A SAFARI/JOURNEY THROUGH HONG KONG + GERMANY - A DIARY - 7 -

After a 15- hour flight, we arrived in Honk Kong on January 7th, were Mr. Billy Tang was waiting for us on behalf of the Lutheran Church –Hong Kong Synod and of the President Rev. Dr. Allan Yung (in the picture). – He took us to the Guest House of the Seminary, where we stayed from January 8th to 12th.

The day after, Mr. Gene picked us up to show us some parts of the city:

He took us to downtown Hong Kong,

and to the Hong Kong Island, from where we could see the whole the city from the peak. (The peak tram has been working since 1888!)

On Saturday, a Pastoral Conference was held at the Chapel of the Seminary, to whom I presented a speech about the work in Kenya.

The picture of the resurrected Jesus in the chapel blessing His disciples gave us a good view of His blessings upon our ministry and our trip!

On Sunday, Mr. and Mrs. Jordas picked us up to go to the service at St. Matthew Lutheran Church and to the Lutheran Social Workers Annual Retreat.

St. Matthew Lutheran Church and School are in the same building.

The Principal of the School, Mr. Ma Wo Sang and his wife Judy, gave us the welcomed us.

The message was preached in English and translated do Chinese.

It was a very good experience to take part in that service, with the beautiful songs!

– At the end of the service, I was asked to give the blessing in my mother tongue Portuguese.

At noon, we had lunch with some leaders of the church: (From left to right):
Maurice Wan, Angela, Leung Ka-Fu Raymond (deacon), Eva (Church ministry), Carlos W. Winterle, Fuk Yin (Church ministry), Lidia Winterle, IP Kam-hung Jordas, Grace (Church ministry), Daniel Ma.

At 2:00pm, we went to the Social Workers Retreat. More than 800 Social Workers were gathered.

Pres. Allan introduced me to the people and invited me to have a presentation about our work in Kenya, highlighting the Social Work that has been done.

Some Social Workers were honored for their 5, 10, 15 and 20 years of work.

After the presentation, I had a brief meeting with the LCMS – World Mission Regional Director for Asia, Rev. Dr. John Mehl,

and with the Area Facilitator Rev. Carl Hanson. After the meeting, Rev. Carl took us to his house, where we met his family.

On Monday, it was time to leave Hong Kong. A van from the Honk Kong Lutheran Social Service picked us up at the guest house and took us to the airport.

We took the plane to Frankfurt, Germany – a 12 hour flight, and from Frankfurt to Basel, where our son Leo and Lidia’s brother Gustavo were waiting for us.

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GERMANY

We arrived at our son’s house just on our 36th wedding anniversary (January 13th) and we celebrated it with our son Leo and our daughter-in-law Carol.

Leo and Carol had just moved to Schiltach, where Carol got a new job. Their apartment is in the “Marktplatz”, near of the City Council. (Lidia and Leo in front of their building).

Schiltach is a very old, nice and preserved city. Some of the buildings are from the 1400s. Most of the houses were built in the old German “eixamel” style.

It was very cold all the time we stay with them. The river that crosses the city was almost frozen.

Shiltach is in South of Germany, very near France and Switzerland.

Lidia’s brother Luis Gustavo Hasse and his wife Olivia visited with us in Shiltach and we visited with them also in Sulzburg, where they lived.

On Sunday, January 18th, I was invited to give a presentation at the “Evangelische Gemeinde Shiltach”, by Pastor Dr. Christof Glimpel.

Pastor Dr. Christof Glimpel and his wife Josefine.

– The presentation was about Revelation 7:9-10 and was in German.

January 28th: Another presentation was given for the congregation at “Martin Luther Hause”.

TIME TO GO!!! After six months out of Nairobi, it’s time to go back to our beloved brothers and sisters at Uhuru Highway Lutheran Cathedral for a second term of two years. We thank GOD for all blessings and for all friends, old and new, we met during this long trip. It was a very good opportunity to share with hundreds of people God’s blessings upon the work in Kenya and the challenges we have faced there. As Lidia says: “If we don’t reach the total of the financial goal until yet, but we got many, many friends!” – I’m sure that we will reach also the financial goal when all the contacts will send their offerings to the LCMS World Mission.

