We survived a weekend locked in a room together

We set a high precedent this past weekend at our first ever Germany Team Retreat. We traveled to the lovely Schönmünzach with our whole team (including Tyler who is 50% complete with his fundraising) as a chance to get away and bond. Our retreat speaker was Allen Kemper, an old friend to all of us.

Schönmünzach is a little town in the Black Forest (or Schwarzwald) that is a great place for hikers to go in the summer and cross country skiers to go in the winter. This time of year, when there’s no snow but still really cold, the place is dead so the 6 of us basically owned the town. Though we weren’t there to sightsee.

We spent the weekend gathered in the living room of our little rented house and talked. Allen Kemper, veteran Globalscoper from Salamanca, Spain and Bangkok, Thailand led us in discussions about our strengths, weaknesses, frustrations, goals, etc., as well as giving us insight into his past experience and other Globalscope teams’ experiences.

Overall it was a great weekend! We had fun, we laughed, we cried, we argued, and we resolved. And let us not forget who walked away as “Lord of Catan”. (me)

For college students, the one thing that always brought me to anything, free food. I came for the food, but I stayed for the fellowship. That is what the kitchen in our campus house will provide. Food. Lots and lots of food. I could end it here… but I’ll give more details of what I see.

We all love to cook in our own special ways: Beth loves to bake bread and make pizza, Stef loves to cook Asian food, I love to experiment with Italian recipes and Chandler is the grill master. We all see ourselves cooking meals for students, having cooking groups with students and hanging out in what is definitely the most unique room in the house with students, talking about life while simmering, rolling, stirring, watching, and whatever else one does to prepare food.

and the wall fell...

This room is the center of our ministry. In this room we will host students in everything from Open Mic Nights to Dinner to Bible Studies to just sitting around and relaxing. Once it is finished we will set up cafe tables around for students to work on homework, talk, drink coffee and just take some time from their busy schedule for some R and R. We’ll throw in some couches, music and wifi, and students will love it. I can see in this room our first big event taking place this semester. A band playing, students sitting around talking, asking about who we are and what we’re doing. I can see our first Bible Study in the future where Stef or Chandler will stand up in front of them and talk about their life, their walk with Christ and how they got to where they are today. I can see Tyler and I, dressed up in some strange attire making fools of ourselves to entertain the masses. And, I can see that first student after conversation after conversation over coffee in this room telling us that he or she wants to know more about this Jesus guy we keep talking about.

This post is really late. The team from SWCC came and did as much work as humanly possible on our house. They got this room to the breaking point of becoming something awesome. They reinstalled all the wiring in the house that had been their since the house was built practically. They jackhammered grooves in our concrete walls to hide said wires and covered them up again. They took down the wall that separated our great room into 2 mediocre ones, and they took up the floor to make room for the stained concrete and rugs.

One of the team members told me that when they first got there and we showed them the amount of work we were asking them to do, they couldn’t see it. They didn’t catch the dream we had for this place. But now that its almost finished, the wall is down, the entrance is cut, the walls are plastered and the floor is up, he could see it. He could see the students coming here to get coffee and use the Internet. He could see the concert going on. He could see himself having to come back in a year or two because we have to build another room off the side because the ministry has just blown up and is overflowing.

That’s what I see at this moment for our main room. What do you see? Email us or leave a comment!

I tried to draw the outline of the new door.

So here is the entrance to our campus house. Right now its kind of in a ditch, and you walk into the middle of the room. We’re doing something about that. Under the patio, there is a shed that looks into the large room that will be the main room of our house. We are cutting a door into where that window is for a couple of reasons.

1. Easier access. Students need to feel invited to come in, and having a door that is sticking out will hopefully add to that.
2. Comfort. We want everyone to be able to come in and not feel like they are interrupting. If we are having a Bible Study or concert or something in that room, we don’t want them to have to walk in in front of the stage and have to hurry out of the way.
3. Tell our story. Here is the most important part. In that little foyer area there will be two things, a coat rack on one side (its -15°C today) and on the other side a wall that will lay out who we are and why we’re here.

I see a student, not really sure if he/she wants to come in, but takes that step and walks in the front door. They are able to relax a little. Take off their coat, warm up, and read a bit about who we are “we are here for you” and “this is a place you can just come with no apprehension” and “we have no agenda”. Something to that effect. We hope the new entrance will be a good first step (literally) into the ministry.

If you see other opportunities, other ways that the entrance can be used, email us. Reply to this post. Whatever you want to do, but continue to dream with me and with the rest of the team as we build a ministry for students here in Tübingen, Deutschland.

more than just 4 walls

It’s a lot of work, but its not about the place, its about the people. So for the next two weeks I am going to be dreaming outloud about how these rooms (Entrance, Main Room, Kitchen, Office, and Upstairs Worship Hall… not so much the Bathroom) are going to be used to reach out to the students here in Tübingen and how we are going to use these rooms to build a community of love, acceptance, and fun, centered around Christ.

If you want to dream with me and the team about how we can use our house, send me an email. Or reply to my posts as I write them. We would love to have your input. We are so excited about the opportunities that will arise from having a campus house that we are not shy about inviting people too. Just the other day, Chandler and I were walking and started talking to three students for a minute. They were headed to the University’s version of Blockbuster to get a movie. After we said goodbye to them (or “Tschüss”) we talked about how awesome it would have been if we could have said, “Hey, we have a house just down the street with a huge projector and speakers. You want to come and watch the movie there?”

Anyway, yeah… be on the lookout over the 2 weeks for 3 posts highlighting different areas of the house!

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!

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!

1 Bed +

1 Storage Unit +

1 Sofa =

1 Awesome piece of furniture!

Our apartment in the Alte Stadt

Another long pause between blog posts…

We now live in Tubingen. Our goal, our drive for the past almost year and a half has been to get here. We finally did it. Though I know it wasn’t us who got us here.

Through a series of God events, we have an apartment in the most beautiful part of the city, it just so happens that it is also the oldest part of the city as well. The apartment is older than America! I love saying that. It’s so much fun. It’s pretty small, but plenty big for us. It turns out that the customary thing for old german apartments is to have the shower in the kitchen (which ours is) and the toilet outside the actual apartment in a separate unheated room (again… our is).

One thing it did not come equipped with was any kind of clothing storage, so all our stuff is strewn about our bedroom which forces other things to make their home in the living room, and cycle goes on. All that to say, once IKEA delivers our new shelving units and sofa on Wednesday, I’ll be sharing with you pictures of our beautiful home.

For now you’ll have to settle for this pic I took of the outside. We have the full story of that building, though its not that much. The best part is that door the floor above us… I have no clue what its for, but almost every building has one. I decided that it should be used to build an above ground walkway between buildings. How cool would that be!

You know you're intimidated.

Tonight was poker night here at the Goethe Institute. There is no better way to get a group of guys together to talk about guy stuff than poker night. Badly lit room, cards, chips that only represent your pride, very manly. It was a great night and I am proud to say that I came in a very respectful 2nd place after a very dramatic comeback late in the game! For my effort, I will be receiving a very strong and well designed umbrella with the “Goethe-Institüt” logo shamelessly displayed. I attribute my close glance with victory to my very mysterious style that seemed to really intimidate.

On a separate but related note, because this is such a great draw for guys to come and hang out, there is a chance you may be hearing about this again in Tübingen. Maybe.