ICF International Newsletter No. 4/2010

Guten Tag ###USER_first_name### ###USER_last_name###

Heartbeat from Leo & Susanna Bigger

Dear ICF

The Easter musical definitely surpassed all our expectations! More than 7,000 visitors (Zurich, and all locations) attended "Chez Job’s". The fantastic quality of the show, the use of multimedia in addition to theatre, song and dance, really made the message of Job go under the skin. We are proud of our church and you volunteers! This great project was only accomplished through teamwork. Many VIPs were touched by the atmosphere in the foyer, the excellence of the musical and the dedication of all the artists and volunteers on or behind the stage. Subsequently, there were interesting discussions about the faith, children, adolescents and adults, a total of 180 proudly held a Bible in their hands for the first time and thanked us for this unique experience.

We pray that God will no longer let go of the hearts of the attendees until they have made a decision for him. We are building the church for this!

Your Susanna and Leo

Chez Job’s – the series

Why does God allow suffering? Why do good people experience bad things? This is a question which people have been asking for generations. Looking at the story of Job we will learn that in suffering, we can’t always find the reasons, but we can always find chances.

Sunday, 18^th April 10: Chez Job’s - What do I do now?

Sunday, 25^th April 10: Chez Job’s - Who can help me?

Sunday, 2^nd May 10: Chez Job’s - Where are you God?

Sunday, 9^th May 10: Chez Job’s - Who would have thought this?

Sunday, 16^th May 10: Chez Job’s - All’s well that ends well?

Sunday, 23^rd May 10: Chez Job’s - Open topic

Newcomer

Since last October, Hanna Brauer (23) has lived in Zurich with her small family, Hendrik (23) and Lorenz (3). Hendrik got a job at UBS after his business degree studies, so they left their beloved Bad Honnef in Germany and moved here. Hanna graduated from the College in ICF and currently works three days a week in the church in the area of programming and theatre.

ICF: I want such a church, too!
Hanna knows ICF from her school days. A good friend went to the study in Berlin and found a home in ICF. She had never seen a church like this until that time and was overwhelmed by the love and the passion shown by young people for Jesus; and for the Church and from the deep, genuine friendships towards each other. "Then I knew: I wanted such a church, too!". When they moved to Zurich last autumn, there was no question about which church they wanted to attend! "Well, here we are." ;-)

Buried passion
My dream has always been the theatre and the world of musicals. She never attended an acting school because of her "insecurity thinking". "Last year Jesus gave me, or rather us a powerful vision for our lives: He dug out my buried passion and showed me how I could build His kingdom with this dream." Due to this experience, she took an entrance exam for a drama school in Zurich and passed it!

Many dreams
This young woman has many dreams for the future; and many very different ones! One is the idea of a cafe where people can have fellowship, where theatre takes place and people can get to know Jesus! Another dream is of turning the Bible into modern theatre. "I also ask myself whether I should still complete a theology degree." Nothing is specific at the moment. "I have almost ceased from planning the future, but learned to enjoy the moment and to let God do everything."

Changes in the staff

David Baumgartner David Baumgartner, our much esteemed multi- talent will leave ICF as an employee by the end of April. During the past 2 ½ years, he was in charge of bookkeeping ICF activities (camps, conferences and concerts), the subsidiary ICF Services GmbH (bar and media store) and ICF Media (publishing house). He also was a volunteer with Ground Zero, actively supported and coached them and also helped as a sound mixer in “zwänzger”. In addition, he was very appreciated at GenX as he was particularly experienced and competent. Dear Dave, we will miss your expertise and your enthusiastic way will be sorely missed! Your quality and versatility – especially the home-made Easter bunnies you brought us for Easter – will leave a gap which can be barely closed. The entire full time team thanks you from the bottom of our hearts for everything that you've done. We expect that you will come and work with us again after your time-out!

Wei Bosshard David Baumgartner will hand the staff over to Wei Bosshard. Wei – Nickname „Kelly“– is the first employee at ICF who signed her work contract with Chinese letters! This is because she was born in Tianjin, China, in 1981. She's been in Switzerland since 2004 and has been married to Adrian and a part of ICF since 2005. She became a Christian in 2001 and it always was her desire to work in a church. After 5 years with ICF her desire has become reality. The only weakness, she admitted to so far, is that she could watch "Mein cooler Onkel Charlie" for hours… Her personal statement: “I was allowed to learn that every person is precious to God and how nice it is to be involved.” Kelly, welcome to the Finance-Team!

Sport- & Wellness Weekend Pentecost 2010

Saturday, 22^nd May – Monday, 24^th May 2010
Säntispark at Gossau

You can arrange the Pentecost weekend as you like. There is a diverse range of games, sports and wellness activities available: Volleyball, Floor Hockey, Soccer, Badminton, Basketball, Squash, Table tennis, Mini-Golf, Gym, a great Wellness area, Sauna, Pool, Bowling, etc. Celebrations about God and life also won't be missing.

