A Parade Day

Julia and I had a great opportunity to enjoy a taste of Germans culture a couple of days ago. I wish I could have written about it earlier, but with my schooling I am somewhat bogged down at times. Every Monday before “Ash Wednesday”, a ritual observed by the Catholic Church, there is a huge parade and celebration. Everyone I talked to made this parade and event made it sound like it was the craziest thing I would ever see. People dress up in costumes like it is Halloween and pretty much drink all day, I guess it’s a little nuts. In order to go to the city that the parade is held at we had to take a train. While we were waiting for the train, we were surrounded by people in costumes, which made me feel reassured we were going to the right place. The train pulled up and it was already packed with people. There was not one seat available nor was there barely standing room. We were slammed into the train shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of other people who started there day by putting beer in their cereal instead of milk. I think the greatest example I can give you about their drinking is that the straps that are used in the military to hold ammo, were being used to hold mini shots of alcohol. As we stopped by each stop, we could see crowds of people waiting to get on the train. Our train was so full we couldn’t let any of the waiting people on our train. My nose could testify how many people were in the train because of the stench of body odor that permeated. We arrived to Mainz and saw everyone walking toward the big parade. When we arrived I realized it was like every other parade I had ever seen. Bands were marching in single file order while playing songs no one knew, floats were riding by while throwing candy, rubber balls, and yes bread…Germans love bread. After we froze for 30 minutes, we knew that there was another 3 and a half hours left to this parade. Instead of freezing outside and to catch 5 more mini chocolate bars, we decided to watch the rest of the parade from a nice cafe from its second floor admiring people falling all over the ground for little things that were thrown from the different floats in the parade. I love each and every experience I get here even though my last could be experienced at any Fourth of July parade.

Ages 0-99

I told Rich the other day I'm really going to miss the children we work with.

There's a raw relationship you have with these kids as they are uninhibited, and as we are pulled to our wits end much of the time, their emotions run wild and so we jump right through the normal stages of adult relationships and go right to the "storm" stage that inevitably brings you closer in the end.

When I first started I asked a girl who was PCSing for the states, "what will you miss most?" and she replied "the kids." I thought this was a bit funny at first, as the kids can also be the reason you want to drop everything and walk out many times. They don't listen, they fight, they cry, scream, and doing everything in their power to emotionally, if not physically, hurt those around them sometimes.

Now after spending time with these kids ages 7-12, they have grown on me, and as I pray God will preserve them from much of the corruption many have already been succumbed to, my heart too, has connected to them in a way that it only can with kids.

As we grow up we learn to hold back our emotions, while as children they have yet to learn how to do so. And so as I repeat the lessons we all must live by, I see the same characteristics in these little people, as in people of all ages. "You must love those you don't FEEL like loving," as biblicaly commanded, yet though without the ability to give that exact explanation, it still leaves our circumstances in better condition than when we fight back full of anger.

These kids retaliate with anger while originally just seeking affirmation, while often is the case in our world of chaos today. As we grow, we learn how to handle what comes our way, but still have the same innate desires and needs as all people, young and old.

I'm so thankful for these precious little ones we were able to help impact while they also have impacted my life, and helped me see the lessons necessary to teach that are still pertinent to us until the day we die.

Heartburn

I have been reading through the book of Luke lately and yesterday I was able to hear Luke 24 read out loud. This passage is one of my favorites in Scripture and after I heard it read out loud I started crying. Luke 24 is after the death and resurrection of Jesus and two men are having a conversation about the events that have just taken place with Jesus. They are having some trouble realizing everything that Jesus had just accomplished through His death and resurrection and were doubting. Jesus appears to them on the road they are traveling and begins talking with them about the events that have just taken place in Jerusalem. He knows their doubting hearts and explains to them starting with Moses and all the Prophets and taught them through the Scriptures concerning himself. Jesus then goes to eat with these 2 guys, they realize its Jesus, Jesus then disappears. Then the men say in Vs. 32, “They said to each other, did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures.” I love that verse so much because their hearts burned when they heard the fulfillment of Christ and the Gospel explained to them by Christ. Their lives were radically changed from doubting in Jesus to proclaiming the Good news of Christ rising from the dead. I think many times I can become a stale bag of chips, as my brother said in a message one time. I forget the work Jesus has done and how it has changed my life and will change others. I think many times this is why we have such a passionless effort for local and global missions. The Gospel has become stale and something we have forgotten about the Gospel. We have replaced the main thing with minor things in our lives and forgotten about the redeeming work of Christ and our command to bring the good news to the world. I think if we refocus and study Christ in his Word and his plan of redemption through the Bible or hearts will burn for him and a fervor and passion will begin to grow for missions by wanting to bring the Gospel to the nations. I want my heart to burn after I read scripture and I want my actions to back up what I read. May we never forget the power, beauty, and life changing work of the Gospel or we will easily forget about missions and the great commission.

Finite minds

Today I read a bit in Revelation, about where we will one day remain forever in the presence of God. I found it a bit humorous and strange that we should, as it says, have “His name on our foreheads.”…This is the mark of those who really truly love someone, and is not today found normal in any case. So as often, I told God that though we don’t understand this, how great He is and must be in beauty as he enables us to spend eternity with Him, and there also contain His very name on our heads!

Then as I was running and coming back to our aptmnt, I saw the sun reflecting off the snow as it so rarely does here, and as did the castle we can see in the distance was truly picture perfect. I thought it was a beautiful picture of how Christ IS reigning and will forevermore reign on His throne. His beauty is much like this, only better, than we can imagine. I also thought again how funny it will be to have his name there engraved, yet as I also remember not too long ago I did almost the very same thing that many adolescents do when overwhelmed with the attraction of another. I so ignorantly obsessed with my friends over the infamous Leonardo DiCaprio. We never ceased to write on paper, talk about, and buy necklaces bearing his name. I was taken with his appearance, as we so absurdly are often in this life, and it was nothing strange to me then to obsess in this way.

And so we were created, to worship, to obsess over and bear the name of one greater and more beautiful that we or anything we can imagine- only that beauty is found in our Lord whom we have yet to completely understand and behold before our eyes. I’m sure our finite minds incapable of knowing the truest beauty will set back, sigh, and have the biggest ah ha moment of our life, when we finally have before us the greatest one that ever was, is, and evermore will be.