Memories

It has been a few months since we went on a very eventful trip back to the States. We got to see so many people who are very dear to our hearts and spend time with old friends and family. We are so grateful for all the people who support our mission here in Germany, you all are a huge blessing to us. These last few months seemed like a never ending sequence of events with one thing chasing the other. We were just nonstop go go go. First our super long trip with major unexpected life changing craziness, that was our accident. Then English Summer Sport Camp. The day after camp, we moved to a new apartment, and the day after that we drove down to my parents' place for a family get together and to pick up our kids, who had been spending the week there so we could focus all our energy on English Summer Sport Camp.

This has been a lot, and now that the dust has settled and we are settling into a new place, a new rhythm, I find myself flashing back to the most joyful, but also the most painful moments of our trip. Today, a memory popped into my mind that had nothing to do with the accident, but non the less brought tears to my eyes.
I´m being very vulnerable here, and hope that someone can take something away from this.....
who am I kidding, I hope I can take something away from this and work through it by putting it out there.

It was during our week in SLC and we were sitting together with some of our former high school students from our church. It was mostly guys from John´s small group. Guys who had come over to our house almost every Sunday night; gathered in the basement to hang out, play video games and hopefully have some deep conversations. I have known all of those guys for years, they are like family. We were having so much fun, talking about old times and reminiscing about all the fun things we experienced together. I am so proud of the men they have become. So I was having a pretty good time until one of them said: "man, your guys´ kitchen was filthy".

At first I was shocked, and hurt. I really did not know what to say, or how to respond. I have never claimed to be a great house keeper. I love being organized but I know life on a day to day basis with little kids can get quite messy. But I was hurt so bad by his words. I wanted to defend myself. I wanted to shout : " no it was not". I wanted to ask other people, what kind of memories they had of our kitchen. Honestly, I wanted to yell at him. I wanted to tell him all about postpartum depression and anxiety and how having kids without having family around to help out is so so hard and how some days cleaning my kitchen was the least of my worries. I wanted to remind him of the countless times I fed him, made cookies or hot chocolate, or whatnot, and if he thought my kitchen was so filthy, well then he did not have to eat any of my food, what was he doing in my kitchen anyways!

But I didn´t. I did not say any of those things. Even though I wanted him to see my point so badly, even though in my heart and in my head I wanted to be right, I didn´t press the issue; because honestly...I really should not care. If he thought my kitchen was a mess and that´s the only thing he took away from being at our house Sunday after Sunday, then I just feel sorry for him. If that is his only takeaway, then that´s on him. I cannot change that. No way of arguing is going to change his point of few. I sure hope that the state of our kitchen was not his only takeaway, but I also know that there were plenty of other guys in that Sunday night group who felt loved and cared for and accepted in our house. It is not about being right. It is not even about having a spotless house. It´s about loving people. And I sure love those guys and I hope they felt it. I guess I want to make peace with that memory and here is the takeaway for me. You are only responsible for your own actions. You are only responsible for the way you love people. You cannot force others to see it or accept it. If it falls on deaf ears or blind eyes, then it´s out of your control. You cannot force others to see that you care for them. If they want to ignore it, they will. It´s all about relationships and loving on people. And I pray, that my eyes will always be open to the ways people love  on me. And I hope my heart will remain open to keep loving.

So, we will keep opening our house and our lives to others, despite the mess, so that they may experience love and acceptance. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Lessons learned from the outback

Sometimes it hits me, quite painfully actually, that we have been here for just over a year and there are still situations where I make cultural faux-pas. I guess I assumed this would not be hard for me. I grew up in Germany, right? This should be easy. But lo and behold I suck at this. 

There are so many times when I say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing and afterwards I just cringe at my stupidity and cultural insensitivity. At our cultural assimilation class, we were told that we can expect some extra grace during this first time, since we are foreigners and might get away with a few things. But time and time again I feel like this might not apply to me since people assume I should have no problem in that field. Well, I do. So extra grace required, right here please.

I’ve started watching a show on NETFLIX. It’s from the 90’s and takes place in the Australian outback. Do I need to say more? It speaks for itself, that John refuses to watch it with me because it’s too 90’s. It’s about a cattle ranch in the outback, run by just women. One of them, the lead characters half sister, had been raised in the city, but after inheriting half of the ranch after her father’s death returned to country living. And she sucks at it. She does not know how to behave, what to say and not to say, or how to act around the animals. This gets her into quite some trouble. It’s funny of course but also tragic and quite unfair because this isn’t really her fault. She is just ignorant of how things are done in the outback. She does not know any better, no one has taught her the proper “country etiquette”. I can relate to her. It seems that whenever I get confident and think I got stuff figured out, something comes along to throw me off my game. I wish there was a pause button in everyday life. A button I could press and put everything on hold,  get an experts opinion, and then proceed with my day. Sadly there is not. There is only GRACE and FORGIVENESS and I am in need of a lot of those now a days. 

