Update From Germany: October 2021 

Praise The Lord for His mercies and grace.

In the last update, we informed about the goodness of God and the challenges we were facing. We know you prayed along with us and God will continue to bless you all.

In the previous update, we listed some prayer points. To the glory of God, we have finally received our cargo. We were told in one of the follow up calls that we may need to pay a customs fee for some of the items in our boxes due to German custom guidelines, but to the glory of God, our goods came with no payment obligations whatsoever.
 
One of the key initial milestones we needed to overcome was getting a resident permit, as stated in the previous report. We are glad to inform that we have attended that appointment. Just before we continue to tell you how the interview went let’s pause a bit. On the way to the venue of the interview, while in our German friend’s car, a very nice Mercedes Benz pulled up in front of us. While we were admiring the car, the Lod directed our eyes to the car number plate, that is WL. JC1. Our German friend excitedly says “look at the number plate, it is a sign from God that Jesus Christ (JC1) is in charge and is with us in this journey and the coming journeys. We were all so excited, it was so encouraging that GOD was teaching us that HE was in charge and will be with us and HE is number 1. Going back to how the appointment went, we were ushered in through security and met with our interviewer. He asked for our documents. OK, at this point we will have to pause a second time - don’t worry I will continue later. We need to let you all know how we prepared for this appointment.

A few calls were made to the Office in charge of Permits and were informed that one or both of us need to have a job with a contract document as evidence before the permit can progress. We started doing job applications, praying that one of them will lead to an employment contract. Usually when walking to the town centre, which is about thirty mins from our house, we would pass by this senior residence institution that takes care of senior citizens with challenges. On some of those journeys, we would look at the organisation and hope that God can make my wife to get a job there. One faithful day, one of our neighbours approached us and informed that he knew someone that knew the manager of the care institution. To cut a long story short, Kemi was interviewed with the support of one of our German friends and she was offered a job with a contract just days before our planned resident permit appointment (see how GOD works!)

Normally, companies would ask for a resident permit before they commit to offering a job to anyone based on German rules for foreigners coming to settle in Germany. The ninety days allowed on our initial visa would expire by mid October 2021. We were blessed to be able to get an appointment with the Permit office for first week in October 2021. The Lord is good and His mercies endure forever.

Going back to the appointment day, the interviewer asked first for a contract and we quickly gave him the contract from the Senior Residence Organisation. He asked for other supporting documents like our address registration document, academic certificates, passports etc. and made copies. 

Our stay was extended by six months to allow for permit processing, but we were told the permit takes between four and six weeks. Glory be to God. The challenge in our situation is that the job we got will not pay enough salary to meet the requirement, but we trust God to intervene. Please pray along with us.

Language Learning:

The challenge with the language is still there, but we trust God to help us surmount it. We continue to learn the language in several ways. We have recently also registered with the employment office. This is part of the government’s integration process for foreigners who want to live in Germany. As a result, evening language courses have been allocated to us so we can get to B1 level. Our German neighbours have been helpful with the language and culture learning along with the online intensive learning.

FriedensKirche Church:

Though the church activities are still reduced, we continue to make friends within the church. We have been invited by some to have lunch and we have done the same as well. We continue to look for opportunities to bond more with the church members as this will be key for us in future ministry work. The main challenge has been understanding the sermon as it is delivered in German. Some of our friends do help to interpret sometimes, but due to their limitations they find it challenging. We were informed that the church had interpreters before the pandemic outbreak and hope to get back to it as we gradually go back to normal.

Pandemic Effects:

The pandemic effects are still real here in Buchholz and Germany as a whole. Most activities are still skeletal, reduced or halted for now. This has meant that the Church is still running reduced activities, but things are gradually getting back to normal. We hope to be more involved as the effects settles down. We thank God for His grace and mercy and for keeping us and our neighbours in good health.

Integration:

Our neighbours have been wonderful in helping us to integrate into the neighbourhood and understand the German people and way of life. We have regular informal discussions with them. Our slogan is to build our home as we build for God. This is because our current apartment is in a building and compound that is not completed. Most of the work is done by the neighbours. We would usually join them for these activities and yes, we enjoy every bit of it as it helps to bind us together. It may sound small, but we were also blessed with a used bicycle in good condition through one of our neighbours. This has helped with shopping and a few logistic activities at home, praise the Lord.

Cell Group:

We will be having weekly/monthly house meetings and cell groups as an extension of the church activities. We were informed that this was cancelled during the pandemic but have been given the go ahead to resume from this month.

God has been good to us and He has been teaching us personally through his word. Praise God. We would like to use this opportunity to say a massive thank you to the Kings Church family and all you lovely friends that have committed to support us in counselling, prayers and giving. We never stop thanking God for you. As we do this together, The Lord will bless you all greatly in Jesus' name.

Ademola (Gbenga) and Kemi Onanuga