Reflections on Berlin by Jeff and Ashley Holcomb

Jeff and Ashley Holcomb

Reflections on the SMR Ministry in Berlin

In a word, our 10-day concert tour in and around Berlin was unforgettable!  It’s hard to convey how thankful we are for the part so many played in making this journey possible.  Our supporters believed enough in our mission to step out in faith and give generously, and we are delighted to report that God poured out many cherished blessings upon this brief time of ministry.

First of all, we were all very conscious of being upheld in prayer by so many of our friends and families back home.  Sometimes in our Christian experience we just know that the Lord is not only with us, but is going before us, paving the way for everything we set out to do.  This was clearly one of those times.  From our travel arrangements to the weather to our accommodations to how we all got along with each other, it really could not have gone any better.

When you consider that our team consisted of eleven very different men and women, ranging in age from 16 to 62, it’s pretty amazing to think that we not only interacted extremely well, but actually grew in our love and appreciation of each other over the course of the week.  In addition, the Lord brought everything together for us musically.  After many months of practice and preparation, we feel like we played better than we ever had, and this seemed to be confirmed by the audiences for whom we performed.

Berlin is not only a beautiful city, but is very orderly, very clean and second to none with respect to its public transportation system.  You may ask how we could make such an assessment after spending only a little more than a week in the city.  The best answer we can give is that we experienced it!  During the entirety of our stay, we travelled exclusively on the Berlin subway system, carrying our instruments from place to place, frequently playing our gospel songs on the platforms, in the trains and on the streets, much to the amazement and applause of on-looking passengers and pedestrians.

But without question, the greatest blessing was what we experienced throughout the nine concert performances we gave during our stay.  Each of these concerts and/or performances was arranged by one or more of the local pastors or missionaries.  Knowing that there is a keen interest in American culture and bluegrass music, their goal was to invite as many non-churchgoing German locals to these venues as possible.  It was their prayer and ours that the music, our testimonies and the ministry of the Word would be used of God to gain entrance into their hearts.

We believe the Lord heard and answered those prayers.  Attendance at our performances ranged from anywhere between 50 and 400, with each location and audience being totally unique.  The response to our music was overwhelmingly positive, and the opportunities we had to engage various people in serious spiritual conversations were numerous.  There was the one lady who came to our concert on the outskirts of old East Berlin – a town known for its atheism and spiritual darkness.  She spoke at length to several of our band members and later said, “for the first time in a decade, you’ve given me hope!” 

Then there was Chris – a 55 year old musician who had recently started to attend one of the small local churches in Berlin.  After hearing one of the testimonies, he came up and stated that he had been greatly helped by what he heard and that the difference between “religion” and knowing Christ was starting to make sense to him.  Chris followed us to another performance on a subsequent day, and actually sat in to play with us on several of our songs.  We believe Chris is genuinely seeking the Lord.

God also brought a needy Mom across our path when we ministered at a small church called the Jesus House.  She was deeply affected by one of the testimonies, and the following evening at our next concert, she remained long after the event with her teenage daughter Jessica to converse and allow us to pray with them.  To our surprise and delight, she travelled to our final concert, this time with her daughter Jessica and her best friend.  We have every reason to believe that the Lord is beginning to work in the hearts of these dear women.

Then there was Christina who was invited to one of our outdoor concerts by her neighbor Frank.  It was evident from the minute we started playing that she really enjoyed our music and our songs.  After the concert, Christina opened up to several of the band members regarding some very real needs in her life and admitted that she had only ever called upon God when she was in a time of crisis.  This created a wide open door of opportunity to present the gospel.  Christina has responded very favorably and is now reading the New Testament and attending church with her neighbor.  We are now communicating with her from afar, providing her with good gospel literature and praying that God will bring her to genuine faith in Christ.

One aspect of our ministry in Berlin that exceeded our expectations was the extent to which our music and personal interaction were used to encourage the local believers.  Because this part of Germany is so spiritually dark, most of the churches are small and the progress of the gospel is slow.  These conditions can be disheartening to local pastors and sincere believers who are working and praying to see their fellow countrymen come to Christ. 

