Reformations Day

Happy Reformations Day! Im gonna try to catch everyone up with what all’s been going on since September.  Im doing an FSJ- Freiwilliges Soziales Jahr (I think most of you can translate that pretty easily), with the local Methodist Church here in Zeitz, Germany.  Zeitz is in east Germany and has really gone downhill since the fall of the DDR.  The church is called the Lighthouse congregation and they have several outreach programs like a children’s afternoon two days a week and a soup kitchen once a month.  Zeitz is kind of a rough city.  The first few weeks I was here it was really depressing.  The city is a mess.  The people in the church told me that 50000 people used to live her and now only 20000 live here.  There are empty buildings, shops and apartments, all over the city.  Many of the buildings look way out of date and run down with broken glass or chipped walls and there is trash all over the city.  I have had to walk over glass shards on the way to work every day for the last two months and that is when I am walking through the nicer city center.  They told me that many films come to shoot war scenes here because all the buildings already looked like they were recently bombed.  I think the environment here has a pretty big effect on the people too.  I have met a few other people and seen some different things now, but as recently as a few weeks ago I still would’ve sworn that almost everyone in Zeitz had some kind of problem, or was not quite so normal.  It was almost like the buildings reflected the people of the city, and I thought to myself that this was a kind of city where the rundown and outcast must come.  I see a lot of people with physical problems on the street and there is a ton of alcoholism in this city.  There are barely any young people around my age here.  I am pretty sure once they got old enough, they left for a nicer place.  It seems like just about everyone has a rather negative view of their city.  When asked how I liked it here, everyone was surprised or would tell me I could tell the truth when I answered it was nice… I was mostly just saying that to not offend, although now I have found some parts of Zeitz that are actually nice.  The people here seem to always be making a joke or a comment about how dysfunctional or messed up it is here.  There are also many people without work here.  I have talked with several of them at the soup kitchen and they all miss the DDR and say it was much better times then.  There are also several assisted living senior citizens homes here and also several different children’s homes.  It is hard to imagine in a city this size that there could be so many children’s homes, but I think so many of the parents here have lost hope and turned to drinking and drugs.  It is really sad, but also an amazing opportunity to be able to bring Gods love and some hope back into the lives of the people here. 

There are 3 or 4 churches here in Zeitz, but I don’t think any of them have more than 50 people or so.  That means there are about 200 Christians or at least people that attend a church in a city of 20000.  I suppose the numbers could be worse, but that’s a huge difference from what you would see in Trussville, for example.  The church I am working for has about 20 or 30 people each Sunday. 

That’s kind of the background for where I am now.  It is good to know to better understand what I’ve been doing here since September.  The first few weeks were pretty long for me and boring, which also meant more time to think about people and places that I missed.  Luckily I have a really awesome mom that got online as much as she could to keep me company in that time.  I was not entirely certain what the pastor had in mind for us( Matthias and I, the other guy doing the same work as me) when he signed up to have two FSJ-lers here in Zeitz.  The church does have a few outreach programs, like I said before, but there was still a lot of free time in our weeks when there was really nothing to do.  The first few weeks looked like this:  Monday- our day off… although sometimes we were asked to go to a meeting or pick up donations from a nearby city, Tuesday and Wednesday- Childrens program in the afternoons and preparing for the program or taking care of visa/bank/insurance stuff in the mornings.  Thursday morning we really didn’t have much at all to do and afternoons we go to a Book Coffee or one time a month a Bible Coffee.  The book coffee is kind of dead.  The two ladies who work in the Lighthouse programs would make tea and coffee and have a few cookies out or something and then one of them would read a book to whoever would come, usually only one older lady and at most three older ladies.  The Bible Coffees were better attended because they would serve homemade pastries or cakes so a lot of people from the Soup Kitchen would be there for that.  After eating then we read a Bible passage and the pastor says a few words about it, which is usually pretty good.  Fridays we didn’t have anything except at night we have a prayer evening.  The first time surprised me a little because the first hour was praying for Israel and they had a menorah out and Israeli flags out, at one time the pastor picked one up and started waving it around as we sang a Jewish song together.  They are very big into Israel and I have not had the right time to ask too many questions about it just yet, but I think it has something to do with their history here as well.  Saturdays we don’t usually have anything except for youth group at night and then Sundays we just have one worship service in the morning.  Reading all that may seem like a lot, but it really is not much at all.  The children’s program is only one and a half hours and we always eat and sing some songs to begin which takes up at least 30 minutes usually.  That means we only have to prepare a short devotion and maybe one or two games or something like that and then our time is over.  That also means it doesn’t take forever to prepare for it.  So those first few weeks I did not have much to do at all.  We did start talking about some different, new projects that Matthias and I could start on our own.  Now, we are finally beginning to really start some of those projects and I feel like my week is much more productive. 