And as the show progresses, you root for her, she really makes an effort to belong, to learn from people and to step out of her comfort zone. And this is why we are here. I too will learn. I want to. I want to belong. I care about the people here, therefore I want to see the world through their eyes. This is a learning process and I know I have people in my life who cheer me on and root for me and celebrate the small victories of cultural assimilation me with.

Other than that, we are doing all right. I am sorry I have been neglecting this blog for quite some time. Life is busy and gets in the way of leisurely sitting down with a cup of tea and writing deep meaningful blog entries. So for now, this is all you get. Ramblings about the outback.

Almost family

Do you know that feeling when you finish a book, and it was so good it still keeps you under its spell? You are looking forward to dive back into the pages (or paper white screen) just to then realize that it’s all over. Finished. I totally get the whole concept of fan-fiction now. Some things are just too good to let go.

These last few weeks have been such a blur of excitement and crazy family time. So many little kids and adults trying to make it work under one roof. There was a lot of Holiday stress and always something going on. That was due to the fact that we had all 7 grandkids together in one place on some days. And the added stress of John being away for 3 weeks. It was a FUN time but it was also EXHAUSTING.

Not sharing a continent with my family for the last 9 years has not gone unnoticed even though I always thought we would just pick up where we had left off. We’ve all grown up during that time, got married and had kids. Those are some pretty major life events. We’ve all formed our own world views and outlook on things and stances on certain topics. We’ve all had to learn how to do life with or without close proximity to our family. But all of us cherish having a relationship with each other and our parents and see the value and the benefit of it.

I think I allowed myself to see these last few weeks as a complete break from reality. Something like reading a book. It was fiction. All of us living under one roof, doing life together. Especially spending time with my twin sister. Usually there is no need for us to talk, we just get each other. But just having her there, to take in that time, to just hang out and live in this close proximity just for a little while was quite special. To have my parents enjoy time with Finley and Elea, to see the bond between them form and to see them just utterly and completely delight in each other.

 I absolutely loved having that time with them. It felt like making good on some missed firsts. Like first steps, first Christmas, first birthdays, first words. Everything over the last 4 years of having kids felt like they missed out on.

 But then I also realized something big and wonderful.  During this time of being separated from family, John and I got to experience how wonderful it is to have brothers and sisters in Christ and to make friends who are like family.

 Having gotten to share our lives and kids with them is such an unforgettable, precious thing. If you have friends in your life who have cried with you and laughed with you and changed your baby’s diapers; then trust me they are family. Friends who text or stop by when you need it the most and watch your kids so you can take a shower or buy you groceries or a venti green tea frappucino on your birthday. I feel blessed to have had this time where God placed “family-like-friends” in my life. These friends who have become like family is what it’s all about. Living our lives and inviting people in to share in the joy and sadness. People who pray for you and have seen your messiness. People who scrub your sink because they love you and read a million books to your kids.   

These last three weeks of family time were wonderful, but I am also excited to be back in our little house, adding to our ever expanding family with new friends. 

Off the Map

I´ve been a little Off The Map lately so I just wanted to check in real quick. December blew by and we had so many things on our calendar, it was crazy. Elea was part of the Christmas Musical at church and it was just too cute. She loved singing and dancing and even Finley got into it, when she practiced her songs at home. We had a quiet early Christmas celebration at home on the 24th and left our house an the 25th.  Now John is in the States and I am spending this time at my parent's place. My twin sister and her kids decided to come too. Her husband is working on a project in Estonia and she did not feel like spending all of the kids' Christmas break alone at home without a car. So that was the best Christmas surprise ever !! But that also meant that everything got kind of crazy all of a sudden. You really don't get a lot done when you have 5 kids (ages 2 to 6) running around the house all day. But they are having fun! Way too much fun! It's so sweet seeing how they interact and "know" each other even though they have only seen each other in person a handful of times. So time keeps running and probably won't slow down until we are back at our little house in Wüstenrot.

I am trying to use this time to recharge and soak in having the kids and cousins and my siblings around. Sometimes it is weird because I have not lived here since 2008 and they had lives too. So we are starting to get to know each other anew is it sometimes hard and weird and needs alot of patience and tactfulness. But it is also fun and interesting to see what kind of parents we've become and how differently or similarly we handle situations. John has been in Utah now for over a week. He will be flying to Nebraska tomorrow, so if you would like to see him, contact him on facebook or via email. We miss our Papa but luckily Finley got an "air plane book" for Christmas, so every time we read it ( so about 2000 times a day) Finley reminds us that Papa flew with an airplane.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. We are excited for this new year and all the new things we will learn and work on, and get to be a part of. 2017 was a real rollercoaster ride and full of NEW things. Thank you all for your interest and your prayer support. We are so grateful and we love hearing from friends, knowing that we have not been forgotten yet.

