Day 3 - Kanaan & Cuban Pizza

Samuel had to go to university, so we dressed up and he dropped me to Peter Khalil's place (his cousin, who I also got to know in Zambia/Congo trip last August). Peter had two convention "refugees" staying over; Johnny and Remon. Basically the convention gathered youth from all over Germany and Johnny and Remon were just the case: Johnny from Berlin and Remon ... hmm i just hear its a far place :)

The plan was to go meet Morris, who also housed other refugees, and go to Kanaan: an evangelical nuns monastary. Gathering in Peter's Golf, we go meet the Morris clan at the airport (where I also got my Frankfurt/Vienna trip sorted out) and we drive off to Daarmstudt. This is where Morris is staying and apparently where Kanaan and other stuff are.

We pass by his university first, where get good home made food for pretty cheap and also where I get to learn some German. The language bothered me - everyone spoke it and sometimes it was the only language they spoke, so I had to at least be able to communicate if I need to. So I ended up memorizing the numbers from 0 to 12, and the general greetings - especially "Please take me to Frankfurt Airport" :)

We then stop at beautiful looking church (which I have no more info about except that it was good looking) that was closed and under construction but had a lot of engravings and was surrounded by a great setting ... something I deifintely do not see back in the Arab world.

Egyptians are Egyptians - no matter where you go, so we ended up going to Kanaan around 3 hours later than expected :D Ahh I can't complain - I wanted to chill out and just relax but I was just interested to see that Egyptian genes can never be change or "outmutated".

Kanaan is one of the most amazing places I have been to recently, and definitely so far in Germany. Formed by sisters ages ago, it is now a large area of land that is made to look like Canaan - the promised land. We attended the 3pm prayers, which was a remembrance of Christ's suffering. It was so beautiful, the sisters sang it with pure passion and humility. After that we took the great tour of the place. Through tunnels with stops for prayers and meditation, then through a lot of green land with different stops like Mount Tabor (the mount where Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ happened), a fountain with seven taps symoblizing different names of the Father, and definitely the most amazing part: a journey through Passion of Christ - from Gethsemane to Resurrection, with different stops that included engravings that tell the story of the stop along with a leaflets for meditation and prayer. This place is definitely by far the best Quiet Time place. You can go there and jsut forget you were there for like 3 or 4 hours! After the sunset, we went and got ourselves a lot of books from the bookshop, that included Arabic books (and all other languages possible) including Those Who Love Him, which Samuel got me many copies of as a gift to our youth group.

From there we went to Havana, a pizza place where all pizza is for 3 Euro, which was great. We talked and joked around, definitely nice. Then we went to Morris's place for a prayer meeting or a bible study whichever happens :D However, it took us a lot of time to get ourselves from watching God Father and browsing the net, to actually sit down and pray. It's like the devil couldn't stand the fact we were gathered to do so. However, it happened and we sat down and prayed for a very long time.

If there is one thing I can say about the German group: They have a lot of zeal to be with Christ in prayer and meditation. Some of them are highly committed to service around Germany (and neighbouring countries). I feel that God wants to use Germany as a centerpoint to all mission activities in those countries. They just need a lot of prayers, its definitely not easy. I am quite embarassed at my own attitude to service when I see these guys trying their best to have everyone know God.

I am praying for them.