Berlin has had a disproportionate influence on the course of world events in the last 150 years. From the transformational years of Bismarck and the Kaisers to the Third Reich to the Cold War to the birth and development of the European Union and more, Germany’s capital has been a titanic epicenter of European and, indeed, global history. Its streets echo the great headlines of the twentieth century, its corners and public buildings bear witness to some of the brightest—and darkest—epochs of our time.

ViewPoint will take you to the phenomenally renewed Reichstag, where the past meets the future. You’ll stand at the Brandenburg Gate, at Checkpoint Charlie, and along the Berlin Wall. You’ll visit the astonishing Holocaust Memorial, sandwiched between the new American Embassy and the Tiergarten. You’ll walk through the Topograhy of Terror (the block that once housed the headquarters of the Gestapo and dreaded SS (Schutzstaffel = Hitler’s personal (schutz) guard (staffel), in which the Nazi reign of terror was conceived, hatched, and executed. You’ll stand in the Pariser Platz, you’ll remember President Kennedy’s famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech and wonder once more at President Reagan’s daring challenge: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”  And, along the way, you’ll meet extraordinary folks whose faith in Christ is at work restoring the soul of this crossroads at the center of Europe.

At Wittenburg, you will walk up to the famous cathedral door, upon which Luther posted his 95 theses centuries ago. That one galvanic gesture has come to represent the sweeping changes of the Reformation age, the birth of Protestant faith and culture—an historic moment that still inspires today.

In Ukraine, you will visit remote villages, sprinkled across some of the world’s richest agricultural landscape, ablaze with flowers and steeped in history. You will be introduced to a people who have suffered much over time—subjected to pogroms and purges, forced collectivization of farmlands, deportations to Siberia, death by starvation, the horrors of World War II, Nazi invasions, Stalinist death camps, Communist persecutions and dead-end economic policies, Chernobyl, and more—and yet a people bright with faith in God and their future. 

You will visit the two-room farmhouse of a young village pastor who, before his conversion, supplied his whole community with homemade moonshine—until he counted the cost of alcohol abuse in his town. You’ll meet another village pastor who is the father of five daughters—and also has adopted four more children and is building an orphanage next to his small farmhouse to take in ten beside. There are estimated to be 250,000 orphans in Ukraine.

You’ll meet another village pastor who once was a Soviet prison guard who never cried; since meeting Jesus, he weeps easily. When asked why, he explained: “The Lord has taken my heart of stone and turned it into one of love.” 

You’ll meet a 49-year old man who, as a young man in his 20’s, strained to listen to the voice of CBH-Russian during the years of Soviet rule in Ukraine, because Christian radio was his only glimpse of the outside world. In time, as the Iron Curtain crumbled, he began to correspond with our CBH-Russian ministry team (based in Germany); now he pastors a congregation of the Church of God in the city of Mauripol.

You’ll listen to stories of courage, inspiration, transformation, and hope, all framed by the Church of God at work in this corner of the world, often overlooked and forgotten by the press of other world events, but filled with life and wonder, just the same.

Next, you’ll hear fascinating interviews from the North American Convention of the Church of God. Produced with a live audience in our Dwight Dye Studio, you will find the stories of our convention guests unforgettable (including the inspiring testimony of a young man paralyzed in a trampoline accident, who nevertheless praises God with a tenor voice-in-song that will take your breath away). You’ll listen to conversations with great souls from around the world and here at home that will keep you talking and thinking long after the broadcast ends. We promise.

In each of these ViewPoint-on-Expedition and North American Convention programs, you will be challenged to see the world from Heaven’s view; you will be invited to look at your own world differently. Don’t miss them. You won’t find a more interesting 30 minutes on the radio anywhere. Thanks for tuning in.