Contextualization

We’ve been learning a lot lately about that word, and what it means for our lives here as missionaries.

Last week and this, we’ve been attending the Kontaktmission qualification course. This is a 10 day course designed for missionaries who have just recently joined KM or are about to join. There was a lot of information and we talked about many different things, but that word stuck with me.

Contextualization in a nutshell means, the process of integrating into a new culture; to study and observe it. It’s about adapting to the new “host culture” and getting familiar with it on every level. Mainly for the obvious purpose of being able to speak the gospel and God’s love into people’s lives in a way that is understandable and relevant to them. But it is indeed a process that is not only meant to make you communicate effectively, but it is all consuming because actions speak louder than words.

There is so much to that word and it really got me thinking about the last 9 years of my life and what contextualization had looked like for me in the US, even though I did not know that word at the time.

I wanna say I did pretty good, blending into the American culture, I mean I had my fair share of Café Rio,Ffrosties, and Starbucks drinks. I love going to malls and movies and having a big drink in my hand as much as any other average American….but did I unconsciously do things that might have hindered deep relationships from forming, because I was not willing to completely shed my “germanness” ? Were there things about me that made people cock their heads or roll their eyes? I know there are things about the American culture that still boggle my brain and make me cringe, but I just assumed that is normal for every culture. Even living in the same country for your entire life, inevitably there will be things other people do that you cannot agree with or see differently….as I said, I am still trying to process and file all of that.

Now being back in Germany, I can’t help but notice a certain hesitance in myself to completely contextualize. I almost feel that if I follow this process of “contextualization” and completely integrate into the German culture again, I will lose part of who I am. There is a fear that we will lose a part of who we are as a family.  I guess I am still trying to figure out how to embrace this culture again with all its differences, be it big or small, and to get back into the groove of being “German”. So what about us as a family? What about John and the kids? I guess deep down I am not ready to give up all those traditions. The things that make us who we are have been shaped by living in the US, and by being American. 

Will we open presents on Christmas eve, or wait until the morning of the 25^th? Does it matter? Will people view us differently because of our “differences”? Will my kids lose part of their identity, shedding all that is American? Will we become estranged to that culture? What is this process going to look like for John? How much of who he is and what I love about him is caught up in being American? Can he change in a way that opens doors for relationships here and still be himself?

I sometimes catch myself not knowing what to do or say. As I am readjusting to this culture that I have been away from for nearly 9 years, I often get caught off guard in not being able to be german. I lost all those phrases you use for small talk and it makes me very uncomfortable and insecure. I can’t even tell you how many times I say “sorry” just to then realize I should have probable said “Entschuldigung”; or how many times I forget to bring bags  to the store or how many times I still look for Quarters in my wallet. I am pretty sure the cashier at the local grocery store thinks I am a nutcase. There are even little things to relearning the culture such as writing the date. I cannot write the date correctly, it gets me every time.  Currently I find myself listening to Anne of Green Gables, just because I miss the English language…

Here is the worst part of all of this for me. In order to help John learn German quicker,I am trying, trying really hard, to speak more german to him and it is killing me on the inside because for the last 13 years he has been my source for speaking and writing English and it is the hardest thing to not speak English to him. It feels completely unnatural and is weirding me out.

Old habits die hard and things that have been ingrained and part of your everyday life are just hard to switch over.  But we’ve also seen some ways we are contextualizing that brings us closer together as a family and in embracing these things we are forming new traditions. Celebrating St. Martin’s Day (which falls on Elea’s birthday) with a lantern walk.  Finding things to do that are different but enjoyable.  John plays hokey with a group from the church Sunday evenings. Or experiencing Kindergarten for Elea. These are all things that are new to us but we have found that embracing them and participating in these helps to bring us closer to this culture.

Contextualization, I think, will be difficult and take some time. We are slowly getting there, one day at a time.  Thank you all for your support. I can’t tell you how much I miss all of our friends in SLC and Nebraska. We are having some busy months ahead, John will be back in SLC and the Omaha area over new years. So catch him if you can and treat him to some Starbucks or Scooters...he is having withdrawals ;) He would love to see you and catch up with you! 

Settled in...

Have you settled in yet ?

That’s a question we hear over and over again. And I usually answer yes, but how do you really know that you have indeed settled in.

