The main purpose of the trip was to support the Saddleback Berlin campus as they did their first ever retreat for their members. We had 5 people on the team. One member of the team lead worship while the rest of us primarily handled child care to ensure as many of their adult members as possible could participate in the retreat.
March 23rd - Flight from LAX to Berlin. We arrive in Amsterdam at 9AM on the 24th and have a 3 hour layover.
March 24th - Our flight arrives from Amsterdam around 1:30 PM. We just go to hotel and have dinner.
March 25th. Cultural Experience Day. Road around on a double decker hop-on/hop-off bus. One of the places we stopped was Checkpoint Charlie, because the Saddleback Berlin location is right next to it.
March 26th We go back to the Saddleback Berlin location, this time to help prepare materials and do setup for a Pastor's conference being held later that day as well as preparing materials for the upcoming Sunday service.
Later in the evening pastors and "church ambassadors" from a large number of other churches in the Berlin area meet to plan for a coordinated "City of Light" outreach event they are doing together in May.
March 27th. Travel to the retreat center which is about an hour north of Berlin. The first session of the retreat is held that night. Oliver leads worship, the rest of use do child care.
March 28th. Second session followed by a baptism, then the third and fourth session. Oliver still doing worship and the rest of us do child care. I also served as the photographer during the baptism. That night they did a traditional German campfire activity, roasting bread over the campfire (as opposed to marshmallows that we tend to do in the USA).
March 29th. Final session of the retreat is the Sunday morning worship service. Oliver is once again leading worship and the rest of the team (other than me) are doing child care. I'm doing photography full time on the last day. After lunch we return to Berlin.
March 30th. We have a day off. The couple that was on the trip are staying in Germany because the husband was originally born in Germany and is looking into getting his German citizenship. Our team leader has relatives in Berlin that stop by to see her, one of which she had never met before. The two rogue males in the group (me and the remaining team member) did some souvenir shopping. In the afternoon the three of us who were returning to the US moved to a hotel next to the airport, as our flight out the next day was at the crack of dawn.
March 31st. Return to LAX. We had a four and a half hour layover in Charles De Gaulle airport. Got back into LAX about 6:30 PM.
I'd been to the Saddleback Berlin campus before, but that was two years ago when they were at a different location. And it was for just one worship service. Saddleback plans to make the Berlin campus the hub for it's outreach to other European countries, and I anticipate I'll be joining later missions trips to do some of that outreach. So for me this was an opportunity to get the know the folks at the campus a bit better and let them get to know me as well in anticipation of those future trips.
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