A balance of the presentations:
10 presentations - BRASIL – (August and September)
85 presentations - USA - (October, November, December and January)
05 presentations – HONG KONG AND GERMANY (January)
TOTAL: 100 presentations

If you want to help the mission in Kenya, please, send a check to:

LCMS World Mission – Mission Central
Gary Thies
40718 Hwy. E16
Mapleton, IA 51034
(Designate: Winterle – Kenya 50291)

or

LCMS World Mission
1333 S. Kirkwood Rd.
St. Louis, MO 63122
(Designate: Winterle – Kenya 50291)

Or go to

http://www.lcms.org/?13862 and click on “Give Now”.

e-mail address: cwwinterle@yahoo.com.br

Mailing address: (Please, don't send checks to this address; just cards)

Carlos Walter & Lidia Winterle
PO Box 22
Karen 00502,

Kenya - East Africa

GOD BLESS US ALL! TO HIM ALL THE GLORY!!!

Together In Mission (TIM),

Carlos Walter & Lídia Winterle

A SAFARI/JOURNEY THROUGH THE USA - A DIARY - 1 - St. Louis, MO

We are traveling through the USA from the 1st of October 2008 to January, 2009. As we are renewing our term in Kenya for two more years, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod -World Mission (LCMS-WM) asked us to do presentations in several congregations about our work and to look for funds to support our budget.

God has blessed us in this journey, as we are meeting so many friend from our Brazilian time and form our Kenyan time, and as we are making many new friends. We are sharing some of the contacts, activities and blessings with you through this BLOG. Sorry if we don’t have pictures of all our contacts or if we missed some of our friends. Remember us in your prayers.

We arrived in St. Louis, MO, on October 2nd. I was invited to lead a devotion at the LCMS International Center (IC) the day after we arrived,

and to do a presentation about our work in Kenya to the LCMS-IC staff.

We had several orientation meetings at the IC, coordinated by Vicki Helling, Development Associate - LCMS World Mission Development Services.

The first one was with Jeff Craig-Meyer, Development Services Director. One by one several people came to talk with us:

Debbie Feenstra, Missionary Support Administrator;

– Bill Lapp, Senior Principal Gifts Officer;

Elizabeth Mowery, Mission Communication Manager;

Kama Bernab, International Mission, Assistant to Dr. Dave Birner;

Stacey Welcenbach, Director, Communication Services;

Ross Stroh, Financial Manager; and others.

During our stay in St. Louis, we were hosted by our good friends Rev. Ellis and Joyce Rottmann, former missionaries in Brazil in the late 1960s.

We met also our friends Rev. Otto and Jill Hintze, former LCMS-WM Secretary for Latin America.

The Rottmanns took us to their church at the weekend, St.Paul- Des Peres, where we spoke at the beginning of each of the four services on Saturday and on Sunday. We did a Power Point Presentation (PPS) at the Bible Class on Sunday morning. – St. Paul – Des Peres – pastors are: Rev. Dr. David S. Smith, Rev. Timothy R. Seban, Rev. Mark D. Femmel and Rev. Paul T.Prange.

This was St.Paul’s annual dinner’s Sunday: Potato Pancake + roast beef. It was a good opportunity to meet several people after the services. On Monday evening we had a meeting with St.Paul’s Board of Mission where we did a PPS presentation and where we shared the challenges we face in Kenya.

– On Monday we visited also Concordia Seminar, with Prof. William Schumacher, who was in Kenya last year teaching at the Seminar in Matongo.

On Tuesday I had a class at the Seminar, talking about the mission challenges in Kenya.

The same day we had a meeting with LCMS President Rev. Dr. Gerald Kieschnick and with Dr. Samuel Nafzger (CTCR), showing them pictures about our work in Kenya. We had also lunch with both.