Last month...

Im finally blogging and hopefully I can remember everything from the last month or so.  The last day of May I gave a talk to the German- British Society here in Chemnitz.  They are always looking for native speakers to come and speak and are interested in different cultures and ideas.  It was really a good time for me.  I was able to speak English and tell about where I am from and some of the places I have been, and everyone had to sit there and listen, hopefully more from interest than politeness.  Either way, they were a captive audience.  As I arrived one elderly couple started talking to me and said they knew my grandparents… I had a picture of my family projected on a screen and they thought they recognized Papa.  At first I thought they knew I was from America and that Gran and Papa really did know someone in every country, but then realized they believed I was someone else’s grandkid.  It was funny.  I know my mom will be disappointed, but I didn’t really have a speech or anything that I could repost here.  I put together a slide show of pictures and then talked about what they were and what they meant to me.  I started out talking about myself and my family, just who I am, where Im from, and what I have done in life so far.  Since where you come from is a large part of who you are, I seamlessly flowed into talking about Alabama and the culture of the South.  I mentioned the football rivalries, some history of Alabama, Civil Rights and todays immigration laws, our beaches and mountains, and the connections Alabama has with Germany.  After talking about Alabama I moved on to pictures from several Mexico mission trips I had been on.  I spent a long time just showing pictures of the conditions we encountered there in the villages and dumps.  I told about some of our experiences there in Mexico and then was not sure how much time I had left.  I thought I had moved rather quickly and had only used 30 minutes or so of my hour allotted, so I moved on from my pictures and just told my story about sleeping outside in Barcelona.  After that was question and answer time.  I would have never guessed it, and Im still not sure its true, but they told me they have the Mexican Burning Plant here in Germany, and some people eat it as a kind of challenge.  Does not sound like a good idea.  Afterwards the president of the society and a couple other members took me out to eat which was totally worth all the work for the presentation.  They announced that the next week the British Ambassador to Germany would be speaking… Good luck to that guy.

                The last month has been super busy, Im not sure I can even remember in what order everything was done.  We had an Irish guy visiting us for two weeks to see what we did and to practice his German.  That was really great having another guy around and he was really cool.  We went to a big concert at some point with 15 or so youth and friends we’ve met at different conferences this year.  It was an awesome day.  There were 10 or more bands and the day ended with Newsboys w/Michael Tait and then Casting Crowns at the very end.  Ive never really been a huge fan of concerts, and earlier in the day I was thinking I kinda wish I hadn’t spent so much money to come to this one, but by the end of it, I was definitely happy I went.  I had to drive 5 hours in the morning to get there and then when the concert was over around midnight, 5 more hours back to Chemnitz, but it was def. worth it.  The music was really good and it was really a blessing to worship God with so many other people in that place.  There was also a band called Gungor I had never heard of but really enjoyed.. they are a kind of folksy, laid back music.  Daniel (the Irish guy) and I even made some money at the end of the day.  You had to buy drinks from the refreshment stands inside the venue, but you would get 50 cents if you turned your empty bottle back into one of the stands.. they do that with all their bottles here to encourage recycling, you pay the 50 cents when you buy it and then get it back when you turn in your empty bottle.  But, not everyone cared about their 50 cents.  Dan and I found several empty bottles in the trash cans and after fishing them out, cashed in with a couple of Euro.  We would’ve made a lot more money but the girls were already waiting for us, so we decided we’d better go ahead and catch up with them.  The ride back was also a lot of fun.  We played 20 questions/Who am I? until everyone but Keren and I fell asleep.  Then we talked about everything possible, and somehow ended up on Disney Princesses.  At some point I think Keren fell asleep too, after we made up a story about our team as Werewolves and vegetarians.  It was late.