For us to come all the way from the U.S. to provide a venue for these believers to invite friends, neighbors and strangers to hear the gospel was a great encouragement.  In addition, the mere performance of these happy and hope-filled songs went a long ways to lifting their own spirits.  Perhaps sweetest of all were the many times of intense fellowship where the reality of our unity in Christ was wonderfully apparent.  We laughed together, we cried together and we prayed together.  In the end, we departed from one another with renewed purpose and commitment to press on in our mutual love for Christ and our desire to reach those “who are without God and without hope in the world.”

We now carry in our hearts an ongoing burden and love for those that we have mentioned who give evidence of being on the path that leads to life eternal.  We also feel united to the believers in and around Berlin who struggle with many of the same things that we do.  And finally, we will pray for Aaron, for Paul, for Martin and the other local pastors who are giving their lives to shepherd God’s people and who will now spend the next number of months following-up and seeking to disciple those who have shown a genuine interest in learning more about Christ.

Jeff & Ashley Holcomb

SMR Berlin Team Memories

I asked the team if they would be willing to share some of their memories of the trip, especially the things they saw God do, both through their ministry, but also in their lives while in Berlin.  Here is the first of them from Leanna.


Thank you to everyone who supported and prayed for us on our trip to Berlin. God definitely answered prayer above and beyond what we expected. Overall, logistics went very smoothly between our flights, transportation around Berlin, health and strength for the most part, no one getting e coli, sound equipment and instrument rental (the unexpected love offerings taken at many of the churches exactly covered some unexpected expenses from equipment rental/transport). God was at work in every detail! Thank you for your prayers!

Also evident was that God used our music. I was amazed at how well-received bluegrass was! Since we travelled almost completely by train, at every opportunity “the guys and Rebecca” would get out their instruments and play. The normal German demeanor is reserved, and uninterested in people trying to be interesting. However, a visible change came over people within hearing the first few notes. They smiled, watched, tapped their feet, danced (the drunk ones), took video, asked us about what this music was, who we were and where we were playing. Some people even missed their stop so they could listen longer. In a city known for its precision in music, it was intimidating for us but also humorous that people would enjoy such a freestyle sound. Needless to say, the instrumentalists started getting blisters with all the playing they did, and Michael came up with the idea to coat their fingers in super glue so they could keep going! 

Our daily schedule looked like this: awake at around 9, get breakfast in the hotel (let me tell you about this - hot buttered rolls, nutella, hard boiled eggs, cold cuts, muesli, cereal, yogurt,  delectable coffee, juice), then split up to sight see or relax or sometimes we played on the street in a  neighborhood where we would give a concert later on, Randy Dodd, our guide would bring us somewhere local and yummy for lunch, head back to the hotel to change and be at the concert location by about 4 or 5, concert at 6 or 7, pack up and talk to people until about 10, then dash around trying to find someplace open late for dinner, get back to the hotel 12 to 1 am and crash after charging electrical devices. Randy said that of the 65 teams he has led, ours worked the hardest.

Now the best part... the spiritual impact. The music got people in the door and gave us credibility, then we gave our testimonies between songs, with the help of a translator, and we found many that many people related to the hopelessness, pain, and wrestling with life events that we described in our own pasts. We explained these were the very things that made us cry out to God and that He answered us in our need. Now those people know a little more about the God that is waiting to hear them too. The pastor ended by giving a short gospel presentation in German while everyone paid close attention. At the first church, about 150 came to hear us and 17 asked for more information about being forgiven - a pretty big deal for a congregation of about 50! The night I gave my testimony, afterwards I met a girl my age named Jessica, whom I could see had been crying. I found out that was her first time to church (her mom was a new believer and had been trying to bring her). She was moved by my story. We all prayed with her and her mom and we saw them again, plus her friend and sister, at 3 more of our concerts. Please pray for Jessica, that the conviction and need she felt then, would not dissipate with time. I am in correspondence with Jessica and her friend. 

Another highlight was at our outdoor concert. There was a member of that church with worsening MS and confined to a wheel chair, but he loved all of our music. Our last song was “I’ll Fly Away” and a few people started dancing with him as he twirled around in circles and waived his crooked hands. I bet he looks forward to that day when he meets his Savior in a new perfect body! They asked us to play that song once again and this time EVERYONE was up and dancing and singing! Like, 200 people, most of whom were not even from the church! It was a very surreal moment to be worshipping God with bluegrass music at an outdoor BBQ in a land with such a history and with people we just met and feel totally at home. I hope that’s what heaven is like. 

