Translated from our German letter of October 2012

Dear Friends,

Familiar Bible verses can be like old friends: we look to them for encour-agement and guidance, turning to them again and again and seeking to live by them. And yet all too easily we stop short of letting them impact our lives. Important as these old favourites are to us, they can still be head knowl-edge – until suddenly the Holy Spirit breathes new life into them.

This is how we feel right now about a verse that has had special significance since the day our community began, March 30, 1947 – sixty-five years ago. It was that day’s Bible text:

By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Exodus 13:21

Israel’s actual situation at that time is described in Numbers 9: 15-22 and is summed up in verse 23, ‘At the Lord’s command they set up camp, and at the Lord’s command they set out.’ In last year’s newsletter we shared our thoughts and expectations for the year ahead. Now that we have taken the step of ‘setting out’, we’d like to share with you how the Lord has led us.

In Biblical times, God did not explain to His people why they should move

on exactly when He told them and not later. Nor can we explain how we knew it was time for new departures although everything seemed to ad-vise against it. Under the leadership of our founding mothers, ‘breaking camp’ was nothing unusual. We ought to have been old hands at it. Had we become too set in our ways? Perhaps it was high time for change.

‘Setting out’ means letting go of every-thing we take for granted and ventur-ing into the unknown – into the wil-derness. It means total trust and reli-ance that God is going on ahead to the promised land. There are lessons to be learned in the wilderness: the old ‘Kanaan lessons’ that need to be relearned now.

Looking back over the past months, we can see that the process of ‘set-ting out’ is not yet behind us. We do not have all the answers. Gaps left by the sisters travelling out to branches have not necessarily been adequately filled, and some things have had to be dropped. We don’t yet see the fin-ished picture – but God does. He is our Father and He encourages us to keep trusting Him and not to retreat from our commitment. He is faith-ful to show us the next step on the way ahead. Not once has He forsaken us. We can already say, ‘Thank you,

Father!’ because we have tasted some of the blessing He promised us.

Meanwhile a number of branches are very grateful for long-awaited help in the form of sisters from the Mother House – Australia, the USA and Bra-zil long-term. Canada, England and Japan have had additional help for a few months.

Our sisters in Norway have held their first big Scandinavian retreat and thank God for His overwhelming grace and the support of many friends. And Nordens lille Kanaan has had many visitors including bus groups from Sweden.

Sister Pnina is now in Finland where we Sisters of Mary have been wel-comed back with real warmth and af-fection. Our other Finnish sisters take turns to join her in our little house there for a month or two at a time. Its rural situation meant that Sister Pnina had to tackle a major hurdle straight away: learning to drive. And at just the

Newsle¬er from Kanaan 2012 /2013

‘Pillar of cloud’ at Kutasó

right moment, friends offered her the use of their car.

Sister Helena is now serving in Brazil, but before leaving she travelled again in Spain with the Spanish version of the DVD Repentance. This second visit was a definite step forwards, as one of the darkest eras in the history of Christianity – the Inquisition – was faced honestly and prayed over more deeply.

Our two sisters in Brazil welcomed their Chilean sister with open arms. This year all three were invited to the CONPLEI conference along with 2,300 pastors and Christian leaders from 81 indigenous tribes. There were also delegates from other South Ameri-can countries. It was the fourth time that Sister Adola and Sister Nechama have attended the conference, and the love of Jesus is beginning to heal and bring reconciliation against the tragic backdrop of colonial guilt. One of the pastors wrote our sisters a letter of thanks and encouragement which serves as a reminder to us all to obey when the Lord calls. From small be-ginnings He can lead us into greater things. The pastor writes, ‘You have made the concerns of the indigenous tribes in our country your very own ... You dared to broach the topic of rec-onciliation, setting in motion a process of deep healing in our hearts. Now we are able to love and to accept love from others.’

