Women’s Breakfast 2025
We’re delighted to announce our Women’s Breakfast dates for 2025! These cherished Saturday morning gatherings will take place on 29th March, 24th May, 19th July, 20th Sept and 22nd Nov. So, mark your diaries!
After some wonderful years of coordinating our breakfasts, Sonia has passed the torch to Kirsten. We’re deeply grateful to Sonia for her dedicated service in building such a warm and welcoming space for women to connect and grow together. Thank you, Sonia! And a warm welcome to Kirsten, who brings her characteristic enthusiasm and heart for fellowship to this role.
Past Events
22nd November 2025
Christine Ghinn: “God’s Brushstrokes”
This Saturday we gathered for a beautiful Women’s Breakfast with nearly thirty women in attendance. Our very own Christine led the morning with an inspiring presentation titled “God’s Brushstrokes.” Throughout her talk, she shared a series of stunning art pieces she had created, each one woven into her story of faith.
Christine began with a heartfelt prayer and then briefly shared her life journey, from her early years in East Germany, navigating faith under the pressure of political tension, to her work in hospitality that eventually took her to Wales, where she met Nick. From there her path led to London, and later back to Germany. Along the way, films and podcasts helped deepen and shape her understanding of faith, and she found community in 2008 here at the ACF Young Adult group where open discussion and honest questions were welcomed. She also spoke tenderly about motherhood and the faith lessons learned through childbirth and raising children.
One meaningful story came from a visit at Botany Bay, Southeast England, where she wrestled with what it meant to be Christian while facing situations that made her uncomfortable. She brought those tensions to God and continued to grow through prayer, learning, and reflection. Later, when the chaplain at the time asked her to take a service in his absence, he eventually asked whether she had ever considered becoming a priest, an invitation that marked a turning point in her journey. She began her vocational path in 2019, moved forward more formally after COVID, and expressed deep gratitude to all of us at the ACF for our encouragement throughout her academic training and ministerial formation.
Looking ahead, Christine will be ordained as a deacon in Brussels this June, and God willing, ordained as a priest in Freiburg a year later. She shared her hopes for building a safe spiritual space, supporting our community, and offering blessings as part of her ministry.
Christine closed with gentle and wise reminders:
- Get to know yourself.
- You don’t need to have all the answers.
- Be curious.
- Be honest with God and with yourself.
- Trust the process.
- Expect the Divine anywhere and everywhere.
We are grateful for her openness, her artistry, and the encouragement she shared with us. It was a truly uplifting morning.
20th September 2025
Dr Pacis-Alarine IRAMBONA: “Pink Saturday : Pray-Prevent-Protect”
On Saturday, September 20, the Women’s Breakfast group, this time 15 participants, welcomed Dr. Pacis-Alarine Irambona, a Global Breast Cancer Educator with the Know Your Lemons Foundation and a champion for women’s health and dignity. Did you know that 1 in every 8 women will develop breast cancer? If detected early, there is a 99% survival rate. This rate drops to 32% when detected in stage 4.
Pacis introduced us to the Know Your Lemons app, an informative and helpful resource for breast cancer issues. It includes a handy monthly reminder to do self-checks, information for calculating one’s risk of developing breast cancer and also questions and comments when visiting one’s health-care provider. She also instructed us and then invited us to do a self-check during our session. She encouraged us to pass along this important app to friends and family. I’ve already passed it along to my daughter-in-law!
We give thanks for Pacis and for her continued efforts and endeavors. We were blessed, not only with her educated enthusiasm for this so-important topic, but also with the gift of friendship and fellowship, good food and cheerful exchange.
19th July 2025
Solveyg Fischer: “My Slightly Unusual Way to Faith”
On Saturday, 19th July 2025 women of the ACF community gathered for a delicious breakfast, good conversations around the table, and an engaging talk. This month’s speaker was our very own churchwarden, Solveyg, who told us about her life’s story: growing up in the former socialist GDR, family life, studies, political upheaval, moves, and-woven into all of this-God drawing her to himself.
We heard about Solveyg’s first service at the ACF and the lasting impact a worshipping community can have on a seeker. She spoke about how the sacraments (her very first Eucharist, and her baptism in a waterfall) were major points in her life. We got a glimpse into God growing her in faith, community and personality.
Solveyg, you are such a blessing to our church community and we are so glad God found you on you ‘slightly unusual way to faith’!
Thank you for your openness, joy, and dedication!
24th May 2025
Megan Gentry “Art Therapy”
What a delightful morning we had at last Saturday’s Women’s Breakfast! Those who joined us were treated to something truly special as our own Megan shared her expertise in art therapy with warmth, wisdom, and plenty of creative fun.
