HOPE GERMANY CITYMONKS

CityMonks Rhein-Neckar 

CityMonks started in 2010 to realise the vision of Hope Germany to send out “monks” and “nuns” to experience God in an evangelistic way. It started in 4 cities – Zwickau, Frankfurt, Hannover and Rom. It has since then been done all over Europe. 

The goal of the CityMonks is to start new church planting movements in a new city, to support the growth of newly planted churches, to train believers to share the gospel and to train believers to support those who are open to the gospel. Read the exciting accounts of this group (as told by Ken), as they step out in faith to share the gospel. 

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ and fellow prayer warriors,

I hope you had a great Easter, reminding yourselves of His sacrifice and also celebrating His resurrection. Before I start my new University life that God blessed me with in RWTH Aachen University (which like my salvation I do not earn), I would like to update you on the CityMonks Rhein-Neckar trip that I was on with Shirleen and Xiaolin from our house church in Heidelberg and the cities around it - Manheim and Speyer. The plan was initially a house church mission to the surrounding cities, in a group of 4-5. But God as graceful as always multiplied the group into a group of 13-15 people, from different regions and background - a blissful mixture of God’s creations. The group evolved from strangers into a close squad. Just like the Apostles in Mark 6:7, we were sent out in pairs to look for people of peace.

Spending the week together, our daily schedule was very efficient, with the right start - quiet time with God, followed by breakfast, then the equipping of skills, before we went out together with God and different tools in our hands. Each day, we became more skilful in sharing the gospel and being attentive to His presence as God leads us into every new day. During the week, God blessed the group with 29 contacts that the team could eventually work or keep in touch with and many more great conversations between people. It was a great time. Looking back, I could understand a little more what John mentioned at the end of his book John 21:25, my part of the story itself is already so great and overwhelming, what more greatness if the stories of just 14 of us were combined? Let me share with you the highlights of my little part.

Mannheim 

We started our week with expectations, mine was

1) to experience sharing the gospel to someone on the street that immediately accepts Christ
2) to experience word of knowledge specifically on healing by feeling the pain which is not mine - so that I know it is from God to a certain person.

Each with their expectations for the week and also the tool we obtained on the first day (sharing the Gospel through questionnaire) we stormed into the city. With my partner for the day, Janina, we started asking people if we could do some questionnaire with them. At the Paradeplatz waiting for the tram was Wei Wei and Shile (石乐), probably not expecting to do some questionnaire from two people who have never conducted any survey in their life. As expected, Wei Wei was rushing for time. Left behind with two strangers, not having any idea about religion, Shile agrees to do the questionnaire about religion in a language that she barely speaks. Janina later sacrificed herself and the conversation continued in Mandarin. “Knowledge of God’s standard of justice is required to determine salvation” - what profound knowledge from someone who knows so little! Due to lack of knowledge she doesn’t know if she would be allowed to enter heaven , Romans 10:14 - how true is the living word of God! My very reason of the mission was granted on the first day. Gospel told, decision made, challenge accepted. Being unwilling at the beginning to do the sinner's prayers out loud, she says it out loud to express her willingness to obey and desire for Jesus. A tick for my first expectation - an unforgettable experience, the one hour conversation was done in a blink of an eye!

On the second day, I went with Johanna to have lunch with her brother, Jonathan while the rest blessed the University Canteen with the gospel. Johanna, with the desire for Jonathan to have a personal relationship with God, was really happy that we met up, as the brother was really blessed by us. It is to be realized again how true the living word of God is, Matthew 5:14, being the light, your presence itself can make the difference!

The day went on with sharing testimony to a philosophy professor and her student, Roy. Roy joined us when he saw his professor having a conversation with us. The professor left the conversation half way, leaving Roy behind. We got to pray for him at the end despite him being reluctant to be prayed for at the beginning. Hallelujah !

Praying in the spirit for the Professor and Roy as we walked, we arrived at Paradeplatz again. There sat Jacky with crutches. She accepted our prayer offer. After understanding that she had cruciate ligament rupture with constant pain in her legs, we commanded the pain to leave in Jesus’s name. After we prayed for the first time, her leg was vibrating but the pain was still there, but she was really amazed (more than I was). She was saying: “Look ! Look! It’s vibrating, what have you done? What is this?” She was feeling really good. We offered to pray again and she accepted. This time, the pain was partially gone and the leg was still - she felt stillness. We explained that God wants to heal completely and offered for a third prayer - the one that healed her completely. Her gluteal muscles contracted and her thighs moved forward while sitting, a rather complex motion and the pain was gone. She was astounded by what had just happened. She said no one had ever done that before and what had happened was really amazing. We then shared the gospel to her, while she absorbed every single word of it. As she brought out a cigarette to smoke, she asked if smoking is a sin and we got to share how God can help us in changing our live according to His will, that is better for us. Below are two videos in YouTube that came to my mind as this was happening. I always wished to experience it myself once and now I have. God is great! In just two days, two of my expectations were fulfilled! I should have had more…!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e49REf6szHc (short version)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KnLDsq4XXA (longer version)

My heart was not beating fast this time around but I was filled with joy, unending joy. The overflowing joy was not containable and I was sharing what just happened to people and offering prayer. We thought we came early to the meeting place to meet up with the rest until God sent us a guy, whom after listening to our testimony, gave us 5€ for coffee, telling us to go for a coffee in a certain café. To our surprise, when arrived at that café, the rest of the team was there! We shared with them the story of how God had healed and gave us money – and then we realized that one of us actually just gave 5€ to a beggar who asked for money and now the money was added back to us!!! Isn’t God great?!?!?

