Abenteuer in Deutschland

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”.

Comments (1)

As our language instructors have told us every time we try to use our translation books in class, (in German) “No, no! The world is your wordbook!” So, today I was able to put that into practice. As we walked to class, I pointed to the white things falling from the sky and asked, “Was ist alles das?” “Schnie.” “Und was macht die Schnie hier?” “Es schneit!” translation > “What is all of that?” “Snow.” “and what is it doing?” “It’s snowing!”

Schwabisch Hall (artist's rendition)

That’s right! It’s snowing here in Germany! It’s the first time since we’ve been here. It’s weird being from Atlanta and moving to Germany to see it snow. If this were Atlanta, we would have heard 3 days ago that “there is a chance that maybe its going to possibly snow” and the entire city would be shut down. Schools closed, businesses closed, construction halted. But no, this is Germany. If they stopped every time it snowed, nothing would ever get done. So yes, you can rest assured that the construction that has been going on outside our window has not been effected by the inclimate weather. They are still out there… at 6am… pounding on the ground, digging holes to fill up, and making as much noise as possible to make sure that I am not late for class.

Comments (2)

How to brighten a room

So, this week Beth, Stef and I travelled again to Tubingen to work on our campus house. We accomplished so much! The complete list of accomplishments is listed below. Check out pictures at our pictures website www.globalscopegermany.shutterfly.com!

But the most important things we learned this weekend were 2 things:

1 - Don’t remove a ceiling with your mouth open, there’s no telling what might fall in there!

2 - The best way to brighten up a room is to remove the wood paneling that covers the lights!

We had a great weekend and we expect to be able to “live” there when we come to work starting on our next trip!

Here’s everything we did: (1) Beth and Stef spent all of Friday walking the city talking with exchange student coordinators, visa office people, and language school people. (2) Meanwhile, I took the early train to IKEA where I bought a loft bed, a futonsofa, mattresses, sheets, pillows, curtains, and arranged to have it delivered. (3) Saturday the three of us worked more on the house: tore down the ceiling of the main room downstairs, removed the enormous amount of glue on the floor of the apartment, and painted the second of three walls to be painted in that room. It is starting to look really great, and we can’t wait until the rest of our team gets here to join the madness of creating a welcoming place out of a box!

Comments (2)

This is a few days late, but better late than never.

One wall painted!

One wall destroyed!

We started construction on the house this past weekend. It was one of those times when I really miss having the rest of our team here with us (not that I don’t always miss them). Anyway, it was a great bonding experience for us: picking out which hammer would be best, what color to paint the wall, how much to tear down. The whole thing was quite beautiful. We took life away (tore down a wall in the basement) and created new life (put some new life into the bland white room that will house Chandler, Daniel, Tyler, future interns and exchange students). The working title for the room until Saturday has been “the Dorm Room”, but we felt that the name just didn’t fit now that it didn’t resemble a Georgia Tech cell block room. We have instead decided to call it “das Gastfreundschaftzimmer”. Don’t you love how you can just add words to words and make one really long word in German. By the way, it means “the Hospitality Room” which doesn’t really sound as good in English.

Comments (3)

That’s right, I’ve seen the promised land, the land of milk and honey. I’ve tasted the mana, and it looked and tasted suspiciously like Swedish Meatballs. IKEA. This weekend, we took a small break from our studies in Schwabisch Hall to get a bit of a start on the campus house renovations. But on the way, we had to stop off at our local IKEA for ideas on decorations and pricing. It was amazing. We have an IKEA back in Atlanta, and when it openned up a few years ago, it was the biggest and most amazingly overwhelming experience of shopping that anyone had ever. This place put the Atlanta branch to shame. Stef and I walked through for at least 4 hours, and that was only because we rushed through the entire kids section, and didn’t even look at the bottom floor.

Free Refills!

So we found some great stuff. Such as how to live in anything from 75 m² to what seemed like 3 m². I was very impressed. We are going to have to be careful, of course, that our campus house and apartment don’t look “IKEAish”. If you’ve ever been through IKEA and have been in an apartment furnished from it, you know that it has a very particular look. We will most likely be purchasing the majority of our kitchen from there though. They had some amazing deals for us poor campus ministers! The best part however was not the amazing deals or the very small apartment designs. The best part was that we had dinner there for about 1€… and to drink… as much soda as I could handle!

Comments (2)

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.

Comments (0)

There is no section of our world that is not being touched by this world financial crisis. Even the beloved end to a terrible story “…and then I found 5 dollars” has been strained. 5 dollars is the new 1 dollar. In order to really have the effect finding 5 dollars used to have, a terrible story teller must find at least 8 or possibly 10 dollars. It’s a sad state we’ve found ourselves in. And the worst part is that I am yet to hear any kind of help for those would be bards and muses out there in need for desparate help by way of stories and dollars to find. I considered that possibly using Euros would be a more stable choice in the time being since you would only have to find 7.4 EUR to have $10. Great news for sad minstrels but not for me, an American starting a ministry in Europe.

Good news though, at breakfast yesterday Andy and I decided on a replacement for those that can’t afford 10 dollars or don’t want to bother with the conversion rate. The new “…and then I found 5 dollars” is “…maybe I’ll blog about it”. We came up with this as we discussed our blogging experience (reading and writing) and agreed that we both hated to read posts from friends that said things like, “So today I went to the store, but when I got there it was closed, but then I found out it was actually open, so I bought the stuff I wanted,” or “today at breakfast I thought there was no yoghurt, but then there was.” So if you have a lame story, you should go blog about it.

I’ll end with a story: Today in language class, I thought the teacher asked me a question, but he didn’t. It was the person behind me. It was good because I didn’t hear what he said.

Comments (4)

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.

Comments (0)

Our first team meeting in the cellar

Wow! It’s hard to believe that Beth, Stef and I are in Germany. It seems like just a few weeks ago (because it was) that we were in East Point desperately trying to raise enough support to get here. I feel so thankful to all of the financial and prayer supporters for this opportunity, to be in Germany, working to build a community of love centered around Christ. I should add that Stef and I were cleared only for language school because we had 70% of our funds raised. We will have to come back home to finish raising support in February unless we can raise the other $2,400 in monthly commitments by then.

But this isn’t our first day in Tubingen, its our first day in Schwabisch Hall (SH), the “center of all things Schwabian”. Before any of us can attempt ministry, we have to start by knowing the culture and the students of Tubingen, Germany. That starts with learning the language. The Goethe Institute is a language school run by the German government and is the best program in the world for learning the language. So, Beth, Stef and I got on a train today after church in Tubingen (another awesome story) and arrived here in SH a mere 2 hours later. Tomorrow is day 1, so fluency comes 27 days later!

Comments (0)