                The next weekend, I think it was, we were in Dresden for a youth and kids conference.  It was the closing to their conference’s Conference.  On Saturday was the youth conference and on Sunday was the kids conference.  I was in charge of leading a creative writing workshop.  I thought I was pretty well prepared and was excited to see who would come and what they would create with the prompts I had prepared, however, it didn’t really turn out like I had thought it would.  My workshop was set up outside with several others to begin the afternoon.  Outside was not a bad place as the youth could have had a chance to spread out and write in peace with a bunch of white noise in the background.  But then the wind started blowing my papers everywhere and it threatened to rain so everyone outside moved our tables into a small room inside.  Inside there was really just an aisle down the middle with our tables on either side and no quiet or peaceful places to sit and write.  I ended up having two people actually sit down and attempt to write something.  It wasn’t a big deal to me, but I would have rather not spent my time preparing and then my afternoon sitting there when no one was interested.  The girls workshops were the same way.  Luckily we were all crammed in the same room together so we at least had fun just chilling.  That night we were supposed to go to a concert, but there were a million other things more entertaining to do in Dresden at night.  It was also Germany’s first game in the European Championships.  We all went down to the public viewing of the game on the banks of the Elbe.  It was really cool.  They had a huge screen set up and thousands of fans were crammed in there together.  If you looked to the right of the screen, the backdrop of the city of Dresden at night was as captivating as the game. 

                On Monday we all went to the Aqua Marien, a really small water park in the country.  It was a lot of fun just hanging out with the girls and Dan.  From there we went to spend the night at Claudi’s parents house and the next day they took us to a castle nearby Dresden.  It was a really good day and an interesting castle to explore.  We ate a really good dinner in a little restaurant that’s located inside the castle.  It was our good bye to Claudi’s family.  I think we will all miss them and are very thankful for them this year.  They are really generous people and offered their house and family anytime and really helped to make us feel at home when we visited. 

                The next Thursday was Keren’s last day with us in Checkpoint.  She is now at a missions school nearby Dresden.  It was really a sad day.  Several of the kids cried and it was clear she will be missed.  We have our last day there tom, so we will see who made more kids cry. 

                Last weekend we had our IMT closing together time.  We went on a bike tour from Friday to Sunday and camped out on the edge of a small river overnight.  It was a really good weekend.  The biking was at times strenuous, and my legs burned pretty good, but it was fun and with a decent bike I think I could actually get into biking.  Based on the results from our last bike tour with Barry, I was a little worried heading into the weekend that Id embarrass myself, but I never really hit my limits like I had on the other trip.  We had a good time hanging out with one another and staying up talking around the fire.  Barry did snore, but I was pretty tired from biking during the day so it wasn’t so bad. 

                In the times when we haven’t been travelling somewhere, we’ve done our last Sunday services at all three churches, watched a lot of European Championship soccer, and stayed busy with our usual work.  The last church services were the first time it really hit me we are about to leave.  As we said tschuss to the smaller churches I thought how it was probably the last time Id see these people, maybe in my entire life.  Hopefully I can at least visit sometime in the future.  Yesterday I went to Zeitz to meet with the pastor there about a possible position starting in September.  They have a kids program that is very similar to Checkpoint and want a young man to help them out.  There were some things very similar and some things rather different in their program.  The workers were all older than me by several years and it seemed to be not quite as hectic as it can be in Checkpoint.  One reason is because they didn’t have as many kids, but it was also clear they had been doing this for a while and had the program down pretty good.  The pastor also took me on a tour of the city and showed me that all of the shops are being closed and where the men go to sit and drink all day.  The problems the parents had sounded very much like the problems several of the parents from the Checkpoint kids have as well.  He told me there is one other applicant and that they want to take both of us as a team, but they only have money for one right now.  If they get the money then they will take us both, but if not then they will take the other guy since he is German and can communicate much better than I can.  Im just praying that God will make a way if that’s where He wants me.  It is a little bit scary for me.   I know Ill have to rely on God more than ever if I go to live and work there.  It is not a big city like Chemnitz and I didn’t see a whole lot to do.  Many of the shops are empty and the buildings need to be renewed.  The pastor said only 18% of people in that state go to church and in this city of 31000 maybe 1000 actually attend church.  But I know God will provide and if He thinks He can use me then Ill go for His glory.  Mal sehen.