Megan, a certified art therapist who works in various settings including University Hospital, brings healing through creativity to many people – from children whose parents are battling cancer to those struggling with addiction. It was wonderful to get a glimpse into her meaningful work and see how God uses her gifting to touch lives.
After enjoying a lovely breakfast together, we cleared the tables for some hands-on creativity. Megan had prepared trays filled with what she playfully called “beautiful rubbish” – balloons, wrappings, worn-out gloves, paper plates, and all sorts of materials that would normally find their way to the bin. Armed with hot glue guns, we had fifteen minutes to create living creatures from these humble materials.
The creativity that emerged was absolutely amazing! Fantasy animals, whimsical people, and imaginative beings took shape around the room amid much laughter and playful concentration. Once we’d named our creatures, we were invited to write down their deepest wishes – an exercise that proved surprisingly moving for many of us. Our little exhibition afterward was both touching and entertaining as we admired each other’s creations.
The morning continued with another meaningful activity involving white oil pastels and bright paints. We wrote down negative thoughts we sometimes tell ourselves, then countered them with positive affirmations. When we painted over the white writing, the encouraging words appeared through the color – a beautiful reminder that what we hold in our hearts and minds remains, even when we can’t always see it.
Megan beautifully wove together her faith and her profession, sharing how she sees God’s creativity in everyone. Though she works in secular settings, she deeply believes that through our inherent creativity, we can encounter not only ourselves but also God speaking into our lives. She drew from Scripture – from God’s creative work in Genesis, to Jesus’s expressive parables, to the detailed artistic vision for the tabernacle, and finally to the colorful beauty of the new Jerusalem in Revelation.
It was such a gift to experience each other and God in new ways through art and creativity. We’re so grateful to Megan for sharing her time, wisdom, and kind heart with us. Her work is truly inspiring, and we pray God’s continued blessing on her ministry of healing through creativity.
For those who missed this wonderful morning, there are lots of photos available to give you a taste of the joy and creativity that filled our time together. What a beautiful reminder that God delights in our creative expressions and uses them to draw us closer to Him and each other!
29th March 2025
Amira Abudayyeh: “Resilience and personal growth in challenging environments: My story and reflections“
It was a joy and honour to have Amira speak on resilience while telling us the story of her life, including her family’s history, her own upbringing in Bethlehem, her identity as a Palestinian, and her outlook on faith and God’s guidance.
16th November 2024
Eva Steisslinger: “The Importance of Physical Activity for our Physical, Mental, and Emotional Health”
The fifth and final Women’s Fellowship Breakfast in 2024 and before the Christmas break took place on Saturday, 16th of November. Eva Steisslinger, a sports lecturer from the University of Freiburg who is currently doing her PhD on the topic “body awareness,” was the inspiring speaker.
Eva structured her topic in three parts:
1. Her personal experience regarding her body and challenges during childhood and adolescence which impacted the way she saw her body.
2. The bridge from personal challenges to start a profession to solve the problems and
3. Practical exercises to better understand our bodies and worship our God with dancing and movements feeling the Holy Spirit inside us.
After doing the practical part, there was an open, honest, emotional discussion from the 15 international women who attended the fellowship breakfast. Some positive comments received from the women regarding the experience: “I feel alive!”, “My back pain is gone!”, “I feel grateful to worship God with my body!”. We felt united and joyful with our movements in despite of our diversity.
We immensely thank our energetic Eva for sharing with us her experience, for being honest, for teaching us how to listen to our bodies and how to be free with our movements, and for reminding us as believers that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and we should be attentive to receive his voice.
14th September 2024
Mirjam Akyeampon: “Healing minds across the world by reducing stigma”
The fourth joint Women’s Fellowship Breakfast in 2024 took place on Saturday, 14th September.
Our new Global Health colleague Miriam “Mimi”, a pharmacist from Ghana was our inspiring speaker. Mimi did a marvelous job speaking to 24 participants (22 women and 2 brave men) representing many countries. We had an open and very honest discussion raising questions and comments from a sensitive topic “Healing minds across the world by reducing stigma”.
Mimi recently finished her Master thesis covering the topic of stigma reduction among vulnerable people including migrants. She used a participatory approach which engaged us, she asked us some questions such as: what was our first experience with migrants? What is mental health? Who are the vulnerable? What is stigma? How can we cope with stress? What is our own contribution to improve the wellbeing of our ACF members?
The main message is that mental health is a spectrum moving from different phases: excelling, thriving, surviving, struggling, until reaching crisis. All of us are exposed to mental health challenges during any time of our lives and therefore she stressed the importance of identifying coping mechanisms with the appropriate help. After her presentation, there was an open, honest, emotional discussion from the participants. Mimi finished with some verses from the bible: 1 Peter 5:7; Psalm 34:18 and one of the most powerful verse: Philippians 4:6-7.
