An Apartment for the Patchwork Centre

The Patchwork Centre is an evangelistic community centre with café, workshop, second hand, music, etc, located in one of the most atheist regions in the world: East-Germany. We love our intensive, dynamic and colourful community, in which everyone gets the chance to discover Jesus. 

One of our goals is to offer our ministry and experience to interns who take their first steps in the mission field, and we are in need of additional funding with regard to the housing situation! We want to rent an apartment where the interns can stay during their internship. When we do not have interns for some time, we can use the apartment as an emergency house with which to serve our community.

We're praying for €500/month during one year, a total of €6000, to rent a 3-room apartment big enough to host up to 4 people. 

Lydia, a former intern at the Patchwork Centre, shares: "The time of my internship at Patchwork Centre Schwerin was one of the most challenging times during my studies until now. But in a very positive way: I could learn to think out of the box and to live discipleship - to follow Jesus - in a very practical and unusual manner, compared to what I had experienced so far. Simple, but not easy. Fulfilling in spite of the struggles."   

The Patchwork Centre building after its renovation

The Patchwork Centre

In 2016, the team started renovating a disused post office building, along with local residents and friends. The renovation work was completed in spring 2018: the 'Patchwork Centre' opened its doors. The building is used as a community centre, with a wide range of activities and purposes. This includes a café, workshop space, music and function rooms as well as a second hand shop. Everything is managed together with the local people.

The purpose of the Patchwork Centre is to offer a place where everyone is welcome, where anyone can participate in a practical way and where everyone can encounter Jesus at their own pace, in short: fellowship, work and discipleship. Fellowship offers an alternative to social isolation and conflicts, work to unemployement and resignation, and discipleship to atheism and materialism. Within this dynamic, almost the daily life of the Patchwork Centre, the new church emerges.

Whilst the Patchwork Centre is now up and running, the team is still looking for:

• People who want to pray for this project and the local district
• Churches where ECM could promote to this project
• People who want to support the work financially, through one-off or regular giving (click on 'Donate to this Project')

Interested? Email: christiaan.kooiman@ecmi.org or leitung@patchworkcenter.de

We hope you will become part of this great project, bringing light into a very atheistic part of the world!