We have several ideas for new projects and some of them are farther along than others.  One new thing that I am in charge of actually starts on Sunday for the first time.  I really stole the idea from Barry from Chemnitz, but I am starting an English Language Fellowship here in Zeitz, which is basically a worship service once a month in English.  There are clearly not as many people interested or that know English here in Zeitz as there were in Chemnitz, but I also went to the universities in Leipzig and advertised a little bit there so hopefully we will have a decent turnout.  A lot of the people that came to the service in Chemnitz I would not see at the regular Sunday morning service but they were interested in practicing their English and so Im hoping it will work out here too.   Another project that we have lined up is a sport afternoon for kids in the city.  We went yesterday and looked at a gym that I think will be perfect for it, and have a kind of test run one Friday in November.  We will start meeting regularly every Friday in January to just play sports and games with kids and then maybe have a little snack at the end.  We really just want to use this time to develop some relationships with different kids and have fun and provide a good place for some running around and staying fit.  We have also spoken with the mayor, who helped us with the gym, about two other projects that were waiting for a response about.  One of them is just a big trash clean up project.  I had actually envisioned a weekly kind of thing when I first got here, but it is evolved into hopefully sometime having one day where we recruit as many people as we can to come and help clean up a park in the city.  It is always covered in alcohol bottles and trash, but also has a nice playground and where we see many of our kids from the children’s program playing when were out and about.  The other idea is to go into the schools and help tutor kids in English or Matthias will help with German or Latin.  We really just want to develop some relationships with some of the teens in the area and hopefully we can slowly turn homework help into a real relationship and then maybe get them to come to youth group with us or at the very least let them know we are there to talk with or help them out whenever they need something.  We have also applied for some grant money so that we can buy some new toys for the children’s program as well as building a really cool tree house behind the church for the kids.  This past week we also had what I find to be an awesome opportunity that I think we should definitely take advantage of as soon as we get a schedule down for one or two of the other projects weve already been working on.  Last week I went to a big apartment complex where only foreigners live to pass out flyers and invited them to the English service since most of them do not speak any German but at least a little English.  While we were there the lady in charge of the place asked us if we would be interested in giving German lessons there at the house for whoever wanted them.  I think that would be great and its something that we actually know there is a need for.  Several of our ideas we came to this city with, and although I think they will be well received and helpful, we know beforehand that this is something that is really needed here, so hopefully we can get that started as well.

I think that’s about everything that I do here.  Ive found a few other things to fill my spare time which is good.  On Tuesday nights I go to a bible study at the church, although it is only old ladies, Matthias, and me.  On Wednesday nights I go to play volleyball with a group that is made up of people from several of the churches here in Zeitz.  It is really good to be able to play a little sport and we also have a short devotion to start off.  I guess that is really everything so far.  I have gotten to visit my friends in Chemnitz a few times which is always good and while in Leipzig handing out flyers for ELF I met an Australian guy that works for the English church there so I may try to go and visit them sometime or have some tea or something.  The only problem is it costs so much money to take the trains to either of those cities, so that’s kind of a bummer.  The Australian guy invited me to a bible study for international students on Thursday nights which I would love to go to, but Ill have to see if it works out with time and money and everything.  I finally got internet for my laptop last week too.  I felt bad for using Matthias’ internet the first two months and it was hard not being able to get online whenever I felt like it to chat or check an Alabama score.  Matthias and I live together as well and that has been tough, although it is getting better and better now.  He is 18 and just graduated high school but he is also really tall (that might seem insignificant, but for whatever reason, because he is so much taller, sometimes Id forget he was relative young still).  He also likes to talk a lot and will give his opinion even if no one asked for it.  He is super nice but at first I just found it annoying.  All of those things together made him really annoying to me for a while, although thankfully we have gotten to know each other a little better now and it doesn’t bother me as much now.  Its also been a good time for me to learn a lot too.  I have to learn to communicate better and realize that he doesn’t necessarily think like I do so its not always obvious that we should do this or that.  But yea… that’s basically what has been going on around here.  Now that I have internet I plan to blog much more often and so hopefully I won’t have to write long overviews that aren’t always very specific.  Also say a prayer for my uncle tomorrow, he is going for a biopsy on a tumor in his brain.  Thanks.

