Mind Spinning Again

"My mind is spinning" was first a phrase I started using when stuck trying to speak a foreign language for longer than normal, or when I had Spanish class right after German class for a few months in college.

Now it means I have a lot to think about, and that is definitely the case right now.  I've been going to Highrock Church the past 6 weeks and it has my mind spinning faster than it has in quite some time.  First by way of the "Stories" series on Sunday mornings in combination with a short course on telling your story in light of God's larger more important story.  This was quickly followed by a retreat for recent grads on the relationship between work and faith.  Learning how to be who God wants you to be and grow his Kingdom in the context of your work is no simple matter.  Most recently was a course on finances, which is a topic near and dear to my heart but about which I have much to learn.

I think all three of those topics address related issues for me from different angles.  Coupled with the major transition of moving cities and starting full time work, the question of the day is "What does living as a Christian look like for me today, tomorrow, and what might it look like in 10 or 20 years?"

Bahh, so much to think about, but all I want to do is work, eat, and sleep.  I think this is healthy though.

Life Stages: Retreats

I've experienced lots of retreats and weekends to get away from the chaos of the day to day and focus on God.  This weekend was another one with the young adults (mid twenties to early thirties) at Highrock Church.  We were out on a lake in New Hampshire, and were sharing the camp with a large group of middle schoolers.  Some basic observations:

- Camp rule:  You must have been born in the 1900's to have coffee (cutting out a very disappointed half of the middle schoolers.
- Middle schoolers require 1 leader for every 5-7 students, in contrast to our group requiring 1 leader for our 50 young adults.
- College retreats were very structured with particular things set out to learn and do and come away with (different tracks with a curriculum etc).  With the young adults, all that was needed was a speaker to provide some input, and then a space for us to talk to each other.  That was enough to foster the most valuable conversations tailored by default to each of our needs.

I accidentally woke up at 6:30 the first morning and beat the sun.  Morning photography on a lake is so cliché, and yet I always appreciate it.  I went running through the orange forests later in the day, sadly without a camera.  Love it.

There was a lot more to the retreat than beauty, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