There were many more wonderful moments and evidence of the prayers of so many, upholding us. So thank you all! If you need something more to pray for, the small but faithful churches and pastors we left behind could use your prayer. They have different challenges than our pastors and are sometimes in danger. Atheistic culture is not easy to reach and leaders are subject to burnout and discouragement. Some of these dedicated servants are Aaron Bowes, Paul Rostig, Martin Wahl, and Stephen (I don’t know his last name). Most of the pastors were non-native of Germany. Pray that God would raise up more faithful men from within the culture to lead, and that the novel message of hope would fall on thirsty soil.

-Leanna

SMR in Berlin Final Report

Sonrise Mountain Revival Berlin Project

Day Eight and Nine

By Kristin Gaffney’s Dad

            Kristi got sick our last day in Berlin and is finally getting over it, but now is in the midst of the finals she deferred to go on the trip.  So I will attempt to fill her shoes and finish the blog.  Forgive me as my writing will not be nearly as entertaining as hers!

            The last day was a great finish to our time in Berlin.  The morning started with different members of the group going in different directions, some to sight see, some to shop and others to rest for the night’s performance.  Rich has been amazing, dealing with his recovery from complete knee replacement as we walk everywhere.  He and Mark stayed at the hotel and practiced – as if they haven’t gotten enough of playing this week. 

            Others chose the site-seeing route, trying to understand a little more about Berlin.  Dick went to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, Jeff took the boat tour, and Mike went the Technology Museum.  Of course the girls chose the shopping option and went off with adventure in mind.  However, I don’t think they expected, after Leanna left them to visit with some missionaries, that they would find themselves on the train that was at the end of the line, heading the wrong way and out of service…but like good missionaries they adjusted to their situation, but not before a few screams when the lights went off and the train was moved off the line.  Once the train was turned around and placed on the track going the right way, they were good to go with a new story to share!  Then again, maybe Ashley, Rebecca and Kristi wish Kristi was writing this blog today so that they wouldn't have to share this story...

            The last concert of the trip was in a “tough” part of the city.  Aaron Bowes and his church sponsored an outreach concert to this area with the desire to establish a Bible study there.  The building was a former Lutheran church that had been converted to a museum charting the fight for freedom in former Nazi Germany and East Germany.  The room was good acoustically, still being used for concerts on occasion.  Attendance for the night was great, with a good number from the community being augmented by many others who came from the various churches we had worked with all week wanting to hear us for the last time.   The team performed exceptionally, the testimonies were clear, and once again, after a series of encores, the team got to spend time after the concert in deep conversations all around the hall.  Aaron was thrilled, he felt the seeds had been planted for further ministry in this area.  Of course no one was in a hurry to leave, knowing that this time goodbye meant goodbye…

            But leave we had to do, so we packed up and headed back to the hotel to pack some more.  The taxis arrived at 7:00 a.m. and most of the team didn’t get to bed before 2:00 a.m., so needless to say a tired bunch made its way to the airport, most reluctantly, as the time in Berlin had been so good, yet anxious to see our families and friends.  God graciously allowed us to have an uneventful trip home, arriving early. 

            This team was a very effective tool for Christ.  I knew that bluegrass would be accepted in Berlin, but I truly underestimated how popular it would be.  The combination of the musical form and the content of the lyrics and the testimonies of the team made for a powerful presentation that impacted everyone who heard them.  The pastors and missionaries with whom we worked are unanimous in both their appreciation and their desire to have this team return to build on the work they started.  Praise God, may He get all the glory!

            One constant was the request for CDs or a website where our music could be heard over and over again.  Obviously this is something we need to consider for the future.

            For all that supported this team financially and in prayer, thank you!!!  Your part was so important and absolutely key to the success of this project.

            Now please begin to pray for the next PWM team to go out, the PowerSurge Worship Band in August to Latvia.  This team will be helping Randy Dodd open a new field of ministry, coming alongside pastors and missionaries in this key Baltic country.  They need to raise $26,000.00 and prayer partners.  Also keep praying for Sonrise Mountain Revival, for their continued growth as a band and that the Lord would use them at home as effectively as He used them in Germany.