Information and registration: camps.icf.ch

Winterthur

We successfully finished the challenging and practical series “Think”. People were encouraged and challenged to think in a new way and to apply it to their everyday lives. I was really excited about the many positive feedbacks. As a church we're making a huge difference in the lives of so many people.

The location is in motion and constantly growing. We regularly had more than 100 visitors during the last weeks. The lounge on the bottom floor is also being utilised more and more as a common room. It's nice to see that new volunteers have joined. Thank you very much for your commitment! It's great fun to build church with you!

At the moment we're in the midst of the preparations for the Musical “Chez Job’s”, which we will show on 16^th / 17^th April in Winterthur. What an honour! We're really looking forward to those three shows. It's a great opportunity to speak to people who don't have anything to do with Jesus.

Figures for March - ICF Winterthur

Income

Budget: 13,600.-

Actual: 17,258.-

Outgoings

Budget: 13,200.-

Actual: 9,503.-

Rapperswil

We don't only notice spring in nature but also at our location in Rapperswil. Surely the brilliant musical "Chez Job’s" woke every last person up from their winter sleep. Not only that every seat was taken in our auditorium but also our hearts were filled. After the show finished many excited visitors left with renewed hope and a smile on their faces. The sentence “In the end everything will be good, and if it isn't, then it isn't the end yet..." resounds in our ears.

With this faith, we're looking forward to everyone who will decide to give their lives entirely to God, and confirm it with the baptism in Rapperswil on the 18^th of April. Our Family festival on the 9^th of May will be a further highlight during the current series "Chez Job’s". Fitting with Mother’s day, we will dedicate some children and officially open our new children’s rooms. With this, a further milestone has been reached at the Rapperswil location !

Figures for March - ICF Rapperswil

Income

Budget: 17,800.-

Actual: 17,197.-

Outgoings

Budget: 16,000.-

Actual: 12,976.-

ACTS

News from Girls5 So far our first Pyjama Party was the highlight of this year. Twice as many girls as usual came!! Since then most of the girls have been coming to our Girls5-evenings every Friday evening. The evening began with a trip to Uetliberg: A campfire and sausages in the snow, and later on hot chocolate to warm up in the Celebration Hall. We arranged ourselves comfortably on all the mattresses we could find in the house, to watch a movie on the big screen in the children's rooms. We had the best moment however, before going to sleep. We wanted to thank God for the great evening and encouraged all the girls to pray aloud or quietly with us. Whoever didn't want to participate could just listen. One of the girls replied: “I don't think that that's OK! All of us had a nice evening and I think that everyone can say thank you aloud!” And then really ALL the girls prayed; Moslems, Hindus, Christians... Wow!!!

Movement

Once there was a BIG Bang!

ICF Augsburg (D) was born on 28/3/2010!
A year and a half ago Heidi und Mike Müllerbauer moved from Munich to Augsburg to start a new ICF. They invested their whole energy into relationships and teambuilding to draw a vision of an ICF church. With approx. 40 team players on board they were ready for the birth. And it was a B I G Bang! More than 450 people came to the Spectrum Club, a popular concert location. ICF Munich joined with a whole supporting bus with 55 people who created a Hillsong atmosphere in the first rows of the celebration. The Dance group from Augsburg, Da Funk, known through its gigs with Usher, Justin Timberlake, Janet Jackson and so on, brought it to the boiling point, so that there was a disco atmosphere until late at night. From now on there are weekly ICF celebrations in Augsburg. Way to go ICF Augsburg!

Figures for March - ICF Zürich

Income

Budget: 290,000.-

Actual: 296,866.-

Outgoings

Budget: 298,000.-

Actual: 289,466.-

New Bank connections with Raiffeisen

And here is a big request from the finance team: We changed our bank connection a while ago from UBS to Raiffeisen. Now we ask all those people who still have a standing order with the UBS account to change it to the Raiffeisen account as soon as possible. Here are the bank account details:

Thank you very much for all your efforts and your faithful support!

Donations for ICF Zurich

As of now ICF Zurich, Rapperswil and Winterthur, as well as the ACTS foundation have new bank arrangements. Following you will find the appropriate information:

ACTS Foundation
Payment for:
Raiffeisenbank Zürich
8001 Zürich
Clearing-No.: 81487
Account-No.: 96475.41
Postal Bank: 87-71996-7
 
IBAN CH91 8148 7000 0096 4754 1
SWIFT-BIC: RAIFCH22
 
In favour of:
ACTS Foundation
c/o ICF Zürich
Hardstr. 219
8005 Zürich
 
We ask all donators and supporters to only use these accounts from now on. Thank you so much!