Glory to God

     Over a year ago I was climbing and I damaged my rotator cuff (shoulder).  The pain wasn't too intense but it lingered and limited what I could do (climbing, swimming, volleyball, pulling shirts up over my head) for roughly 9 months before the problem slowly faded away.  Shortly before Christmas I started feeling it again mildly.  Over break, my brother convinced me to try bench pressing 200lb without a warmup, which is definitely above my max, and then we did these weird behind the head pull-ups   Shoulder starts hurting a bit more.  I still rock climb though the pain is mounting a little bit.  On Friday, about two weeks after the lift, my shoulder began to hurt more and more over the course of the day.  That afternoon I was struggling to pull my shoe laces tight.  By that evening, I could barely ride a bike. By that night, I stopped using the shoulder muscle altogether.  When I needed to use my right arm I had to reach across with my left hand, grab my right arm and move it manually.  Saturday it felt no different.
     Sunday was just as bad, I cringed when I put soap under my arm in the shower.  I then had to use my left arm to lift my right arm over my head to wash it off.  Even that passive movement made me wince. I struggled through eating my cereal left handed, then went out the door to church.  I shifted into drive with my left hand (mind you this is an American, not a British car).  I did manage to turn the key in the ignition right handed, but then I drove entirely left handed to church.  Thank goodness it wasn't a manual!  When I arrived I had to pull the key out of the ignition left handed.  
     I assumed at this point that I had a partial tear in my rotator cuff.  If it were torn through then I don't believe I'd be able to move my arm at all.  In my case I could move it, just under severe pain.  If I tore through I'd have to get surgery requiring 3 to 4 weeks of complete immobilization of the joint, followed by another 6 months before being back close to normal.  I did my best to keep my shoulder still so it could heal on its own, but even through 2 nights there seemed to be no progress.  Back to our story.
     I went and found a seat as the service began.  That day at church, there were 3 in depth testimonies being shared.  One gentleman shared a story of his life that I related to a lot.  Larry was a physicist and quite clever.  Belief was difficult for him because he was always trying to explain things away and came to doubt very often.  Well in college he became a Christian through praying with a televangelist of all things (he has since moved beyond them, and to clarify, I didn't relate to this part of the story particularly).   Now Larry had achilles tendonitis and it was slowly getting worse until he was at the point of hobbling around.  I actually struggled with the same thing in Germany.  It takes months to recover from.  He had heard God could heal, but was hesitant to ask for it because God had more important things to do.  Maybe after everyone had been healed of cancer he could ask.  As he was watching his televangelist friend again he felt God speak to him saying in three "puffs" very clearly, "Nothing is to small for me," "I can heal your tendonitis," "Just have faith."  Larry began to pray, and at that point the televangelist (as expected) called out that there was someone with a heel problem that needed to be healed (look, it's a pun). And God healed him right then and there.  He still didn't understand why God would heal him in particular in that instance and asked God for years.  7 years later, God answered.  God said that if he hadn't healed him then, then Larry would have never made it that far in his Christian walk.  In those times of doubts, that healing was always an anchor for him that he could turn back to and know that God was real and loved him and healed him.  As Larry shared, and I thought of myself, I thought, "God, how cool would it be if you did something similar in my life!"  I felt God say, though not particularly clearly, "Go get prayer from the prayer team after the service."
     Now atheists are quick to point out that anecdotal evidence for the existence of God (or anything else) is not valid as proof and they are correct.  Our senses deceive us all the time.  I'd heard lots of stories of healing, but they were all second hand accounts, and while I figured they were probably true, they left me wondering.  A first hand experience with healing means so much more to me (though of course you as the reader only have a second hand account, sorry).  I'd prayed for healings before with no success.  I don't understand why God heals sometimes, and not at others.  This is a particularly important time of my life though to have that anchor, so maybe that's reason for God to work this time.
     I got up after the service and went for prayer with my arm still aching.  Kim prayed for me for a few minutes, then stops and asks if it's better.  I moved my shoulder all around and it suddenly didn't hurt anymore.  I raised my arm over my head like I'd tried in the shower that morning and it didn't hurt at all.  Upon further investigation I found that there were still some directions that invoked mild pain.  It was like God rewound the shoulder back to it's status on Friday morning before it got serious.  I don't really get that, but I can't complain.  It was drastic enough and sudden enough of a change that I know it wasn't natural.  I expected it to slowly fade of the course of the next week or 2.  Maybe in some cases, pain goes away rather suddenly (and naturally), but that it would happen during the 3 minutes we prayed for it?  Very suspicious.
     I'm honestly not certain if this thought came from me or from God.  Perhaps the lingering pain is a reminder to tell other people about it so the word gets out and this impacts other people too.  Maybe after I've shared this where I needed to, the pain will leave entirely.  Who knows?  I don't claim to understand God entirely, nor healing.  I would love to, but I don't.
     I am so thankful to God this week.  Place your trust in him.  He is worth your everything.

Erlangen at Large

My body is still freaking out a little about being off schedule apparently.  Saturday night I went to bed at 10pm and then woke up, wide awake at 5am... so I got up and ironed 8 or 10 things including a pair of new pants I’ve been fighting to get the creases in the right place.  I think I worked on those an hour, changing the crease at least 6 times.  I have a much better understanding of the way fabric is fit together into pants now!

Tip for gentlemen, your mother-in-law will be impressed if you can iron.  You’re going to need her to like you, especially if your father-in-law is the shotgun type.

Anyways, I don’t have very many clothes here, but the things I do have look much better ironed (that includes a few nice T-shirts), so I may take this year and iron everything and become a pro. So after ironing forever I had breakfast, espresso and müsli, went for a walk then came back and crashed on my bed for an hour nap.  Post expresso? Yes, I told you  my body is still freaking out. woke up with 15 minutes to get dressed, in freshly ironed clothes, and make the 7 minute skate to a church I wanted to visit at 10:30.