SMR in Berlin Days Six and Seven

Sonrise Mountain Revival Berlin Project

Day Six and Seven

By Kristin Gaffney

            I’m going to try and get two days in one shot because unfortunately, I’m behind due to late nights and some computer glitches.  I’m also very tired.  Bear with me.

            Wednesday – Some people stayed home during our free time, but as for me, Mike, Mark, Jeff, Ashley, Leanna, and my dad, we set out for some sight seeing before our concert.  As half the team didn’t go, I won’t elaborate too much, but we saw the Pergamum Museum and the Berliner Dome, which you should look up online because they were incredible!  The first is the museum that among other things, houses the reconstruction of the Pergamum Altar including much of the original statues, the Babylonian gate, and a number of Assyrian artifacts.  The Berliner Dome is the national cathedral.  It is a magnificent structure, old on the outside, beautifully remodeled on the inside, yet retaining its majestic splendor.  It is not only an active church, but houses the crypts of the royal family, going back centuries.  We also got great Vietnamese food, the best I’ve ever had, who knew?

            The concert was desperately needed for the people there.  This concert wasn’t so much about singing and opening the doors for new believers, in fact there were none present, but it was encouraging believers.  My dad reminded the team before the concert that the mission of PowerSurge is to both proclaim the Gospel AND edify the believer.  The two churches we sang for desperately needed to hear our message, especially concerning the song ‘There Is A Reason’.  Many were going through difficulties, from missionaries struggling with finances as they are undersupported, to Pastor Stephon’s wife who, after being married for one year, was told she had cancer and has been battling ever since.  We stayed after for a long time, talking to them about everything from Yankees vs. Red Sox (yes, God can use Red Sox fans as missionaries, who knew?) to the grace of God.  We closed our time with them with a time of deep sharing and praying over Pastor Stephon and his wife, Pastor Amadeus, and missionaries Matt and Emily.  It was a powerful evening…but not done yet.

            After we left them, we headed back to the only restaurant in Berlin whose menu I can read.  Yes, we got to eat at the Mexican restaurant again.  This night was open mic night and of course Rebecca, Mark, Dick and Rich got to play.  After that Mike played an original song on the guitar and Rebecca improvised around it.  The crowd loved them, of course, but the highlight happened after we girls left because we were getting too tired.  My dad and the others said that Mark played a solo piece, then a guy came out of the audience and asked Mark to play with him.  They were incredible and brought the house down (what does that mean, anyway, but that’s what they said happened.)  Afterwards they found out that he was a famous guitarist and the guy with him was the owner of a big production company in Europe.  And my dad said Mark was the better guitarist! 

            Thursday – It was the first day I could (sort of) sleep in!  Well, actually it was a terrible day, just completely horrid… although the weather was perfect, and we had great food, and people liked our concert, and we had a fun time together… but I was having a bad hair day.

            Poor attempt at sad-but-true humor aside, Thursday was a national holiday!  It’s Ascension Day, which the German’s celebrate but cover up by making it Father’s Day, or something like that.  The Christian Germans we talked to all knew what the day was supposed to be.  There were tons of people out and about, because this is the German’s national four day weekend.  Places were very crowded (unfortunately where we went to eat and the train after there was a lot of smoking) but so was our concert.  We played outdoors at a benefit event raising money for the church we were with so that they could send people out to Africa for a mission trip!  Our mission trip is helping another,J!

            Pastor Martin was hoping that they might get some neighbors to come out, but hadn’t had success with a similar event in the past.  However, before the concert even started people began to pour in, and Pastor Martin’s wife excitedly told us that she didn’t know over half the people already there.  And throughout the three hours we were there, people kept coming.  They had food booths around the concert area, and people bought tickets for the food and sat and listened to our concerts – yes, we had to present throee separate concerts, but with this team, that wasn’t hard.  Afterall, they have been playing every chance they could get all week.  We broke the regular concert up into three parts and then added a bunch of instrumentals.  I think Rich, Dick, Rebecca, Mark and Mike would still be there if we would let them keep on playing. 

