RHEMA Germany Graduation 2008

Last month I posted a blog about our school graduation ceremony and the alumni luncheon that was held on the same day. At that time I only had some pictures that I took at the luncheon but none of the actual graduation ceremony itself. I now have some pictures and I have finally gotten around to making another post using these pictures to show what our graduation was like. This first picture shows the graduates from RHEMA Germany with Pastor and Mrs. Hagin and the school instructors.

Pastor Hagin was the featured speaker for the ceremony itself and here are some pictures from the ceremony showing Pastor Hagin and also one of the audience.

At the end of the graduation ceremony the students received their diplomas to signify their completion of the two years of training that they received at RHEMA Bible Training Center Germany. Here are one of our students from Germany and another from The Netherlands receiving their diplomas.

The graduation ceremony was a complete success. Many of these graduates are already involved in one area of ministry or another. We believe that the training that all of these graduates have received has helped to prepare them to continue on in the plan of God in their life and we expect them all to be a great benefit to the Kingdom of God!

Playing Softball In Germany

Yesterday we had our annual church picnic. It was a really great time of fun and fellowship with the usual cookout on the grill and lots and lots of good food. One thing we did here for the first time was to have a softball game. For most Americans that does not sound like a big deal but in Germany most people have never played any kind of baseball. So what we ended up with was quite a few people doing their best to play a game they had only seen in a movie.

We divided up those who wanted to play into two teams. But when the teams consist of a few Americans and people from Germany, Croatia, Russia, and South Africa then as you can imagine the skill level is not too high. Besides that we had adults and kids playing so that also had an effect on how much we bent the rules in order to just have fun and not really count who was winning or losing. Some of the kids ended up having about five strikes before they hit the ball and many of us who were playing the field were suspiciously inept at being able to make an easy throw to first base or something similar. However, everyone had a lot of fun (myself included) and we all found out that just playing for the fun of it is alright sometimes.

One thing that I did get thinking about was the differences between different countries and how something that people are so used to in one place is so strange to people from another place. Softball is one such example of that. I thought it was really great for so many people who had never swung a bat or put on a baseball glove to go out and try this strange game and how most of them did surprising well at it. We may or may not play softball at our church picnic next year but I am sure the memories from this year's game will last a long time.