I'm feeling the need to reclaim a German ritual that I abandoned sometime in the last year and a half. It's the ritual of greeting and leaving. In Germany you greet someone with words and a hand-shake. And you end the conversation basically the same way. Here in the U.S. I was culture-shocked at the beginning when people would come up, state their business then turn around and walk away as soon as they said their thing or got their answer. I felt like conversations ended so abruptly and was somewhat offended by that. Over the past months, I've gotten used to it and tend to do it myself. But now recently I'm returning to the idea of showing courtesy in conversing and want to come to a happy medium between the more formal Germany way and the abrupt/rude American way. So I won't do the hand-shake because I know I would get weird looks and confusion, but I want to at least verbally acknowledge the beginning and ending of conversations, and also emails.
It may seem less efficient to do this, but I think the underlying value here is that I want to show I recognize the person and am interested in the person instead of just communicating that I want an answer or want to tell someone something and then taking off. We'll see how it goes and if anyone even notices. But I'll know!

I still can't quite get used to all the paper products and plastic silverware people use around here. I even went to a pizzeria the other day and the little pizza was served in a plastic basket with a piece of wax paper and with plastic cuttlery. I about felt like walking out of the restaurant then and there because that registers pretty high on my "that's just wrong" scale. Sorry to be judgmental, but this is my blog and I'll complain if I want to! :)

It is amazing to me to see how my husband interacts with his new German friend, Charlotte's fiance, Gerd. He's like a different person, like the person I've been missing for a year and half since we've been back here. He's animated, makes jokes, laughs out loud and seems like he's having a good time. When we're around Americans, he's more likely subdued. There are a few guys here that he laughs with when we bump into them, but we don't really just hang out with people the way we used to. I really miss that. But somehow, it's not working for us to get together with people.

So believe it or not, I still have moments of culture shock even though we've been back over a year now. Like this morning, I thought I would "treat" myself to watching a few minutes of the Today Show as I was waiting my turn to get in the shower. (I have a feeling that waiting thing will only be increasing as the kids get older!) So they were interviewing two people about Tiger Woods' return to golf after his "problems." I noticed how the interviewer only let the "experts" have about 5 seconds to answer each question. He would basically cut them off and go on to the next question. It felt like trying to run a mile in 50 yard dash time. I got so turned off after about 2 minutes of that, that I was glad when it was over.
It made me think back to the mornings when Steve and I would sit and enjoy watching CNN International over breakfast in Germany. They would at least give people they interviewed time to answer half-way thoroughly. I know the stereotype of American culture that everyone is ADD and no one wants to sit and listen. I also noticed on the evening news of one of the local stations that they advertise 50 stories in one half hour. Does no one else NOT WANT 50 stories in one half hour? I come away from that kind of stuff feeling like I've had a small sip and no long swallows. I know TV is not a reflection of everyone in our society, but I know their biggest concern is to have viewers and therefore make money, so they are trying to give people what they want. It just seems so shallow.
Let it be known that I don't want this! Thank goodness for NPR! Although I still miss seeing faces with the voices. And I'm not ready to pay for cable or satellite or whatever! And now forgive me for the rant!

