Until the beginning of March 2025
Christine’s cancer grew more and more, her body deteriorated rapidly and her strength declined more and more. She had to stay in bed. Her ability to concentrate for long periods of time diminished considerably and she could no longer cope with visits from many people. There were times when she felt very miserable. At some times of the day we could talk to each other very well, at other times she was very weak and could only speak very quietly. She now slept many hours a day.
She was able to find information on the internet via her tablet. During this time, when she could no longer do much else, it became important to her to be before God, to pray, to stand up for others and, in particular, to bring substitutionary repentance (Dan. 9:5) for Christianity and our German people, where we are now experiencing the fruits of widespread ungodliness
As in the past, Reiner visited all the authorities, stores and people we deal with at New Year 2025 to congratulate them on the New Year, thank them for their service, wish them all the best for the new calendar year and give them a small letter from us.
Christine died on March 17, 2025
Due to severe pain in her right leg, we had Christine brought to the Thanakan Clinic in Kanchanaburi on March 7, where the doctor who was in charge of her palliative treatment was on duty. It turned out that the cancer had grown to such an extent that it was obstructing the blood supply to the leg to such an extent that parts of the leg began to die off, poisoning the whole organism. We decided against a total amputation of the leg, which would probably have prolonged her life by another four weeks. On March 16, Christine began to experience severe shortness of breath, which continued the following night. When Reiner woke up at around 4 a.m. on March 17, the shortness of breath was still severe, but Christine had become very weak. So Reiner asked God to put an end to her misery and released her. A few moments later, her heart stopped beating.
The next day, March 18, a farewell celebration was held in our adoration chapel. There were about 30 visitors, all but 2 in white. Our friend Pastor Preecha Kirdyoo conducted the service. He preached on the word of Jesus “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even if he dies.” (Joh. 11, 25) Afterwards, Christine’s body was transferred to the Noël-Kiche for burial. There, at Christine’s request, Reiner spoke at the funeral service about the word that had been the motto of her life for many years. “Christ is my life, dying is my gain.” (Phil. 1:21) I was very happy about that. Christine was then buried next to the church.
Reiner’s grief
Both of our paths to marriage were different from others. We both chose our spouses not because we found them fascinating or desperately needed them as a complement, but because we both had the impression that God had chosen this person for us. From the beginning of our relationship it was clear that God should be more important than our spouse, and our relationship more important than our ministry and everything else here on earth. We decided to allow God to take our spouse any day. We consciously held on to this for the entire 14+ years of our marriage. For a long time (almost 48 years in my case) we both knew that for a Christian who has accepted salvation through Jesus Christ, physical death is a transition into a wonderful fellowship with God that is far more beautiful and better than anything we experience here on earth. God has taken away our fear of death and thereby freed us from many fears and given us great inner independence. That’s why we didn’t have to suppress death, but were able to face it very consciously. Christine was also able to fully plan her farewell ceremony and funeral.
The trust that God knows everything exactly, can do everything and is eternal love, gave us the courage at the beginning of May to give God the complete freedom to decide how to proceed with Christine: healing through medical treatment, supernatural healing or a dying process. This consciously saying yes to God’s ways meant that we did not rebel against God’s guidance, but accepted it, even where it was associated with great pain. This was also a great help on Christine’s last difficult journey. I never saw my role as a husband in such a way that I saw my wife as part of myself or as subordinate, but as another person who ultimately has her own secret and whom I should treat with consideration. For as long as we have known each other, I have always had a great deal of respect for her and have always seen her as my equal, even though I had learned much more at school and university than she had. It was important to me to help her develop what God had put in her. Christine was left-handed, but her husband had to tell her that first. She was creative. So I welcomed and supported her decorating the rooms in the house next door and our Adoration Chapel, painting the life-size glass picture of the Risen Christ there and writing new songs. Above all, I appreciated that she was very sensitive and I thought it was wonderful to be married to such a woman.
I always had this image in my mind: Christine is entrusted to me by God for a time, and then I give her back to God as a gift (with a gift ribbon). I did this very consciously and have become very happy about it. She has done me a lot of good in our life together, but for both of us it was a very great gift that we could be in inner spiritual unity all the time. That made many things so much easier for us, including our key decisions last year.
Christine left a big gap, but that was not a problem for me, as we had learned more and more over the years of our marriage that we really needed God in all areas of our lives. It was God who had carried us through, and not ourselves and our love. And that remained the same for me.
All in all, I am very grateful for the path I shared with Christine, but I never felt the pain of parting and loss and was immediately very open to all new steps. However, I realized that I lacked a bit of the momentum to get things done quickly and with focus.
Reiner’s further path
The first few months were full of visits to offices and banks. The application to the German Pension Insurance to get a survivor’s pension as Christine’s widower took a lot of time and effort. I decided to turn house 3, where Christine had lived for the last three years, back into a guest house and to furnish and move back into my bedroom and office in house 2. I took several times to ask God for direction for the next time. The main results were:
1) I see a clear leading from God to no longer marry.
2) My most important priority will be to stand before God, to thank Him, to honor Him, to intercede for others and especially to repent on their behalf (cf. Daniel 9:5).
3) I am supposed to think, teach and write writings that I put on this website.
4) I am to be there for the unity of the body of Christ according to John 17.
5) I am now under Pastor Preecha Kirdyoo and thus belong to the Suvarnabhumi International Chrch Association.
6) The Philadelphia Church International Lum Sum is thus a house church under Pastor Preecha Kirdyoo’s Mueang Kanchanaburi Church in Kanchanaburi City.
7) I am still in close contact with Noël Church in Wang Krachae (I preach the Sunday sermon there every two weeks) and its leaders Arun and Paeng, who belong to Youth with a Mission (YWAM) Thailand.
Apart from that, I want to be open to all the projects that God still wants me to do.
(<=What happened in 2024?)—————————————————————
The main part we has the parts Who we are, vision, what happened?, our newsletters, pictures about us.
The main parts of our web site are: we, God, world, privacy policy, languages.
Our web site exists now in: German (Deutsch) , English , Dutch (Nederlands) and Swedish (Svenska).