On Thursday 3rd of November 2016 our District Apostle Fehlbaum served in Denia. The textword was a word from our Chief Apostle which he used few days ago in Australia. It is written in Hebrew 6, verses 19 and 20: “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”
At the beginning of his serving about Bethany he talked about how Mary, Martha and Lazarus were sitting at the feet of Jesus. When Martha wanted to start cleaning the house Jesus asked her to come in, to sit down and to listen. Thus he also wishes that the congregation of Denia may experience a place like “Bethany” now.
Referring to the text word he mentioned that Jesus is our hope, our anchor in our life which gives us stability. An anchor he said is important if there are currents so that we can keep our position of faith. In order to better understand the text word he gave us examples out of the natural life: He said that different kinds of hope do exist. If a somewhat inferior football team had to play against Barcelona maybe perhaps they have a certain hope to win the match but nobody would help them to succeed in that effort. However, Jesus does help us! That means we have a realistic hope to trust him! Many people regard Jesus as a kind of joker similar to a situation in a quiz show on TV if you do not know the answer to something. That would be the same as if we remembered Jesus only in bad situations in our lives.
As Priest Schroers went into retirement in that Divine Service the District Apostle still asked him to serve along. After that our Bishop also served along.
After the forgiveness of sins and the sacrificial prayer eight souls were sealed with the Holy Spirit. At the end of the Divine Service Priest Schroers was retired from his active ministry.
Immediately after the Divine Service the District Apostle put a short report on his facebook site with the title “Experiencing Bethany in Denia!”
Here you can find a link to his post
After the Divine Service almost all brothers and sisters stayed for some more time and enjoyed “Frankfurter sausages and potato salad”. All together 119 persons participated in the Divine Service amongst them 10 friends and guests.