We immensely thank Mimi for sharing with us her knowledge and her constructive attitude. We wish her a successful future ahead. What a blessed to have her as our new Global Health Ambassador.
The last 2024 women’s fellowship breakfast will be on Saturday, 16th of November. Please mark the day in your calendars. Eva will be the next speaker… She will help us to understand and apply the importance of physical activity to keep our physical, mental, and emotional health. See you all, ACF women!
Look at some photos to evidence the nice gathering!
Linda Sloan-Ecker: “Phases of Migration”
8th June 2024
The third Women’s Fellowship Breakfast before the summer break took place on Saturday, 8th June. Our beloved ACF church member for more than 20 years Linda was the speaker. After more than a year, the session finally was implemented… but as we say in Colombia: “we need to wait for the most important things in life.” Linda set high standards: record of participants; record of discussion time; record of applause!
Linda, originally from the USA and with a background in education, structured her topic with clear elements. Firstly, she took us to her own life: when and how she came to Freiburg in 1970 as a student in foreign languages. Later, she went back to Philadelphia, working as a professional translator and studying a second degree in occupational therapy. Love brought her again to Germany, where she started her chapter as a marriage migrant. After presenting a summary of her life, Linda guided us with six questions regarding our own life as migrants. Why we came to Germany; who we were before we came to Germany; the different phases we experienced as migrants (the honeymoon; the distress; the reintegration; the autonomy and the independence) and the main characteristics of every phase. Once Linda finished the theory part, there was an open, honest, emotional discussion from the international women presented. The title of her talk was: “Marriage or work Migrant to wise one: phases of setting in.”
This time at the fellowship breakfast, 22 international women from 5 continents attended and received her inspiring talk. Linda started and finished with Rumi: “Life should be a journey to union with the one true God” and at the end: “Yesterday I was clever so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise so I have begun to change myself”.
We immensely thank our wonderful Linda for sharing with us her experience, for being an angel to our congregation, for taking different roles, for organising the Wise Ones gatherings, for her generosity and loving personality. Linda you are simply lindisisima!
Stefanie Harsch-Oria: “Faith and Social support in times of crisis: Stories of hope from women in Kenya and the bible”
13th April 2024
The second Women’s Fellowship Breakfast in 2024 took place last Saturday, 13th April.
Stefanie Harsch-Oria was so kind to accept our invitation to be the speaker. Stefanie is based in Denmark, Germany and Kenya, she is a Global health researcher with experience in Migration, Mental Health, Health promotion among many more Global Health topics. She is currently doing her Post Doc in Kenya. The title of her talk was: “Faith and Social support in times of crisis: Stories of hope from women in Kenya and the bible.” Her passion on this topic started as she was exposed to see how differently close family members (her father) in Germany and people in Kenya experienced their cancer disease and how they benefited from other cancer patients’ experiences. This motivated Stefanie to think about whether this supportive approach could be used to help more people with cancer to: a) understand better the disease, b) manage and live with their disease, c) improve disease knowledge and d) reduce stigma about the disease in our societies and even more in developing countries. In her research project, Stefanie is developing an online-based intervention using cancer patients’ lived experiences to promote cancer literacy and explore how it works.
This time at the fellowship breakfast, 20 international women from 5 continents attended and received her inspiring talk. Stefanie also distributed a confort song based on Isaiah 66:13: “I will comfort you as a mother comforts her child”. The core messages of her interactive session was that cancer is not a death sentence; we can cry out to God who wipes away our tears; social support is key ideally involving people who experienced the same challenges. However, the cornerstone is the sobrenatural support we receive from our God. Faith is critical when we are in despair.
We immensely thank Stefanie for sharing with us her experience, and we wish her success in her research.
Balancing family and work life – Gabriela Pen (Brazil / Italy)
10th February 2024
The first women’s Fellowship breakfast in 2024 took place last Saturday, 10th February. Gabriela Pen from Brazil and Italy, a social health researcher, Director of an NGO in Brazil, Coordinator of an interdisciplinary Master on Global Health in Freiburg, mother of two boys presented the topic: “Balancing family and work life”. The word balance, according to Gabi, can be rooted in two important words – Love and Selflessness . Those words are, in her opinion, the basis of the spiritual path.
Unconditional love for God & letting go of the ego and selfishness. This time, eight international women received her inspiring message, which included practical examples about how protecting her family is her core guiding principle.
She said, “Once we become mothers, individuality stops. We prioritise others before us.” Gabi also mentioned another key principle: service to God: working in Public Health is not a search for prosperity.
She ended up choosing a career that matched her spiritual approach to life. In that way, she developed a stronger relationship with God as we – Public Health workers – must give up our ego.
Serving and being selfless is rewarding in the end. Her conclusion: in order to maintain the balanced path of getting things done and setting good examples also for our children.
Seeing the beauty in everything. Seeing the love and taking care of the body and the mind.