Another Test of Faith and Anxiety

So the next big test on our faith for God's provision and protection came in 2006-07 as we were feeling very burned out and wondering what God was up to. We had had a sabbatical time where we felt rested physically but not very inspired for our work spiritually. We found out that our church had been through some serious setbacks while we were gone and it continued to go on this trajectory after we returned. Financially the church was in trouble, some members were going through personal crises and certain interpersonal relationships were crumbling. We were clear that we needed to give everything we had to bring the church back to stability which included making some hard choices in all the above-mentioned categories. After we had done this and suffered a sense of defeat and discouragement, we sought God for the future. Nothing really happened, no inspiration, no sense of continuing grace for the job came forward.
One day I casually picked up a little magazine called Senfkorn that I had never bothered reading before and saw an article on spiritual discernment using Ignatian exercises. Steve and I looked at our situation through the eyes of these discernment questions, like "What is good, but what is better?" We believed it would be good for us to stay at Soli Deo, but it would be better for someone to come who had fresh energy and vision for the church, because we didn't. After answering several such questions, the answer to our big question was actually pretty clear. We should leave, head back to America and hand over Soli Deo to the next leader(s).
In hindsight, making the decision was almost easier than living with the decision and implementing it. We broke the news to people and sent shockwaves throughout the church, the conference, our family and our friends. We had to once again seek God's provision in ways we had never done before. What would this mean for the fledgling church? Would it survive yet another loss? What would this mean for our friends who had just recently come to faith through us? What would this mean for our children to leave the only home they'd ever known?
Our bodies began to reflect the stress and anxiety of the situation. Sleep became elusive. On a humorous note, one night both Steve and I were awake at about 3 a.m. We started talking about the situation and it was like we were constantly on problem-solving mode at that time, so we talked about how we were going to deal with certain things. At one point, Steve suddenly rolled over and said, "well good-night again. I'm going to sleep now." We both cracked up because we both knew that sleep was no longer a decision one makes to do, but more like a luxury that sometimes you receive and sometimes you don't.

Radical Trust and Anxiety

Today in my spiritual direction session, we were reflecting on a book I'm reading for one of my theology classes. It's Alan Kreider's Journey Towards Holiness. It's been hitting a few sores spots in me so that alerted me to the need to reflect. First of all, let me say that I think the book is wonderful and worth reading. I'm currently on page 102 of 270 so I have quite a bit more to go. It resonates with me on many levels.

The thing that is making me think is the basic proposition of the book, which is, God has created humanity to be in a relationship with God, a relationship that ideally is characterized by our radical trust and dependency on God for provision and protection. God then is faithful to love us and shows us that through providing and protecting us. In principle, that's all fine and good and I actually agree. But let me tell you about my experience of that...

It all started with my first foray into missions back in 1989. I felt called to missions, even though my own faith was shaky at best, and needed to raise $6000 to go to Honduras. I had no idea where I would get $6000! My parents certainly couldn't fork that kind of money over and my earning power as a high school senior wasn't that great either. One night lying in bed I told God that I had no way of coming up with the money so if He wanted me to do this trip, He would have to provide somehow. To make a long story short, my anxiety subsided and I did indeed raise the money. It took courage and humility to ask people for donations, but most were happy to support me.

So fast forward a few years and it was time for my husband and me to go to Germany to help plant churches.  Instead of just $6000, we now had to raise tons of money.  We both worked "regular" jobs in Germany to offset the cost, but after 3 kids, I needed to stay home and we needed to be on full support through donations.  So now with a family and a long-term vision for being in Germany, our amount of money to raise was immense.  For a brief time in there we got some support from the general fund of the mission board, then the bombshell came. We had 8 months to transition to full donation-based funding.

So let me tell you about radical trust in God for provision... it's hard!!!  We couldn't even get a "missionary-support-team" in place!   So it may sound like no big deal, but to us, it was a huge deal.  We had tons of vision, and no cash.  We had a fledgling church which likely wasn't ready for its founding parents to pull out.  We had just signed a contract to purchase land to build our own home.  There were months of intense anxiety, wondering if this was God saying it was time to leave or if we should stay and fight for what we we thought we were called to.  We did everything we knew how to do and it wasn't enough.  So what do you do when you're out of resources?  Well, we basically gave up our efforts and told God, again, hey, if this is Your thing, You're going to have to do something here.
And guess what- God did.  The MST fell into place, we got funding through unexpected sources and were able to stay in Germany.
If only that were the end of the anxiety and trust stories in my life... stayed tuned for more later.
 

Welcome to my reflections on returning to the United States!

After spending 14 years in Germany, and having now returned to the United States a little over a year ago, it seems like a good time to start recording my thoughts about what life was like over there and what I am experiencing here in our homeland. I'm not promising any kind of systematized organization of my reflections as I will likely blog about stuff as my thoughts come. I imagine that certain books, conversations, Bible verses or whatever will set off a series of memories for me to reflect on. So, if you're up for walk along the path of my life, keep reading! And I welcome constructive comments any time.