In our last newsletter we mentioned our growing awareness that the Lord

was leading us to establish a branch in Hungary, although at the time we could not really see the way ahead. Soon we received a wonderful sur-prise – a gift prepared for us in ad-vance by our heavenly Father! A Hun-garian couple who visited Kanaan years ago were clearly led to prepare a place of prayer for their country in Kutasó, a hamlet about 100 kilometres northeast of Budapest. For a long time it had not been clear who the Lord had in mind. Now the time had come, and two sisters have moved into the house they had prepared. Students from a discipleship training school in Switzerland, called to serve in Eastern Europe, proved by several days’ hard work in the grounds that their fire was genuine. They loved the little chapel next to the sisters’ house, and came together there every day. ‘Mountains were moved’ as a tumbledown old barn was demolished and the stones piled up as a Calvary hill, with two of the old wooden beams forming a cross. Our two sisters could wish for no greater comfort and encourage-ment than the Hungarian inscription ‘It is finished! For our redemption!’ as they face the challenges of a new beginning in Eastern Europe.

Last year, we shared with you how the Lord led sisters to travel to Ukraine with the message of reconciliation. This year we were invited to confer-ences in Prague, Budapest, Bratislava and twice in Auschwitz.

More and more we find these new assignments take us right back to the

time when everything first began. The birth of our community will always be linked to World War II and the night of September 11, 1944, when a horrific air raid reduced Darmstadt to smoulder-ing rubble. God used the shock and trauma to bring revival, and new life was born out of death and destruction. Our mother house chapel is a symbol of this, built with bricks from the ruins of Darmstadt and from burnt-out army barracks.

Building the chapel was the first com-mission Mother Basilea received from the Lord back in 1949 – not the obvi-ous place to start after a devastating war. In Germany’s ensuing struggle for survival, most people’s focus was on providing health care and a roof over everyone’s head. A place of worship for God alone seemed almost incon-gruous. And yet inherent in this com-mission was a deeply appropriate re-sponse to the horrors of war. Having forfeited any right to God’s goodness, we experienced His mercy in an over-whelming way. How else could we respond but by putting Jesus first in our lives, bringing Him honour, glory and love?

The keynote of true worship is easily forgotten after so many years of re-stored blessing and prosperity. Revela-tion 16:7 brings it back into focus: ‘Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments.’ As we acknowledge that all God’s judgments are righteous, our worship becomes real. And only as those who stand condemned, and yet by God’s grace acquitted, will we be able to face hard times that are yet to come.

Hungary

CONPLEI, Brazil

Swiss Discipleship Training School students

It seems that God still has work for us Germans to do – guilt-laden though our nation is – as ambassadors of rec-onciliation.

On the one hand we see the Lord giv-ing men and women from other na-tions a strong burden of prayer for Germany. Some have been willing to leave their homelands and give their lives unconditionally in obedience to His call. Among them are the brothers and sisters from almost 20 nations in our own community, who have left all to follow their priestly calling and help us bear the legacy of the Nazi years.

On the other hand He is sending us out as Germans, and as we seek to serve other nations in humility and selfless love we discover that His grace is sufficient. This has been the experi-ence of those who followed His call to Israel, or to the war-scarred countries of Eastern Europe with the additional burdens laid on them by subsequent communist regimes.

In the run-up to the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in 2015, a number of reconciliation events will be taking place, and we look forward to being involved in these.

In August, three of us took part in the conference From Holocaust to Liv-ing Hope in Oświęcim (Auschwitz) where God did a work of reconcili-ation among Poles, Germans and Jews (www.shalomoswiecim.pl). The highlight was at the selection point in Ausch witz-Birkenau, a place that sealed the fate of hundreds of thou-sands as they arrived at the death

camp. After a time of prayer for repent-ance, the sun burst through the heavy clouds. Just then, Sister Arimathia was able to make contact with two visiting parties of Israelis and invite them into the group. Their deep sorrow was visi-bly transformed as Christians and Jews together sang Hatikva and Am Israel Hai (Israel lives).

Sister Joela’s address in Auschwitz, Christianity’s Blind Spot – What can Germany’s example teach us? (www.kanaan.org) was just one of the many stones that went into the building of bridges between nations. Another stone of special significance was to emerge, but it took us a while to rec-ognize it.

During her second visit to Auschwitz, in 2007, Sister Joela received a word from the Lord that she did not immedi-ately understand. ‘I am making every-thing new’ (see Revelation 21:5). How could this ever apply to Auschwitz? The im-possibility of it all seemed too great. However, she also felt led to focus in prayer on the actual town of Oświęcim. Situated right next to the infamous death camp, the town is known all over the world by the German name Auschwitz – known for Nazi crimes the townspeople were not responsible for. Day by day they are forced to live un-der the burden we Germans laid upon them. But why shouldn’t the Lord do something new even in Auschwitz? Isn’t Jerusalem the city where Jesus was crucified and where He rose again from the dead? In faith, Sister Joela wrote the words of an Easter liturgy on the back of a postcard of Oświęcim: ‘We praise You, our risen Lord: Your resurrection spells defeat for death

and destruction wherever we come across them.’