This was a big move and the last few months, we, as a family, felt  everything but settled. I think ever since we put our house on the market back in March, started to sort things in piles, got rid of pretty much 90% of our earthly possessions, sold the house, moved to Nebraska and lived off whatever fit into a 5x8 ft trailer and a 3$ goodwill couch.

Settled sounds wonderful, settled sounds better than what we were doing for the last half year.  I like settled, but do I feel settled in?

Maybe a bit. I like getting all my things in order, having a set spot for everything. I am a messy person, so having order helps me. I like being organized and “settled in” fits right into that.

I think I desperately want to feel settled in and I think we are getting there. It’s a series of small steps.

Like hanging pictures and finding your way around town. Like not forgetting to take grocery bags to the store and remember that everything is closed on Sunday. Like getting to know your neighbors and knowing what day the ads come in the newspaper. Like knowing what response to give, not having to fumble for the right words or saying weird nonsensical things because you are still thinking in English.

I think we are getting there.

We’ve been invited over a lot the last few weeks, just getting to know people from the church and we are blown away by their hospitality and welcoming us in, and their commitment to the church and serving there. It is very encouraging to feel like we are all in this together. It’s not a one man show. We all work together in building the kingdom. We all have a part of it.

We are still having to settle into church life, find our roles and responsibilities. John is 3/4 through his 4 week intensive class and has learned a lot. He is very eager to know more and will most likely continue taking classes online.

I will admit to myself, we are still settling in. We are still in the process. Some things that we thought would be complicated turned out to not be a problem at all, and other things we did not even anticipate, are turning out to be a huge pain. As of today we have internet at our house. We are so grateful for all your support and prayers and sticking with us through the quiet times. Now that we are back on the World Wide Web we will be able to stay in touch better. If you would like to be added to our prayer update list, just shoot us a message on facebook. Thank you all for your love and support, we are so grateful to be able to serve here and have you all be a part of it. 

Until then, we will still be working on settling in; one small step at a time. 

The Arrival

We finally made it to our new home in Neuhuetten and met our new church family.

Our adventure started when we left last Friday to drive to Asperg which is about 40 minutes from Neuhuetten to stay the night and then visit the IKEA there early Saturday morning.

Some things to note: German roads are very crowded in the summer. We were stuck in traffic quite a few times on our way up there. And, german highways ( autobahn) are a lot smaller than US highways, so even though some stretches of road have no speed limit, it’s no good if a semi is trying to pass another semi and there are only two lanes.

Also, German IKEAS are very busy on Saturday mornings. It felt like we were going to an amusement park.

We got all our shopping done (we had done some online shopping before hand, so we’d only have to pick it up). We also got a used sleeper couch that we found on the local ebay section.  My cousin Philip borrowed a truck from his work and met us at IKEA to help transport everything (and lug the couch down 3 sets of stairs..sorry.

When we arrived at our new home, we were greeted by some families from the church who had prepared a typical “schwaebisch” lunch for us. Maultaschen…if you don’t know what that is, look it up. It’s great! The kids got to play on the playground and we had a lot of help moving our things in. Oh and there were flowers and balloons and they had already put our name on the mailbox and made us feel so so welcome. We were truly overwhelmed by all the help we received and how friendly the people here are. There was even dishsoap and candy and other essentials ;)

So we spent the rest of the afternoon (and the next day or two) setting up IKEA furniture. Elea even got to help put her own bed together. We bought some pizzas at the store and tried out our new oven. (once we figured out how it works….)

Our first night here was a little rough, but that’s understandable. The kids had had a really long day and were notably overtired.

Sunday morning we got to meet our new church family and again we were overwhelmed by the people who went out of their way to greet us and take an interest in us. They even sang many English songs, just for John. We said goodbye to Oma and Opa after church and had our first lunch at our new place as a family of four. We spent the afternoon with a family from church who took us on a tour around town and the church building.

It still feels so surreal that we are here now. During the church service we were introduced and the person preaching pointed out to the congregation what a great opportunity this is, having us here, to have someone with church experience come in and take a fresh look at things and being able to point things out that are going well but also things that could need improvement.

It is super humbling for us to be that kind of person for them. Our first service this morning was already such a great experience and knowing that they encourage us, giving input on things and being open to constructive criticism, takes a lot of pressure off.

We are looking forward to working and serving alongside them and developing new outreach opportunities.  Even though most ministries at the church are on summer break right now, we are already planning to plug in when things start up again in September. We are super excited to see what God has in store for us and his church here in Germany.

Thank you all for your continued prayers and support. We will be able to stay in touch better once we get internet at our house… feels really strange being cut off from the World Wide Web.