Intercessors' Reports - Cologne

Reconciliation between Jews, Gypsies and Muslims in Cologne

The intercessors were invited to a gathering of churches in Cologne - Germany to speak about the unity of pastors in our city in Brazil. Also to talk about the strategy of reaching the whole city for Christ through prayer evangelism we've been able to make use of as a result of this unity.

Arriving there we found out that the gathering was a part of a prayer conference, which had three main theme's:-

1. The Celebration of the Berlin Wall's demise by the power of God.
2. The Reconciliation Walk from Cologne to Jerusalem.

This movement's been one of the most wonderful things of our Christian era. The reconciliation walk involves many small teams and has been taking place since October last year and it will finish in Jerusalem in 1999. These teams are going to visit all the villages and towns the Crusaders went 900 years ago destroying,
killing, burning out houses and people; worse of all, it was all done in Christ's name.

But now these Christians are going with a different purpose. They are asking the Muslim and Jewish leaders forgiveness for the terrible things done by our forefathers and offering love and friendship.

The first leg was from Cologne to Istanbul, and God did miraculous things. In the city of Regensburg the team got lost and Yvonne had to go ahead to the local synagogue where the Rabbi was waiting with the local press. She apologised to the Rabbi and said that the team would be a bit late. The man looked at her and said: "My, dear we've been waiting for this moment for 900 years, we can wait a bit longer."

In Istanbul where there was nothing less than 9 local TV channels and various local daily newspapers waiting for them a Muslim leader said: " We Muslims have a very warped idea of Christianity because of the crusades; what we want is for Christians to behave like real Christians, like Jesus"

A police officer said at the Turkish border: " I want the whole of Turkey to hear your message, how can I help you? "

They report that 100% of the people they have talked to, know about the crusades and it's shameful attempts and horrible acts of violence and horror. "All of these people response to the solicited forgiveness was either joy because it's happening or tears. There was never a negative reaction," The team .

3. Confession and forgiveness request to the Jews and Gypsies of Cologne.

Between 21st October 1941 and 1st October 1944 almost 11,000 Jewish people from Cologne were deported into the death camps of the National Socialists from one of cities train stations called 'Deustz Tief'. Among them there were 114 children aged fourteen or under, 365 people over 65 years of age and some older than 80 or 90, some of whom were critically ill or lame.

On the 27th of September 1997 a group of Christians from various churches and denominations in Cologne gathered in the same train station to ask the representatives of the Jewish community in the city forgiveness in the name of Christ according to 2 Chron.7:14

" We confess, that the citizens of Cologne wished the Jewish people death and cursed them bringing immeasurable suffering upon many individuals and families. We now ask your forgiveness and we wish Israel comfort, peace and blessings and we desire that you live as our fellow citizens under the protection and help of our God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob". Church of Jesus Christ in Cologne.

We were amazed to see God's power to bring these people into repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation. In this amazing atmosphere we began to think how often we allow our small problems to bring segregation and division in our churches and shame to the name of our Lord Jesus. We must follow His, Jesus' path if we want the world to believe in our message.

We shared the Go To The Nations vision with them, and explained why we were there, praying for Europe; they received us very warmly as well as our message. Many leaders came to ask for more information on how to get involved, etc
I felt the power of God strongly in that meeting, I believe much fruit will come out of it. At the end of the gathering we prayed for the leaders and they prayed for us in an exchange of anointing. All of them showed openness and great sense of expectation for the team that was coming the following week.