During this year’s conference, the towns people of Oświęcim were invit-ed to an evening of reconciliation. We had prepared a letter to be read aloud by the German participants and pre-sented in Polish to the deputy mayor. Although she had actually declined to give a formal address, she received the letter like a precious document and responded with a deeply moving speech.

This was not the only sign of living hope our sisters saw. ‘Our dresses are good bridge builders in Roman Catholic Poland. We were standing with friends on the path between the Old Jewish Ramp and the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp when a woman in a neighbouring garden spotted us and waved us over. Her little house in Brzezinka (Birkenau) is one of many that were pulled down to make room for SS quarters but later rebuilt using the old bricks. Interestingly, she was born in the same year as our com-munity, 1947. She invited us into the garden and brought us refreshments, generally making us feel accepted and welcome here. It’s hard to put our feel-ings into words. We sensed a new be-ginning but we realize that we have to continue by reaching out from heart to heart. This is a place where words alone are not enough.’

We are trusting the Lord to show step by step how friendship and living hope can gradually grow up in the place of the painful wounds from the past, as

Deputy Mayor of Oświęcim

Roman Gaweł, Poland Werner Oder, Austria/UK Andreas Bauer, Germany

Howard Morgan, USA Jobst Bittner, Germany

Invitation at Brzezinka (Birkenau)

Perhaps there is just one more question you may be asking: how are we managing financially? We are thankful to reply that the Lord has carried us through and all our bills are paid – something we don’t take for granted in the present economic situation.

For all of you who have supported us over this past year, whether financially, in prayer, or with practical help, we ask that you may know the heavenly Father’s reward for your generosity and kindness. A friend in his 90s experienced just that not too long ago. In faith he gave us an envelope with a love offering, only to find an unexpected tax return with the same amount in his letterbox the next day! We felt very small when he told us about it. Our heavenly Father really does answer our prayers and provide for all of us, including our friends, beyond all that we could ask or imagine.

With warmest greetings,

The Sisters of Mary, Sisters of the Crown of Thorns and Canaan Franciscan Brothers

expressed in the letter we had presented. This was the stone the Lord had prepared. Auschwitz-Birkenau is still waiting for a sign of God’s love. The Lord is calling some of His servants to meet this need. We believe that He has work for us to do.

Today, out of the rubble of centuries, God is retrieving and

reuniting what belongs together – be-lievers of both Jewish and Gentile backgrounds, the ‘one new man’ of Ephesians 2, to which we are redeemed through Jesus Christ. He is building, cleansing and preparing His Church as a holy temple in which He lives by His Spirit. Jesus is perfecting what He requested from the Father as the fruit of His suffering: that we would be one, just as He is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit, so that the world may believe that God sent Him. There will be no separate side chapels in this holy temple. In it, Israel will take not the last but the first place, occupying the right-ful position of the elder brother. And we look forward to the day when we will enter the city of God whose temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb. The only way in will be by the gates

bearing the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. There will be no magnificent portal for the Church – not even a small side door.

As if the Father had wanted to set His seal of approval on this course, chang-es within our sisterhood seem to un-derline these new priorities. After ten years our leadership team felt that it was time to pass on responsibility to the next generation. We owe them a great debt of gratitude for their unstint-ing service.

The Lord had already prepared Sister Verita, a Messianic Jew from New York, to be our new Prioress, and she is assist-ed in her duties by Sister Damiana and Sister Christophora, both from Germa-ny. Bishop Jürgen Johannesdotter, who is responsible for communities within the Evangelische Kirche Deutschlands (Evangelical Church in Germany), came to Kanaan for their dedication service on September 23.

Central to his message to our new lead-ership team was that our yardstick is not the spirit of the times but the Spirit of God. By honouring Him with our lives and following as He leads, we will do right not only by Him but also by others.

S. Damiana S. Verita

S. Christophora

Scripture quotations taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

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