All together

It's a rare sight to have all the Kilchzimmer workers together at one time, so when we were able to gather together this past Monday, we commemorated it with a group photo. We included the long term volunteers as well. When you look at who is working at Kilchzimmer, you get quite a mixed group – a lot of countries are represented: Germany, Ireland, Britain, the USA, the Netherlands, Poland and Switzerland. That diverse group shows the unity that Christ brings. We have different backgrounds, but one goal … winning children for Christ! We're proud to work in this team, and thank God for them.

Amy's first photo shoot

It's been a busy week. The Multimedia department was given an assignment of creating three complete custom PowerPoint presentations in a week-and-a-half. We had to create slides from scratch, using imagery that wasn't already provided. So what did we do? We had multiple photo shoots! The presentations, all of which are promotional tools, focused on the book Meet the King!, Wondersurf.com and multimedia items. We needed a photo of a grandmother sharing Meet the King! with her granddaughter, so we used Amy and her Swiss Godmother, Liz. Tim Shirey did the photography, using just his flash and the white walls and ceiling to bounce. He also masked out the color on the entire image except for the book they're looking at. We're all very happy with the result.

You may ask "why do we do promotional materials? Aren't you focused on creating materials for children?" We're creating these so more churches can know what Child Evangelism Fellowship® can do to help them reach children in their community. It also explains the various projects in case someone would like to pray and give. We're hoping these presentations can be used in a mighty way to expand the work of CEF®!

Remembering Gabi

Yesterday morning, the Lord took our dear friend and co-worker, Gabi Bienen, home to be with Him. Gabi's life touched a lot of people. Letters from around the world continue to pour in offering condolences, attesting to the impact she had. Gabi was a worker. She made sure her job was done right. She usually sang while cleaning and was always laughing at my lame jokes during coffee break. She loved pulling practical jokes on Henry Berry, the national leader for CEF® in Ireland, sometimes filling his room with flowers or cleaning supplies or talking about "Bernhard," her imaginary boyfriend.

Yesterday, Jen was explaining to Amy that we wouldn't see Gabi anymore. She said "Gabi did something very special today … Jesus came and took her home." Amy immediately asked, "Did he hold her?" Jen, fighting back the tears replied, "All the way home."

Please pray for us at this time. It's tough. It was sudden and unexpected. She died peacefully in her sleep, at a mere 49 years old. We rejoice she is in the loving arms of the Savior, but we miss her.