At home worldwide: close, yet far away

Soup kitchen in Germany celebrates fifth anniversary

Many needy people feel at home in the soup kitchen in Monheim in Germany. It is run by twelve members from the congregation who offer a free meal every Friday. And not only that, the atmosphere is warm and compassionate, and there is a chance for people to meet and talk. This month the soup kitchen is celebrating its fifth anniversary.

The soup kitchen is an additional offer in the town. There has been a food bank in Monheim for some time already, which is run by a charitable organization. The soup kitchen of the New Apostolic congregation is an additional offer. “We wanted to offer less fortunate people a free meal once a week in the company of others,” Andreas Ehrhardt, the rector, explains.

The project started with five cooks. In the meantime the kitchen crew has grown to a dozen cooks. Members from nearby congregations are also pitching in. “One of the volunteers from the food bank helps out once in a while. She likes the idea,” Karin Ehrhardt says, who has been involved with the project right from the start.

The soup kitchen crew welcomes about 20 to 25 guests every week. In addition to regular guests, refugees have been coming lately too. “The people who come are usually referred to us. We don’t do any advertising because we don’t have that much space,” the rector says. The soup kitchen gets financial support from NAK-karitativ, the aid organization of the New Apostolic Churches in Germany.

The soup kitchen, which not only serves soup but a variety of dishes, wants to expand in the coming year and is looking for additional help and donations. Helpers do not need a health certificate. They are briefed on how to handle food safely.

Chief Apostle Schneider in Cambodia

Last weekend, Chief Apostle Jean-Luc Schneider was in Cambodia and felt right at home among his brothers and sisters. He had a meeting with all the actives Apostles—40 in number—of Asia and Oceania in Phnom Penh. The ministers came from South-East Asia, India and Pakistan, but also from Australia and Papua New Guinea. “On Friday we visited locations where tens of thousands of people were cruelly tortured and executed by the Khmer Rouge in the mid to late 1970s,” the Chief Apostle writes in his travel notes.

After the conference on Saturday, the Apostles gathered for a divine service on Sunday, 25 November with the brothers and sisters from Cambodia, which Chief Apostle Schneider celebrated in our church in Phnom Penh. He placed nine Apostles into retirement and ordained five new Apostles. A report on the service will follow on nac.today.

Our church in Bucalevu (Fiji) extended

The members in the Fiji islands are very pragmatic. “If the church becomes too small all you have to do is make it bigger.” And this is what they did; they rebuilt their church. Instead of the small church that has been serving as their spiritual home on Sundays for many years, the new church now offers twice as much room. The whole congregation helped with the rebuilding. They used local wood for the structure and covered it with a corrugated iron roof.

The dedication of the new church was celebrated by District Apostle Andrew Andersen on Saturday, 31 October 2015. Also there were the Apostles Desmond Lodewick and Trevor Williams from Australia.

A day later, on Sunday, the District Apostle conducted another service and ordained two District Evangelists and an Evangelist. Some 290 people attended the service. Even though the church is a lot bigger now, there was not enough room to hold all the visitors on this Sunday so that some had to sit outside.