She finished with a powerful meditation: “I relax and cast aside all mental burdens, allowing God to express through me His perfect love, peace, and wisdom.” Obrigada cara Gabi!
Father, teach us how to pray – Tini Horning (USA)
16th September 2023
Our Tini Horning from USA, who came to Freiburg many years ago and is leading many prayer groups in different congregations and for many years presented the long awaited topic (planned before Covid-19!) “Father teach us how to pray”. 16 international women (with old and new friends) received her inspiring message about how we connect and talk to our God.
There was an open discussion and an individual practical exercise to summarise the important principles: God loves all of us… he always listens to us… he always has something bigger for us in his plans… we have our own approaches to talk to him… our own places to feel his presence… could be in nature… while driving… cycling or even when talking over the phone! It was a wonderful opportunity to interact and see how differently we experience the closeness to our God: some being only grateful… some complaining that he doesn’t hear the prayers… some only by breathing… some at 2 am!
We enjoyed seeing Tini after a long time and we hope she will be with us more frequently giving her talents to our ACF community. The united group immensely thanked Tini for contributing to strengthening our fellowship through her spiritual talents. Find some photos to evidence her inspiring talk, the wonderful group of women, the practical exercise and the delicious food… there was no doubt that we all felt the presence of the Holy Spirit with us… the emotions… the openness and honest contributions to discuss a sensible topic…this was appreciated by all of us.
Danke dear Tini!
Finding Joy and Peace in the Company of Nature – Kelly Baldwin Heid (USA)
17th June 2023
The third Women’s Fellowship Breakfast in 2023 – before the summer break – took place on Saturday, 17th June. Kelly Baldwin Haid, a Global Health researcher from USA doing her PhD on environmental issues with a focus on “how green spaces contribute to better mental health and well-being” inspired 16 international women (and our spiritual male pastor!) with the concrete topic: “Finding Joy and Peace in Nature”.
We received practical examples on “how to experience more “green” in our lives, meaning: happiness, hope, and perseverance to address challenges in our personal lives. She also covered the concept of planetary health and the interrelationship with mental health and well-being of humans; how to solve the problems by practicing simple solutions at home such as planting a tree, doing gardening, spending some time in nature. The ACF enjoyed her knowledge, presentation skills, and her passion. We thanked her for contributing to protecting our own health and environment … our “house” on this planet… and for inspiring us to respect the divine creation. We have no doubt that Kelly is a wonderful green peace ambassador in Freiburg!
Liebe Kelly:
We promise you that all of us will do more:
Smelling
Touching
Hearing
Tasting
Seeing
Feeling
The next women’s fellowship breakfast will be on Saturday, 16th September! Another inspiring topic is waiting for all of us!
Science & Spirituality – Silvia Paddock (Germany)
1st April 2023 (as a combined Women’s and Men’s Breakfast)
Silvia Paddock, a senior researcher working in neuroscience, presented the topic “Science and Spirituality”. 14 women and 6 men from 5 continents received her inspiring message about the interconnectivity and reconciliation among science (rational thinking) and spiritual life … how consciousness, soul and the Holy Spirit are simply different names for the same thing, used by people from different perspectives. It was a wonderful opportunity to get better prepared for the Holy week. We will continue to discuss the interesting topic in more depth. We are blessed for having Silvia in our ACF community… she is indeed a big asset to ACF and we immensely thank her for contributing to reconciling our diversity through her scientific and spiritual talents.
My Life: Second Season – Sonia Diaz-Monsalve
11th February 2023
ACF women gathered together for the first Women’s Fellowship breakfast on Saturday, 11th February: this time, Sonia Diaz- Monsalve was the speaker. She shared her life and especially how to develop a solid faith trusting our God in every circumstance. 20 International women from different countries and backgrounds, received her motivating message about her valleys and mountains in her personal and professional life. Three means are the main factors for Sonia towards solid faith: growing gradually; trusting God in every circumstance or crisis, and giving time to God with concrete actions and values.
Science & Spirituality – Silvia Paddock
19th November 2022
Silvia Paddock, a researcher working in neuroscience presented the topic “Science and Spirituality”.
20 International women received her powerful message about the interconnectivity among Consciousness, Soul and the Holy Spirit. As the topic had a very strong impact, the ACF women will continue to discuss these matters in more depth. We are very grateful for Silvia and her scientific and spiritual talents to keep inspiring our ACF women!
An Adventurous Life – Dorothy Vinod
17th September 2022
Women’s Fellowship Breakfast
We talked about ideas to engage and best serve the ACF youth and listened to our most eloquent and wonderful 15-year-old speaker Dorothy telling us her life’s story: all the places she lived at, the friendships she made and the faith that grew.
Freiburg Anglican Church 
You must be logged in to post a comment.