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Berlin, Germany
Missions concert choir tours Germany


After retiring following 40 years of church planting, Lawrence and Selma Warkentin returned to Germany to begin a new church in Berlin. Berlin is a multi-cultural city of three-and-a-half million people, with a great need for the gospel. Shortly after the Warkentins began work in East Berlin, they considered the best way to tell the churches in the rest of Germany of their intentions and draw them in to share in the support of this new mission. They decided that a choir tour would be well received.

Rudy Baerg, a member at Bakerview MB Church in Abbotsford, B.C., was asked to assemble a small choir. The group of 11 singers took three weeks this last spring to go on this tour.


The choir flew to Germany on May 10, 2000 to begin what turned out to be a whirlwind tour. The theme of the tour was God’s call to missions: “The Lord of missions, the need for missions, the message of missions and the goal of missions.”

The choir visited 15 churches in 17 days, taking their program to cities like Neuwied, Bielefeld, Berlin, Dresden, Bad Reichenhall, Munich, Traunreut, Burghausen and Basel. The program consisted of about 14 songs accompanied by a challenge for missions by Warkentin and Andrew Pritzkau, and prepared Scripture readings by Selma.

Pritzkau, on tour with the choir, is the church planter of the new church in Berlin. Pritzkau was raised in Gummersbach, Germany. After graduating from Columbia Bible College in Abbotsford, he is returning to his home country to head up this work. Andrew and his wife Olga, along with their two Canadian-born children, began their work on June 1. The Warkentins will be assisting the Pritzkaus during their first year in Berlin.

In May, the Berlin MB Church baptized two people and received into membership another eight people by confession of faith. The church also had two funerals this spring.

 – MBMS International release

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Last modified September 20, 2000.

© 2000 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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