Flug, Zug, und Autobahn

So this week we have spent more time in transit than anything else. Whether that be on a plane, a train, an automobile, or just our own two feet- we have have the privilege of enjoying many memories with many people whom we could only meet if caught in the circumstances we have been in.

Germany has a little system they like to call 'mitfahrgelegenheit,' meaning- the opportunity to ride 'with' someone else. It is a more organized way of hitchhiking to put it simply. We pitched in a very reasonable price to ride with a van full of the most collectic group of people you could imagine, for 5 straight hours. In the US we are afraid of getting a gun pulled, while to Germans- well this is just simply- a cheaper way to go, no worries about it.

Then we, by mishap of a wrong way ticket by one I wont name, (thought not myself:), we had to rent a car to leave Berlin- of which ended up bumping us to a C class Mercedes which Rich took the liberty of 'flying' us in, to Frankfurt just an hour short of our destined time:)

And last but not least, as the infamous Volcano blew, we were stranded one extra day in Vienna with friends for an enjoyable longer weekend than originally planned as well.

We then proceeded to spend 9 hours traveling shoulder to shoulder with foreigners from all over the EU, interspursed with a few hours of sitting. We met marathoners from the day before in Vienna, missionary anthropologists to Holland, a really tall law student from Lithuania (who informed me a bit on their ever shrinking population), and last but not least, a lady who literally talked our ears off for almost two hours straight! It's one thing to listen to German- another to engage in a conversation in German, and a whole other thing to engage in German with an 80 year old woman with a dialect from who knows where, and who humored not just us, but herself quite as well.

Needless to say, our long and stuffy journey ended up being a great experience that will, for our memorable circumstances, go down in history for life:)

running for the prize

I ran my second half marathon yesterday in Berlin, and as always before, the adrenaline rush of subjecting your body to something that is challenging and while participating with thousands of others, the experience is a bit contaging. I woke up today as excited as yesterday beFORe the race, after such a great experience. When God gives you a passion to do something that you're able to enjoy for yourself, yet see His hand upon you in the midst, it brings you no greater joy. I will never be a gold medalist, yet I find the strength through a discipline that shows reward in the end, while I "put my body into this subjection" for awhile, in order to accomplish a premeditated goal. Many non-runners think runners are crazy, and I completely agree. But as the infamous Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland asks "Have I gone mad?" while Alice responds,
"I'm afraid so. You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. all the best people are."

It is great to be mad (or passionate) about something, and together with many others, understand the mad obsurdity. It is even greater to meet together shoulder to shoulder with, literally yesterday 90 some nations, in a city of such exteme impact on our world. A sense of "gemeinshaft" or "fellowship" comes from the commeraderie with those you experience the same toil yet joy with, through something like a long distance race. And as our tummys churned, we each individually set out for goals of our own, to accomplish something as individual humans that we might leave feeling proud of.

I always take with me verses of the Bible that represent physical similitude in accordance to our spiritual life. Paul in Corinthians says "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only ONE gets the prize? (This could be disconcerning or self defeating) but as we set back and just realize that God created those we find to come in 1st regularly hailing from the most talented African continent, it seems that the general consensus is still not to just give up, but aim for our own goals. Paul then says "Run in such a way as to get the price. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but WE do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize."

And our outlook must be so; I enjoy each race embracing the opportunity I have to beat my own PR. And in our Christian walk in life, we must look to Jesus the author and FINISHer of our faith. He has won the victory over life and death. He calls us to Himself to believe and be sealed with the promise that we CAN win. But we must bring our bodies into subjection as He calls us to die to ourselves, our personal desires, and lives for His. And when we do, when we fight the good fight, with strength in fervor for something outside our personal momentary interest, it proves to be far greater and more satisfying than everything else in this world which pales in magnificance to Christ our Savior. There is unfortunately only one 1st place winner here on earth, but with Christ- there is one who has won it for all of us, and more importantly so, for eternity!

A Tablespoon of Culture Shock

The other week we had the opportunity to eat on the local Air Force base. The Air Force base is like America junior, where it has restaurants and things that you would find in America. On base there was a Macaroni Grill that we wanted to try out. Julia and I do not go out to eat much, but whenever we do we have always gone to a place that is not on an Army post, but a regular German restaurant. Julia and I had become accustomed to the way of German dining. Let me give you an idea of German dining. In German restaurants there are rarely any hostesses, but it is find a table that looks good and have a seat. If all the tables are taken, go find a table that has extra seats and sit next to someone you don’t know and eat next to them. When your waitress comes to get your order and drink order they usually seem like they are annoyed that you are there. There are no free refills, even on water, in German restaurants so drink slow, and make sure you don’t have a spicy meal or you will be in trouble. If you ask for anything extra don’t expect to get a nice smile, but an annoyed scowl. They do not work on tips so they are not scared to make anyone upset. If you find anything wrong with your food, like a hair, don’t think it’s going to be a freebee, you’ll be brought the dish remade while the other person’s food gets cold. After experiencing German restaurant culture and now being able to get a taste of American restaurant culture was a culture shock. A hostess brought us to our table and our waitress greeted us with her name and a smile. Then we ordered drinks and I asked if they were free refills, she assured me they were and I had to have the waitress reaffirm me that the ice tea had free refills. I took full advantage of this thing called “free refills”. I had 4 refills on my ice tea, as I sucked them back faster than she could refill it. She continued to refill our bread until our meals came and she asked us how the food was. At the end of our eating she came and boxed up our left over food for us and did not scowl at the fact that I was taking it home with me. I had never left a restaurant more gleeful in my life. I was in culture shock, I thought in my mind, “they like me, they really like me.” After we left I thought about what other things I will face in culture shock when I go back to America; Heating more than one room, saying “nice to meet you” to someone after you meet them, awful American drivers who don’t know how to use the passing lane. It’s always interesting when you live in another culture and you start getting used to it, I know with our waning weeks in Germany we are going to start thinking about all that we are going to miss.

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.