Meanwhile the year 2008 is over and we look back on a very busy time. Here a brief retrospect on the most important events:

- Uhrsleben, February 21-23: Across-seminar on „Cross-Cultural Mentoring“ with Jochen Geiselhart in cooperation with the University of Wales, Lampeter.

- Nidda (Hessen), March 03-04: Dr Franz lead ceremony on occasion of the 10th anniversary of the „Association of the Pentecostal and Charismatic Missions (APCM) “, one of the three German protestant shelter organizations for missions. Meanwhile it consists of over 50 sending institutions in Germany.

– Ruhpolding (Bavaria), March 24-29: Dr Franz was guest speaker at the Spring-Family-Festival. Every year the festival attracts around 3000 people. He represented the pentecostal-charismatic tradition.

- Uhrsleben, April 10-12: Across-seminar on „Elenctics)“ with Prof Dr Klaus W. Müller in cooperation with the University of Wales, Lampeter.

- Richmond (Virginia), May 11-19: Marina & Andreas Franz were invited to Richmond/VA by the West End Assembly of God, which since 18 years sends ministry teams to Uhrsleben.

- Pogradec (Albania), June 16-19: Arnold Geiger invited Dr Franz to advise the directors of study of the Nehemia-Universität on the implementation of a theological course.

- Uhrsleben, August 23-27: Debriefing of 25 young people who returned from a social gap year overseas.

- Uhrsleben, September 01-10: Training of the first group of 22 young people who in September started a social gap year overseas. They were sent to four continents.

- Uhrsleben, September 15-24: Training of the second group of 22 young people who in September started a social gap year overseas. They were also sent to four continents.

- Barleben, October 23-25: Across-seminar on „Contextualisation in the 21^st century” with Dr Andreas Franz in cooperation with the University of Wales, Lampeter.

- Lampeter (Wales), November 11-14: Dr Joerg Strate and Dr Andreas Franz took part in the partnership conference of the University of Wales. They represented our study programme “across”.

- Kassel, November 18: Meeting of the German speaking academic staff of “across”. They agreed on a strategic planning group for Horizonte Weltweit e.V. Jochen Geiselhart will chair the first meeting in January in Berlin and will consist of Marina Franz, Evi Petry and Marcus Splitt.

- Ditzingen, December 11-13: Across-seminar on „Cross-Cultural Church Planting“ with Horst Krüger und Dr. J. Kuberski in cooperation with the University of Wales, Lampeter in the rooms of the Werkstatt für Gemeindebau.

- Bischofsheim (Rhön), December 16-17: Meeting of the pedagogues and course directors of the social gap year.

- Kitzingen, December 18-20: TheMA-Seminar „Introduction to Ethics“ with Dr Franz at the IGNIS-Akademy for Christian Psychology.

During the last years our NCIU network of training has increased to seven institutions. At the end of 2008 we accompanied over 150 students in our study programms „TheMA“ and „across“ including 8 doctoral students.