After some more amazing conversations, we packed up, tired but happy and went out to eat at a great restaurant.  My dad has been telling us about this amazing Argentinean steak house.  Reasonable prices and really good food, Leanna and the guys loved the steaks, but the rest of us got other things, and we all agreed that everything was good.  Then we got back on the train and headed home to be, and its almost one in the morning and I am just completely exhausted.  Dad can fill in anything else he wants you to know, I suppose, and I would write a note for him to edit this but he’s liable to keep it in the blog anyway.  (nothing else you need to know except keep us in your prayer tomorrow as we finish our time here, and yes, Kristi, I did keep it in…)

            Good night!

SMR in Berlin Day Five

Sonrise Mountain Revival Berlin Project

Day Five

By Kristin Gaffney

            It was time for our subway game.  Basically, we all got off on different stops and then, starting with Rebecca, got on the next train and started playing, adding instrument after instrument until finally the vocals.  We have a video which will do much more justice than me writing about it, so hopefully we can get that up sometime soon for you.  But I do have to say that the one gentleman who was seated in the middle of it all thought it was over when Mike got on with the big bass…until the vocalists started singing all around him and he jumped half a mile!

            Also, happy 50^th birthday, Mark Kelly!

            This was definitely a tiring day, and for the last two days the weather has been hot, hot, hot!  It cools down quite a lot at night too, so we seem to be getting both the extremes.  (I hate hot weather…)  But we managed to get through, although many of us need a break from playing our instruments and singing.  We did quite a lot of walking, which many of us were just physically too tired to do, and searched the whole day for drinks that were not carbonated.

            We played in the street for the church in the center of Steglitz, a busy suburb of Berlin, where we will be performing on Thursday and that was very cool – will doing it was cool, the weather was most certainly not!  We had to rush from there to get to our train that would take us to the concert.  We ate a quick lunch on the train platform, got on our train, and the trains were even hotter, filled with people, and hot, so hot and everything was melting and ick!  L  (Okay, I just really hate hot weather; it wasn’t that bad. – Dad’s comment here: yes, it was…)

            We had to catch another train after, which was very nice, but we all did discover just how fast European trains can go!  When you’re standing right next to them it feels like they’re breaking the sound barrier!  A long loud blast of a horn, and whoosh, they’re gone.

            This concert that we were going to was outside of Berlin, in a town whose name I don’t remember in German (dad here again: Fuhrstenwalde) but translated means ‘Royal Wood’ for reasons no one can surmise – we passed through a forest to get there, but there was no woods once we arrived.  Some of us walked from the station over there, which would have been nice if we weren’t so hot and tired, because it really was a quaint little city, but thankfully many of us were able to get a ride there in a car.  We got water, and then although we desperately wanted a rest we were hard at work setting up and getting ready for the performance.

            God really worked during that concert.  Even though we were physically and mentally tired, and Jeff’s voice wasn’t still fully recovered, the time spent in prayer before hand was answered!  It was one of the best concerts we have ever done despite being exhausted, and it opened many doors for the people there.  I’m not going to guess and say how many people I thought were there, because I’m really bad at guessing, but I would say… over thirty.  A lot over thirty.  Like, thirty is just me being safe because there were a good number of people there (dad again – more like 250, which I guess is a lot over 30).  They were very receptive, and despite coming off cold and stone-faced at the beginning, by the end they were tapping along with the music and even sang ‘Happy Birthday’ in German for Mark!  They kept asking for encores and afterwards many were engaged in deep conversations.  The pastor was excited because he estimated over half the people there had never been in the church before and were professing atheists.  A lot of those were the people who stayed to talk, and he feels we helped him open several critical doors to his community.  The missionary we were working with in partnership with the pastor there was an American named David Sweet.  He has been in Germany over 20 years and is mentoring national pastors.  Dad was happy, because Mr. Sweet is a Moody Bible Institute alumnus! 

            Many great stories came out of that night, but we quickly had to get back to catch our train.  The train was fun, some slept but many of us talked for a while all the way back to the hotel.  Then some who didn’t rush off to bed went to get ice cream to celebrate Mark’s birthday (yeah… one of them was me).

            We got a good night’s sleep and we’re ready for whatever work God has for us today!