On the third day, I teamed up with Angelika, a hungry child of God. She was persistent in her request. She wanted to see healing and she wanted to know what’s happening in people’s life. She tells God her expectations aloud every day. I was so blessed to see God bless her. We were clear that we wanted to see healings. So we stormed the streets asking for the guidance of Holy Spirit, expecting to see healings. We saw an elderly Muslim couple who could barely understand us. But when she got healed of all the pain and sore in her body, she asked her husband to be prayed for as well. Unfortunately, after repeated persuasion, he just walked away and she had to follow him. We didn’t share much but we prayed in Jesus’s name and she got healed.

Then Angelika had an impression that we should pray for people with glasses. We got to pray for a Muslim family that was really open. The kid had glasses, we prayed but his eyes did not get healed. However, we could talk to the parents and shared the gospel with them and also prayed for them as they are looking for a job. Then, we met a man with a camera that had caught my eyes before, but we couldn’t approach him. His name is Toni. We talked to him for more than an hour, and Angelika had a word of knowledge that spoke to Toni. After that he started to open up and as we asked if we could pray for him he revealed that he is going to undergo an eye operation soon. He was touched by us and used his very precious last 2 films of 12 in his camera on us (he uses his film very carefully, they are very expensive!)

God decided that we should spend more time in Mannheim. Janina and I came back to Mannheim on Thursday after the Speyer outreach to meet up with Pinar, a Muslim girl that we had met on Monday. We did not speak much on Monday but somehow I thought we could work with her and brought Sophia along who studies in Mannheim. Pinar even brought a friend and we had a good conversation. Sophia will keep in touch with them to share the gospel with them. While we were meeting with Pinar, the others had a great worship night, and Angelika was healed.

Besides Shile (from Monday), Anh (who met with two of us, Pat and Xiaolin) also gave her life to Jesus in Mannheim.

Speyer

As far as I know, Angelika continued to have impressions for people and God was doing great things through her since then. In Speyer, I teamed up with Caro and Petros. We were mostly talking to the younger generation. One of them didn’t want to listen about God but she loves her grandmother. She changed her mind after knowing that Jesus can give her grandmother eternal life. She heard the complete gospel but had to go as she was late. She said she would tell her grandmother about Jesus. We also met some Christians and we blessed each other. Petros had back pain, we prayed for him and he got healed.

Standing in the cold can be exhausting and on the fifth day, Elle and I decided to go evangelize in a Cafe, Elle and Linda had done this on the previous day and God gave them word of knowledge that they used to start conversations. This time however, God sent us a musician, Juan, with a limping leg. Before we could ask if we could pray for him, he invited himself to join us in the Cafe. He found the way we follow the Bible and how we take it seriously really interesting – and he had a lot of trouble understanding that we do not belong to any denomination. The conversation was so interesting that we had to leave him because we were running late. We exchanged our contacts.

On the same day, Steve and Sven talked to someone who seemed to be a tour guide but actually is one of the pastors for the Speyerer Dom. He was excited with what they were doing and gave them half the hamper that he had just received from a group of students he had led through and around the Dom - the bread and wine for our holy communion later. It was definitely no student wine! On the last day of our trip, before we wrapped things up, Steve and some others decided to do a worship march through the streets of Speyer. It was a spectacular one. It did not only attract the human eyes but also the cameras on the phones. It was such a pity that I did not join the shout Steve did after the march: “Those who wants to see a miracle come forth!” and see the amused expressions on the children faces.

The drizzling rain did not stop us from being cool (picture on the right shows how you picnic in the rain) and to our delight, a group of girls that we did the questionnaire with the day before came to join us! They were surprised how cool we were, and we were surprised by how hungry they were (spiritually)! It definitely didn’t look like they would come the day before. Angelika got to share her testimony with them and they could relate very well with her. One of them asked if Angelika would like to start something with her.



The process into conversation that I will not forget is with a sales lady, who was selling Pretzels. We “spoke” to her every day. The first day, she told us that her mom had just passed away and she was feeling bad but didn’t want our prayer or listen to anything we said. The second day, she said she was feeling the same. When the third day came, we actually conversed for half an hour. A simple “Wie gehts?” showed her enough compassion to open her up and lit up her life. Let us follow Jesus to have compassion for people , it does make a difference!

Heidelberg at night 

It was definitely something different. The people in the street at night are usually youngsters aged between 16 and 26, mostly students. Many of us had great conversations with people. They moved in groups and therefore, talking to one of them brought a whole group together. One of them found it really cool what we are doing and he even asked his friends to leave him alone for a while until we finished our conversation as they were trying to distract him from us. However, he did not want to have personal contact with us afterwards. He would rather do some research on the internet. But God wants to offer more than just head knowledge, He wants a personal relationship. I hope he will understand that in the time to come.

Angelika obtained more contacts this time compared to other times. She even met a born again Christian who was so thankful for what she was doing – going to the street to bless people. He said he would bring all of her friends to church on Sunday. It’s just so nice to see people having passion for Jesus. The same thing happened to Angelika. The enemy tried to distract the people Angelika was talking to but they just sent their friends away. It’s impressive how people know what is more important. All in all, it was a great trip, we learned, experienced, experimented, grew and chilled together. Like I said, this is just a glimpse of a bigger picture from my part. If you are interested please contact the others who were part of the team and be encouraged by what happened. If you want to take it to the next level: experience it yourself, join the next CityMonks! Until then, peace out! A picture of us chilling at Mannheim University’s field. ☺

Yours sincerely, 
Ken Joo, Hope Germany