KCBT. Her treatments make it all but impossible for them to do much outside the normal sphere of daily activities. They are delightful people and she has days when you would not know she is sick and days when she can’t get out of bed. Today was a good day and she fixed a beautiful German dinner for me tonight. Tomorrow night is on us!

One interesting connection merits mention. If you have followed my updates on Face Book the past 24 yours you saw a tweet I did from the band bus of October Light. The four oldest sons of Bratko and Carmen in Croatia have a band called October Light and they evidently have done some good things here in Europe. A few years back they did a tour in the US. For those of you who care they recently opened for groups like Kutlass and Mojo. Two weeks ago they performed with Hillsong United here in Frankfurt. At the dinner table tonight it came up in conversation that the adolescent children of Luis Alberto and Martina had just seen this really neat band October Light. You can imagine that I was a minor celebrity in their household when I told them the connection. Small world.

Sometimes you have to wonder about the “real” people behind some of the groups you hear. To give you an idea of what type of family Bratko and Karmen have raised, these young men will do concerts on Friday and Saturday nights and then drive all night long to get home in time to be part of leading worship at church the next morning. This past Saturday night they played Zurich and drove straight through to be part of the 20th anniversary celebration.  Fine young men!