I will build it with my own hands: Fr. Nicolas’s Story

The Abundance Mentality

At Faithtree Resources, one of our core values and guiding principles is what we call “The Abundance Mentality”.  In a nutshell, we believe the Church deserves the best of us and that God is glorified when we use our individual gifts and talents to further His kingdom here. We seek to encourage each other and to co-labor together along the way. All the collaboration without the competition. We cheer each other on all the way to the finish line as we each hustle to serve our God with the gifts He has entrusted to us. 

It is in that same spirit then, that we invite you to meet a phenomenal example of someone who is self-emptying in his efforts to serve Christ and His Church. His is a living example of how to use the gifts God has given really, really well.

Can We Translate That?

When Fr. Nicolas Esber reached out to our team to purchase The Relationship Project, his parish, Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Butzbach, Germany had recently received hundreds of Christian refugees. He was interested in finding resources to help his community thrive and he had discovered our work on Facebook. Fr. Nicolas didn’t just want to buy The Relationship Project, he was inquiring about translating it.  The Relationship Project needed to be transcribed into both German and Arabic. Our team met Fr. Nicolas and his wife Hana via Zoom to see how we might be able to help. 

Some background: Fr. Nicolas is Syrian, but he currently serves a parish in Germany. Many of the parish newcomers didn’t speak English or German. Many of his native parish members only spoke English or German. Fr. Nicolas sought ways to serve his ENTIRE community and to draw these two very diverse groups into the embrace of the local parish community and to make them all one family. 

There was no money to spend on translations. Coupled with a pressing need to ensure the fidelity of the theology during the translation, it wouldn’t be easy.  Collectively we decided Fr. Nicolas would be the chief translator of the program and that Faithtree would facilitate the process of making his translations available to the other 29 parishes in Germany and Western Europe as well. The only thing left to reconcile was a timeline…that’s when things got really interesting. 

It Might Take A Bit of Time

Fr. Nicolas was filled with excitement during our Zoom meeting. He had huge energy. But to be honest, he simultaneously looked wiped out. We thought it was due to the time difference. After all, it was midnight in Butzbach. But it turns out that wasn’t it. 

We began talking through the timeline details and Fr. Nicolas mentioned needing to finish painting the icons in the new church first so that his people could have a place to worship. Our team was in awe that he was serving not only as a priest and pastor, but also an iconographer and now translator. No wonder this man was tired! His response to our incredulousness:

“Oh, I am not an iconographer. You see, there is no Antiochian Orthodox church building in all of Europe. Sts. Peter and Paul will be the first church not held in a rented or temporary space in the whole of Europe. Our community has worked for decades to get to the point that we might build our own home. However, with the reception of so many newcomers, we had a hard decision to make. We could either receive our brothers and sisters well or continue using our time and money on the building of the church. When Coronavirus arrived, it made matters that much more difficult. With much prayer it became clear.  We had to find a way to do both.”

You guys! Check out what he did next. 

Fr. Nicolas and his people would not give up the dream of bringing Sts. Peter and Paul new church building to fruition but yet they also refused to limit the community’s ability to welcome the influx of people. So, he continued the building project by himself. “I knew we could not stop our progress. So, after much prayer I just decided, ‘Well. Then I will build it with my own hands.’” 

Over the past year, and with his Metropolitan’s blessing, Fr. Nicolas has found a way to continue the building of the church, despite the fact that nearly the entire building crew had to be let go because there was simply no money for it. He retained a printer in Amman, Jordan, who was willing to convert iconography into enormous stencils and decals. Next he threw on some overalls and got to work!

Each day, Fr. Nicolas works for 12+ hours to apply the decals, paint them, lay the flooring, carve the iconostas and build this sanctuary for his people so they might worship our Almighty God. During this process he is still preaching, teaching, administering the Holy Sacraments and researching ways to better serve his flock. On top of that he is a husband and father of young children! Members of the community will come and help him as they are able, but the majority of the effort falls on him.  The fruits of Fr. Nicolas’s labor are magnificent. Our team is blessed to have met Fr. and Hana and to have seen their example of what real self-emptying looks like. 

If You’d Like To Help

Not many stories have inspired our team like that of Fr. Nicolas and his community. If you’d like to support their mission of building the first Antiochian Church in all of Europe, while simultaneously ministering to refugees and other community members, our team can connect you with Fr. Nicolas. Any sort of financial support would be most welcome given the many obstacles they are facing. 

Fr. Nicolas, we are cheering you on all the way!