Professor Clifton Clarke: At the Airport

We landed in Stuttgart around 7.30am on Tuesday 12 July having had very little sleep for the past 48 hours. Stuttgart is famous for being the headquarter city for Mercedes Benz, Porsche, Bosch and a few other world class brand names. We were pleased to be met by our host at the airport who warmly welcomed us. They were from a Lutheran church in a small adorable town called Dettingham located on the outskirts of Stuttgart. The Lutheran church is the state church, but this particular one was very open to the charismatic renewal. After resting off a little, visiting the local bank to exchange money, we met to establish our ground rules and had lunch on the church lawn.

After lunch we went on a five-mile uphill hike to a magnificent castle, which was situated on top of a mountain, which overlooked the entire region. The hike was a killer. Uphill most of the way on what seemed like an eternal path. The magnificent idyllic surrounding of this German countryside was well worth the pain of the terrain. Standing on the top of the mountain and looking across what seemed like the entire country left everyone speechless.

The highlight of our time in Stuttgart was the service we led for the church. The team did wonderfully in organizing themselves into a ministry team. Although we did not have a person who regularly led Praise and worship back home the team stepped up Jordan (Leading and playing the guitar), Jacqueline and Stormie led the singing and I was playing the piano. It went down well. Christi led a spoken word, Jessica and Amanda worship through a praise dance and other members of the group also participated in various ways, including prophetic painting which was done by Emily and Jacqueline. Yaitza was the speaking and addressed the theme a new creation which was also the theme of Christi’s freshly written spoken word for the occasion. During the altar call the young people who came to the service flocked to the altar and there was a powerful time of prayer and intercession. During that time the youth pastor learned over to me and whispered “this is the first time I have seen the youth respond like this. There were tears, laughter, embracin1`g, praying, speaking word of prophecy, encouragement amidst a powerful move of the Holy Spirit. It was just amazing. The experience of staying in the home of German families was also a source of great experience for the students who reported tremendous acts of love and kindness from the host families.