Greeting Dean Gottwald-Weber Founding Festival

Dear siblings Matthias and Sabine Vogel and Annette,
dear board of directors
Dear Board of Trustees, Dear Supporters,

what you have brought to life is extremely remarkable.

It is a particularly blessed day for Weißenburg, because here you are celebrating your founding festival.

Here we see and experience very closely how God's love works.
It opens people's spirit, mind and heart and makes us follow Jesus Christ, the one who always took people's needs very seriously, who did not leave them with comforts and empty, lying words, but made them feel and experience in the flesh that God's Spirit can bring about good and life among us.

For many people in the highlands of Peru you are light, hope and life.

I would like to express my utmost respect and esteem for you, not only from me, but also from the local church community here and also from the deanery district, and this on the eve of a state election in Bavaria, the result of which some are looking forward to with trepidation.

Allow me to say a few more words.

Many of us today, as we are here, work professionally in contexts that are not only related to one place, one country, one language, one culture, one religion. Many companies, institutions, organizations and anyway church have contacts, relationships, friendships and business relations around the globe.

Thus, the economization of all spheres of life has also really and also, unfortunately, encompassed almost the entire globe.

The offensive artist of the 20th century, Joseph Beuys had foreseen this phenomenon and its great dangers in the post-war years.

Again and again he drew attention with his art:

The economization of all areas of life, the shameless maximization of profits, the submission to the laws of the market lead to a desolidarization in society and to the fact that man misses his humanity also in all his necessary creativity.

One can take this even further and quote Matthew 6:24:
"You cannot serve God and mammon."

Your commitment, your foundation not only begins a solidarity, but lives it and is thus one of the great signs of hope for our globe. For far too long we here in Europe have been living on resources that do not belong to us and at the expense of other people on this planet.

Yes, we are constantly jetting around the globe today- have you ever seen on the net, there are probably pictures and info showing how many planes are currently in the sky, -
yes, and we can put Bine live on it,
yes, the technology we have at our disposal is really impressive
yes, and also a lot of things we know and see, because we can travel so easily.

Now it is time to rediscover solidarity, to bring it to top form and to use all our technical knowledge and skills, all our relationships, contacts and friendships.

Surely this planet then has more chance to remain a blue, green, a colorful one, on which many different cultures have living space.

With your foundation you really set a light for this world- Thank you!!!!!