Mechthild Clark
At the age of 21, I lived for the first time on my own two hours away from home. Living in Wiesbaden, I had a great job, and had just accepted Jesus into my life after my new friend Sabine relentlessly witnessed to me. We were both new in the city and did not know many other people. I was a former Catholic and Sabine was a Lutheran and we both wanted to have fellowship with other likeminded and devoted Christians.
I still to this day have a clipping of the little newspaper ad we placed into the Wiesbadener Kurier, our local newspaper that reads: “We are new Christians, looking for other Christians to study the Bible and pray with.” Sad to say, no one responded.
But after being on a walk one summer evening, we ran into a young man working outside a building with the sign: Teen Challenge Coffeehouse. Sabine and I thought at first it might be a cult. It turned out, Ben had just arrived as an Assemblies of God Missionary Associate with his family from the US to run this coffeehouse, and that’s where Sabine and I were discipled.
Within just a few months I knew that God was calling me into full-time ministry and I quit my job and my studies in Economics and worked and started working for the newly established Teen Challenge induction center – without pay (just room and board) and without health insurance to the chagrin of my parents. But God worked in my life in a tremendous way during this time.
A few years later I met my future husband Paul who was also working for Teen Challenge at that time. We always knew that we wanted to serve together in Germany full-time to share the Gospel. Eighteen months after being married we began planting a church in Freeland, Michigan. Four years later we were appointed as missionaries to Germany. Since that time, we have plated 6 churches in Germany, one church in Austria, and more recently a church in the country. of Liechtenstein
God is faithful. He sees the big picture and if we follow him in true devotion, we will see how our life’s puzzle pieces fit together into a perfect picture. I am reminded of the words that the Lord spoke to Jeremiah in Jer. 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”