Abenteuer in Deutschland

Our Little Christmas Tree!

Christmas is such a great time of year. Around this time of year, the whole world is celebrating together the birth of a savior in their own special way. Here in Germany it looks much the same as in America with a few distinctions. The first is the season of Advent leading up to the 25th. In the US, I have always thought of Advent as a time when churches would light a few candles and all follow basically the same script up until Christmas came. Here though, it is much more. Every family celebrates Advent together in their home with their own Advent candles and traditions. Another important distinction I have learned is that Christmas isn’t over on the 25th. Which was a tough one to figure on the fly. Here there is the first day of Christmas (25th) and the second day of Christmas (26th). The second day, it turns out, is celebrated in much the same way as the first, but the first is with family and the second is with friends and distant relatives. All that to say, everything in the world is still closed that second day.

Stef chopping and dicing... making dinner for everyone.

So to celebrate Christmas this year, we (Stef and I, Chandler, Beth and Daniel) all had Christmas Eve dinner together, stayed up until 3 playing games and talking, all slept in our small apartment, woke up around noon, made a hearty American style Christmas morning breakfast (bisquits, omelets, french toast), and opened our white elephant gifts together. Then we played more games and talked more until about 5:30 when everyone went their separate ways. We had an amazing time and it was great to be able to just be friends for few days. We didn’t worry about our jobs or our struggles for a day. We were just 5 friends, hanging out and having fun.

I learned something about Christmas this year that I intuitively knew, but never had to face until this year. That is how important family is on this day. While the birth of Jesus is very important, it isn’t the only thing we celebrate on this day. We celebrate family and another year lived together. But this year the only family Stef and I celebrated with were each other. As great as that was, it was tough not to be with family like the 25 years prior. We called them all, and I watched my nieces and nephew open presents via webcam and at that moment realized just how important family is at this time of year.

But its also a reminder of what we came to do here in Tübingen. We are building a family, a community of people who love each other just because. Not because we are Christian, because the ministry we are starting isn’t just for Christians. Just because we are people. And that’s what Christ came to do. Love people just because they are people.

Merry Christmas!

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Die Feuerzangenbowle (1944)

This past week Stef and I spent some time with one of our friends, Chris (I know, what a great name!). Anyway, we took the train over to his house from Tübingen and met him and his girlfriend Francesca (I think I butchered the spelling) and his friend Andy. We talked for a while before we finally asked him, “So what is Feuerzan… whatever?” When he invited us over, he didn’t really explain. We were of course speaking in German, so I couldn’t understand everything he was trying to say, but he did a good job of helping me and speaking at my level.

He told me that in Germany during the second World War, the vast majority of movies made were for the most part nonsensical. They were made to get the mind of the German people off what was going on. One of the most famous was “Feuerzangenbowle” which means either “Punch Bowl” or more literally “Fire Tongs Bowl”. And its about a group of older well to do men talking about the good old days when they discover one of them never went to school because he was home-schooled. He decides (at age 40ish) to pose as a high schooler and go back to school. Craziness then ensues. Its hilarious, but that is not the best part…

Ours wasn't this fancy!

The film is named after a drink that is now famous because the movie is so well loved. What Feuerzangenbowle is, is a pot of wine with slices of oranges and lemons with cloves heated up. You then put a wire mesh on the pot… then a rum soaked sugar cone on the mesh… then you light the sugar/rum on fire and it becomes a ball of fire with sugar melting into the wine. Of course Chris made some for us before we watched the film and it was quite a show! There has never been a time I have wished I hadn’t forgotten my camera as much as last Thursday!

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I should start by apologizing for not posting, but we have been pretty entrenched in our German studies and have found that trips to Mainz and bike tours, while fun, do not help with language skills. But that is no excuse. I will do my best to better keep you informed, and I am going to try to start posting in my poor German and in English. So you can choose your language. Maybe I’ll even have one of those icons in the corner with the German flag and of a mix of British and American flags. Probably not, that sounds hard.

So yeah, it’s big here in Germany too. In case you haven’t heard, America has a new president-elect. Whether you think that is good or bad is up to you, but what I can say for sure is that it is a pretty big deal. I’ve never read big stories from the states in another country. It’s quite the experience. Especially when you’re in those stories what did he say That’s right. Stef, Beth, and I are famous. We were interviewed by a newspaper reporter that wanted our take on the election. He was looking for a fluff piece on how great Obama is, but that’s not what he got from us. We gave him a story about how our faith plays a role in how we see politics and the influence of local government and community/church involvement makes a bigger difference. It was a lot of fun, but it didn’t end there.

The next day we were approached by newsradio reporter that wanted to get our reaction after the election was called around 11:00 in Atlanta (5:00am here in Schwabisch Hall). It was really early and our German wasn’t quite turned on yet, but we again gave him an interview on how we thought it was good that it was finally over and we could come together to finally take on real issues instead of how many houses each candidate owns or how they define “wealthy”.

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Stef, Andy, and Salma in Mainz

I’m sorry that this post is so over due, but we have been up to quite a lot. Stef returned from her trip to the US for Daddy Jim’s funeral last week, and she had a lot of catching up to do. Three days ago, she and Beth went with some of our friends on a tour of Mainz, Germany with the Goethe Institute. They had a great time, but there isn’t much I can really say because she went while I stayed and studied for an exam that I had coming up. You can check her pics at our photo site!

Me and Javier posing in a frame

What I can tell you about was the bike tour I took from Schwabisch Hall to Braunbach. It was a really great ride; the scenery was breathtaking. The ride itself lasted from 2 until 6 with a stop in Braunbach at 4 for a quick bite and drink for the ride home. We joked, and raced, and awed the whole time. A few things worth mentioning. First was the art we came across in a random farm. It was picture frames. That’s it. We did what we assumed we were supposed to and put our faces in them to take pictures. The second is the really enormously tall bridge that cuts across the valley we were riding in. It was amazing. I guess there were three because the tour guide that brought us along, and I should add stayed ahead of us for most of the ride, was 75 years old. He and his wife, 73, ride every weekend and once a year take a week long trip around all of southern Germany and northern Italy. They were awesome. I could only understand about half of what he said, but he was really nice. We all had a great time. There are more pics of this as well on our photo site.

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They're playing Simon and Garfunkel

As our first week full week in Germany comes to a close, things are starting to become a little clearer. Our place here, the language is starting to at least make sense in my head, and we are conforming a little more to the culture. It has been a great experience getting to know all our fellow students in Schwabisch Hall. None of them are German, obviously, but they come from all over Europe and the rest of the world. I have friends now who live in Mexico, Germany, Ecuador, Tunisia, Italy, Sweden, Canada, etc. We talk about how the “Youth Culture” has more in common with each other than with their own parents, but getting to see that on a very real level is something amazing.

As I was sitting down to start studying my German for our first exam tomorrow, I couldn’t help but be amazed at the view out of my window. Nothing special really, but when I really think about how different it is to what I am accustomed to seeing from my bedroom window, it is astonishing.

Two guys with guitars playing music on the cobblestone street. Standing in front of an old clocktower from the early 13th century. A crowd is gathered around them, pausing their customary Sunday stroll around town. Others sit at the two cafes on either side of the street to enjoy the slightly chilly October afternoon with a cup of coffee and maybe a sandwich on a freshly baked roll. It’s just Sunday in Germany.

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