The church was called ‘International Jesus Gemeinde.’  The service is in English and German.  I met a few cool people and enjoyed it overall, but still plan to visit other places.  I might want something more German intensive to challenge myself more.  Regardless, the guys there play soccer indoors once a week on a nice turf field starting up in a few weeks.  I’ll definitely be in on that!  I was surprised how many folks from the UK were there and had been there a few years, still without learning much German.  Then someone mentioned that SIEMENS is headquartered here in Erlangen.  The company operates in English and often has employees from branches come to Erlangen for three year stints.  Almost 1/3 of Erlangen’s population consists of SIEMENS employees.  Another 1/4 are students (many of whom are gone the month for vacation sadly).  In a city of 100,000 people that makes about 30,000 SIEMENS employees and 25,000 students.  That explains a lot of the city set up and architecture.

Years ago, Erlangen was a much smaller place, back when they built those classic old German houses with the dark wooden frames with white ...stuff... filling the gaps.  The university takes a very central location in the city bordering most of the oldest buildings.  The campus has lot’s of impressive looking buildings itself and a huge garden for lack of a better term where this time of year there are quite a few people sitting out, picnicking, and all that jazz.  Outside of that you start getting some skyscrapers (I use the term loosely, this is still Europe).  I was out exploring and found myself quite lost amidst a cluster of ominous 7 story buildings (I think there’s a code that says buildings can’t be taller than that).  All I could see in every direction was SIEMENS.  It was actually kind of intimidating.  Once you get passed that you get to my area, which is Erlangen now, but used to be a small neighboring town until it got swallowed up.  Here are some pictures from my skate around the city.  I also want to post some from where I live, and eventually some of Herzo where I work.  Time is limited though so be patience, as my sister would say.

By the way, I write these at home when I’m free and then post a day or two later when I get internet.  I can’t afford to waste internet time writing, so you’ll always be a few days behind.  Monday is my first day of work, and I won’t get to posting this till my work day is done, but from my blog’s perspective it’ll still be Sunday.

 Here is the lovely "Deutsche Bahn" train station where I arrived.

A very typical German intersection between the architecture,

sidewalks, poles, rocks etc.

Yard in the university.

Continued - lovely.

Germany is clean, but add on these sort of buildings and it just

emphasizes it even more.  So crisp! 

Typical city center street.  It's Sunday and all is closed, otherwise it's full of bicyclers.

Even the McDonalds looks nice.

This is where I want to go to church next week.  I'm not sure if E-werk is a club, or theatre, but 

that's where Jesus-Life Gemeinde meets.

Approaching SIEMENS territory!

SIEMENS

If at first you don't succeed, try try again.

Rain Rain go away, come again another day.

sorry, I'm done being cliché now. Due to Hurricane Irene, my original flight was canceled. Now I'm leaving Wednesday August 31st, putting me in to arrive on September 1st. That was going to be my first day of work but...

Everyone is being super flexible. PUMA was super understanding and told me to just wait to come in until Monday. That gives me 4 days of getting myself settled in and exploring! Thursday and Friday should be rainy, but Saturday and Sunday will be free to cruise around town on my longboard, getting familiar with the area. I'll be sure to grab some pictures to give you a feel for what I'm dealing with here. Hopefully I find a spot pretty quick with free wi-fi. Then I'll update again. Since I'm not sure when I'll have access again, I took screenshots of quite a few maps and sets of directions to all the important places in town.

I spent a good bit of time searching online for a decent church in the area. Despite being in a student town, most of them have sad looking websites that weren't very helpful. I almost gave up finding one, when all of a sudden, there it was! A church that looked relevant to real life, but... darn... turns out they are borderline cultish =P Finally found an online phone book that listed one more church that I hadn't seen. It's called the 'Jesus-Life Gemeinde'. Turns out it's less than half a mile from my apartment. I'll definitely visit there soon. The one other place that jumped out was an international church where everything is both English and German. Looks like a cool place, though I'll be speaking English all day at PUMA, and so I don't want to deal with any more English if I don't have to.

Off to go tidy up my room so my parents don't have to.

Radical.

