“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:10-11).
A few days ago, two Iranian seminarians and I took a day-trip to Berlin to attend a workshop at Trinity Lutheran Church in Steglitz. Our task was to work toward a unified set of Farsi-language liturgical texts for use in Persian Lutheran congregations throughout Germany.
Although the train journey from Hamburg to Berlin should take only about one hour and fifty minutes, we met at Hamburg Central Station at 5:00 a.m. so that we could arrive at Trinity by 9:00. Given the German rail system’s frequent disruptions and major delays, allowing generous extra time has become essential for travelers. Deutsche Bahn’s long-distance punctuality was only 58.7 percent in the first half of 2026. Thankfully, by leaving extra early, we got to the church on time, a phrase well-known by phonetics expert Professor Henry Higgins, even though our train was twenty-five minutes late.
The workshop attendees included pastors, missionary pastors, and Farsi native speakers. One of our tasks was to analyze the Farsi translation of the Lord’s Prayer. The Iranians were pivotal for our work because only they were able to adjudicate which terms work best in their mother tongue. All of them were Christian, except for one: a Muslim language teacher and expert in Farsi phonetics. I noticed that when we prayed the polished version of the Our Father at the very end, the instructor respectfully stepped back from the group.
I reflected on this fact, while also taking comfort in the fact that the Lord’s Word will not return empty but will carry out His purpose in each one of us—perhaps even in that phonetics expert. May our Iranian “Professor Higgins” make it to the “church on time”—before it’s too late!
The Tiews in Germany 