Here are scenes from:

• IBC church worship service, Sunday, July 13, 2008

The worship service this past Sunday was the monthly Lord's Supper special worship service. So the focus of the service was "Fellowship at the Lord's Table." The sermon was based on Rom. 3:21-31 with the title "Not Guilty." We still have many regularly attending folks on vacation as the end of the summer holiday season is rapidly approaching and the public school year beginning the first week of August in most of the schools in the Cologne Bonn metropolitan area is getting near. For a copy of the Sunday Bulletin, see the attached pdf file. Amazingly we continue to have large numbers of visitors in our services. Sunday, a group of young people who are working in a local hospital as a summer job attended our services; their home is in Holland. I was quite impressed with the spiritual interests of these young people to take time to search out an English language church in which to worship. Most were older high school students. Two young men from Indonesia also attended our service. One of the former members recently had a new daughter. Her husband was in the service and his brother-in-law attended along with his wife and the new grandmother. The brother-in-law and his wife live in east Tennessee just across the mountains from our home in NC. The new grandmother is from Cameroon in west Africa. These are some of those visiting from other countries. Added to that were several former members who are beginning to return to the church with the new direction the church is now moving. We have only four Sundays left before we return to North Carolina.

• Wednesday evening service, beginning July 2, 2008

On Wednesday July 2, we began a weekly Bible study and prayer meeting from 6:30 to 7:30 in the evening. The study of James has been the focus of the Bible study. Participation in the Bible study has steadily grown each week with more members and visitors, who learn about the meeting and are anxious to study God's Word with fellow Christians. Years ago this church had this time but in recent years had discontinued it. But God will bless a congregation when everything they do is anchored in scriptural principle. Our goal is to help everyone learn clearly from scripture how we are to live and serve Him.

• Church leadership dinner, Saturday, July 12, 2008.

On Saturday evening in Cologne, the Church Council members were invited to dinner by Vivian von Piechowski, who is in charge of welcoming people to the worship service on Sundays. We had an absolutely marvelous dinner that she had prepared, along with some help from Marianne D’Almeida, who leads the children's Bible study on Sundays. Afterwards some matters about the church were discussed by the leadership. It was a wonderful time of food and fellowship, in which Claire and I had opportunity to get to know the leadership of the church better and in a more personal way. Baptists world wide always have good fellowship, especially where there is food present. This was certainly true Saturday evening.

• Kölner Lichter 2008 - Cologne lights up, Saturday, July 12, 2008.

On July 4, Claire and I didn't get to see any fireworks that are a part of the traditional US Independence Day celebrations. But eight days later we were privileged to share in a spectacular display of fireworks that are a part of an annual celebration in the city of Cologne. Each summer the business community of downtown Cologne organizes this celebration that thousands of people celebrate. When it gets dark (usually around 10:30 or later in the evening during the height of the summer months, a parade of boats come up the Rhine River from the south and pass by the Aldstadt section along the river. They then turn around and come back to anchor on either side of the two main bridges crossing the Rhine in the downtown section. Then a thirty minute display of fireworks begins with absolutely beautiful effect. Samy served as our "tour guide" for the evening and we had a wonderful time. We couldn't get to a really good location for taking pictures but we did manage to take several which we share in the hyperlink.

Prayer requests:

1. That we can gradually reclaim most of the former members, almost a 100 people total, who have left the church over the past five or six years out of dissatisfaction with the way things were being done. A growing number have indicated interest in returning to the church once they see that the past troubles are indeed in the past and aren't going to plague the church in the coming days.
2. For Calvin and Betty Ann Hogue, the founding pastor of the church, as they finish up an interim in Stockton California and begin finalizing plans to return to Cologne to begin an interim here the first Sunday of September. God is miraculously making financial provisions to pave the way for their return until Claire and I return in January to begin as regular pastor of the church. They will be here from Sept. 4 to Dec. 30, serving the church.
3. That the mission team from the Virginia Baptist Mission Board, who will be with us August 4-11, will have safe traveling and a productive week helping us create greater awareness of the IBC church throughout the Cologne Bonn metropolitan area. We have numerous outreach activities planned, along with some sight-seeing activities to introduce them to a city whose beginnings reach back in history to 57 BCE.
4. That the church can quickly recover from a devastating loss of funds over the past few years and regain solid financial footing to be free to expand its ministries to the people of Cologne. Significant progress has already been made, but much more remains to be achieved.
5. That the process of our obtaining the German Visum (visa) for permanent residency here will go smoothly and without delays. Much, much paper work is involved in setting up health insurance, residency status etc.

Lorin & Claire

Please note a correction to our German home telephone number; it was incorrectly listed at the beginning.

IBC - International Baptist Church Cologne  
Pastor Lorin Cranford
Postfach 800518 
D - 51005 Koeln


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