Vitamins for the Heart
Lenka Schmidt: When we left home to go celebrate Christmas with our extended family in Berlin, we had no idea that we would experience a real adrenaline rush just before the celebration. While waiting at a local suburban train station with all our bags full of gifts, Wolfgang put his laptop in its black bag on a black bench in the dark evening hours (not a good idea!). Since we had time until the train was coming, he distributed Christmas tracts to different people on the platform. After we had boarded the train – about three stops later – Wolfgang realized that he had left his laptop at the train station. We quickly got off the train and went back, praying desperately for God’s mercy as it wasn’t just his laptop at stake, but all his work, contacts, programs etc. including special Christmas mailings we had just prepared. That evening…
Lenka Schmidt: Back from his mission trip to the Congo, Wolfgang unpacked his suitcase. In his absence, I had made a major cleanup of our apartment. It was a lot of work and I was quite pleased with how it looked now. However, after he had emptied his suitcase and I entered the living room I was in for a surprise. A kitschy plastic bonsai tree was sitting right in the center of my wanna-be-stylish living room! „Can we please put the tree here instead?“ I asked, bringing it to our bedroom. „Sure!“ he answered and then told me the following amazing story. In Congo, my husband flew to the interior of the countryside to visit our school project there and arrived at the tiny airport of the nearby town where a big group of people waited for somebody – with music, songs, a big banner and all fanfare which…
a compilation: Who Takes the Son? When war broke out, the son went to fight and died while rescuing another soldier. Not long after, there was a knock at the father’s door. He opened to find a young man holding a large package. “Sir, you don’t know me,” the young man said, “but I am the soldier for whom your son gave his life. He was carrying me to safety when a bullet struck him and he died instantly. He often talked about you and your love for art.” The young man held out his package. “I know this isn’t much, but I wanted you to have this.” The package contained a portrait of the son, painted by the young man. The father hung the portrait over his mantle, and thereafter, he always showed visitors the portrait of his son before he showed them any of the masterpieces in his…