Herzlich Willkommen

Im finally able to blog again.  It has been a very interesting first two months here in Zeitz, and Im debating on whether or not to break up the recap into three or four different blogs or just give a very broad overview of what alls happened and how its been.  Im just gonna write and see how long it gets before I decide.  Im thankful to finally have internet with my laptop, but that story is really getting ahead a little bit, so Im gonna go back to the beginning and start there.

I got to spend the weekend before I left with lots of close friends at the lake, just hanging out and watching football.  It was a really fun weekend but I started feeling kind of sick while I was there.  My throat was hurting and my nose stuffed up and I was really hoping I didn’t have mono again.  I was flying out on Monday so I left the lake early on Sunday afternoon and went home to finish packing and be with my family a little longer.  I didn’t feel like finishing packing though.  I went on to bed pretty early and woke up in time to try and be the first patient at the doc-in-a-box to see if it was anything serious or if he could give me something to knock it out.  Im glad that I went but it was not fun.  We ended up being the 4^th or 5^th patient there so I had to wait a while before I was taken to be seen.  Once I was back there I told them what was wrong and they decided to test my blood and check out everything and then decided to give me two shots to knock out what they diagnosed as a sinus and ear infection.  The only problem was that I don’t really do needles and shots very well.  So of course I told the nurse that came to take my blood that it was very likely I was going to pass out or at least come close, and she acted like I was a wimp and told me Id be fine.  I said Ok, but in a tone that really said “Ok, youre gonna have to catch me in about 20 seconds and Im gonna be happy to tell you I told you so”, and then felt fine… well I didn’t dare move my arm too much or look at it and risk thinking about it again, but I didn’t feel woosy or anything.  Nurse 1  me 0.  Well I suppose I won too, but now they just thought I was a wimp and was a little too worried about passing out.  So, after waiting for a long while they finally came to give me the two shots, one in each butt cheek/upper thigh.  This time I didn’t dare say anything to the nurse about passing out.  Instead I stood up and did like he told me to and prayed for it to be quick and painless.  He gave me the first shot and I immediately started to feel faint.  I thought about sitting down or saying something but he had the other shot ready so I just tried to fight it long enough for him to get both of them over with.  He gave me the second shot and told me I could go as he was walking out.  I told him I thought I needed to stay there for a little while as I basically fell onto the table and rolled over so I was laying on my back.  Im not sure how long I layed there, but at some point he came back to check on me.  By then I was feeling a little better and didn’t think I was gonna black out but thought it was best for me to stay there a little longer before I tried to walk out.  I finally decided I should just go and didn’t want any more of the nurses to come by and see me.  I made it to the car and as I sat there waiting for my mom to come out, was really hoping the tradeoff of having my infections knocked out would be worth the really sore butt I was going to have to use in a couple hours to drive to Atlanta and then fly for 8 or 9 hours.

Before I could do that though, I had to go home and finish packing, then to Granddaddys for his birthday breakfast and to say bye to everyone there.  Saying bye this time around was much harder for me.  I don’t know if it was because I had only been home for a month or what but I didn’t feel quite as adventurous as last time around.  Mom drove me to the airport and I got all checked in and got to eat some Varsity before I left.  On the plane I got stuck between two guys and behind a guy that put his seat alllll the way back.  I really felt cramped.  And my butt was still sore.  I was not able to sleep at all which I was really hoping to be able to do.  I left Atlanta around 6 or 7, I think, and then got to Germany around 8 or 9 in the morning, I think, and knew I was going to have a long Tuesday, too travelling to east Germany and then to a seminar I was supposed to be at on Monday, and lugging around a year’s worth of luggage.  So after everything on Monday and looking forward to Tuesday I was really hoping to sleep some on the plane but it just didn’t happen.  The guy I sat beside probably played against my dad in high school though, so I guess that was interesting.  He played at Mt. Brook with Major Ogilvie.  Anyways, we got to Frankfurt a little bit late so I had to really hurry to catch my next flight to Dresden.  By this time I was needing to take my medicine which I was supposed to take with food and was super tired and just kinda weak.  I got to my gate and saw that my flight had been cancelled so I walked to the nearest Lufthansa customer service desk and realized there was more than just my flight that had been cancelled.  I went to the end of a very long line and as I stood there saw a tv in the airport talking about Lufthansa employees striking in Frankfurt, Berlin, and Munich.  I waited in this line for over an hour anxious about how I was going to take my medicine, wondering about how late I was going to be since I could not let the people that were supposed to pick me up know I would be later, and hoping I would get my money back or at least not have to pay for another flight.  I did try to use my kindle and email the lady I had been emailing with about all of these plans, but I had no idea if they were being read or not.  I never did get even close to the counter to talk with someone, the line was so long.  They did put out some kind of granola bars and water which was better than nothing at that point and I finally went and talked with a lady that was just fielding random questions towards the end of the line.  She told me I could go to another part of the airport and theyd help me get a train ticket to Dresden instead of flying.  I figured Id go check it out since it was clear Id be in that line for several hours just waiting to try and book another flight.  I spent the next thirty minutes walking across the airport and after being sent to a few different lines, finally found the one I was supposed to wait in.  I asked two or three different Lufthansa employees and they all told me something different, I think they were a bit under pressure too.  I waited in that line for 40 minutes or so, stocking up on water and granola bars for later in the day.  I finally made it to the counter and they gave me a train ticket voucher and told me my luggage would be sent to me in the next few days.  I wasn’t bold enough to really raise a stink and they didn’t offer to give me any money back, so I just took the ticket and left.  I then had to walk to the train station and wait in line there to book a train ticket for where I needed to go.  This part actually worked out for me.  I didn’t have to lug around my huge bag and with the train I was able to just go directly to the train stop where I was supposed to meet the people who were supposed to pick me up at a certain time.  Luckily I was able to sleep some on the trains, but did have to change trains several times and one or two that I was on were late and then I missed the ones I was supposed to take.  After all this I finally made it to the little city where I was supposed to meet the people and no one was there.  I tried several more times to email the lady and even walked to a hotel twice and used their phone to call the only number I had from the people but never got an answer.  I really didn’t know what to do.  I figured they knew I was supposed to be coming that day so maybe they would at least come back later and see if I ever made it since I was later than the time we had agreed on.  I waited 4 hours outside the train station until it was dark and I was starting to freeze.  No one came.  I should have planned for emergencies a little bit better, but I also didn’t have many Euro with me because I was planning on converting my money in a bank when I got there since Id heard Id get a better exchange rate that way.  So, I was really starting to get hungry and tired and decided Id try to figure out a way to get to the little town where I was supposed to be.  I saw a taxi nearby and went and asked the taxi driver if he knew where that little town was.  He was super nice.  He was not sure exactly so he tried calling for me and searched a few maps and then around his office to see if he had another number for the place I was supposed to go.  Another couple came up with money so he drove them to where they needed to go and then came back and helped me out.  He ended up driving me to the town and asking where it was that I needed to be and luckily we were right there by it.  He took 20 American dollars and told me to come back and exchange it when I had Euro, so he was really a blessing that night.  I didn’t want to seem like a jerk when I got to the seminar, so I went by and said hey to everyone for a few minutes and then went and showered and went to bed.  I thought I had survived.

Because my luggage didn’t get there until Thursday, I didn’t have any fresh clothes or winter clothes and it was cold where we were.  I also didn’t have a towel, but luckily had brought the blanket they give you on the airplane and used that.  It wasn’t the first time those airplane blankets had helped me out.. but that’s another story.  I also woke up the next morning and my mouth was hurting pretty bad.  I emailed my mom and asked her if that was normal or what should I do and she thought I had a yeast infection or something caused by the steroids and other shots I had gotten for my sinus infection.  The entire week of our training seminar I felt like crap.  A few times I just stayed in my bed and slept instead of going to “training”.  I was sick and jet lagged and cold.  And I missed everyone already.  It was rough.  We came to Zeitz and I really still am not sure how I did it, but we walked from the train station to our apartment and I was mad that we didn’t take a taxi.  I had not been able to really eat much cause my mouth hurt so bad and also still had a sinus infection and had to carry my backpack and wheel a medium sized bag and then my huge bag that was somewhere around 70 lbs. Sometime during that weekend the pastor here sent a doctor to me and she told me I now had a viral infection in my mouth too and that’s why it hurt so bad and I couldn’t eat.  Anyways, sometime around Tuesday or Wednesday I finally felt well enough to go out and visit the church and all.  It took me another week before I really felt well, but thankfully everything is good now.   I think this is long enough for one blog, so Ill write another one tom about my work and the city and whats been going on since I got here.  I hope this one isn’t too depressing.  It was def a rough first couple of weeks, but Im healthy now and God is good.