"A wealthier man in our church family came to my office after we had been studying the story of the rich young man. He sat down, looked at me, and said point-blank, 'I think you're crazy for saying some of the things you are saying.' Then he paused, and I wasn't sure what direction this conversation was going to go. He continued, 'But I think you're right. And so now I think I'm crazy for thinking some of the things I'm thinking.'

For the next few minuets, he described how he was selling his large house and had decided to give away many of his other possessions. He talked about the needs he wanted to invest his resources in for the glory of Christ. Then he looked at me through tears in his eyes and said, 'I wonder at some points if I'm being irresponsible of unwise. But then I realize there is never going to come a day when I stand before God and he looks at me and says, 'I wish you would have kept more for yourself.' I'm confident that God will take care of me.'"

- David Platt in Radical p. 123

"So what is the difference between someone who willfully indulges in sexual pleasures while ignoring the Bible on moral purity, and someone who willfully indulges in the selfish pursuit of more and more material possessions while ignoring the Bible on caring for the poor? The difference is that one involves a social taboo in the church and the other involves the social norm in the church."

- David Platt in Radical p. 111

Above are two quotes from a book called Radical, which talks all about taking back faith from the American dream, that my dad is going through with his small group. I read the finances chapter. There are a handful of puzzle pieces related to where my life is going that are all starting to come together. This is a start.

Vorhersage (forecast)

So not talking about weather but more the up coming plans as my time here winds to a close. Today is Wednesday so I've finished 1.5 of my finals. Tomorrow is the oral part of my German final, and Friday is German culture. That's the one I'm worried about. I have a billion documents in German to read and 98% of the class speaks better German than I do. 10% fail every year... Without that credit, I'm not a full time student and I owe everyone lots of money, but no pressure. Anyways,

So I closed my bank account, de-registered from the University, closed my insurance, and told the state I'm going home. I had set all those things up in English a few months ago, but I ended them in German. That felt good. Saturday is cleaning and packing and scrubbing my room. Saturday night is my birthday party. I plan to introduce everyone to apple crisp and coke floats. I think the floats will freak people out, but nobody can say no to a good apple crisp so everyone should be fine =)

Sunday is church, and then lunch with my pastor. We'll probably cry together or something. When I get home I have to make sure everything is in top shape for handing the keys back over to the caretaker. 10:30 monday morning he'll be there to lock me out of my house. Then I need to run and get back my deposit on the department and run to the train station.

Train goes an hour to Bremen. From Bremen I fly with Ryanair to London. Hopefully they don't scam me out of all my money (click). From the airport I take a train into London and then another one south to Haywards Heath where I'll be staying at the YWAM base "Holmsted Manor" (click). It's beautiful, take a look. I'll be staying there with some friends that used to be involved with YWAM Pittsburgh. Hopefully, I make a trip up to London, but also get to catch up with folks and meet new people. It'll be weird being in a country where everyone speaks English, and should be a lot of fun.

Thursday I take the Eurostar to Paris. That's the train that goes under the English Channel. I'll stay with my cousin who is studying fashion design there in Paris. That's where I'll spend my actual birthday. Hopefully I remember some French because from all I've heard (even from my French friends here) they would rather not speak English with me =P

The next Monday (the 21st) I'll take a train through the Alps to Milan, Italy. Here is where I insert the forecast in Milan for the next week (I promise I was planning on talking about weather when I started writing this) . This isn't the week that I'll be there but I can expect something similar! I'll be staying with my friend Francesca who I met here. I'll probably stop in and visit one of her English classes at the University and enjoy all of the strong Italian accents. My Italian is non-existent except for a few words I learned last year, but hopefully with my "Learn Italian in 7 Days" book, I should learn something. Fortunately there is lot's of English, and Francesca's whole family speaks German because her Mom is German.

In the end I come back to Osnabrück for the weekend and say goodbye to all my church friends. My Swiss flatmate said she's taking at trip home and may have some good Swiss cheeses to do a cheese fondue when I get back. Kind of scares me, and kind of sounds fun.

I fly home Monday the 28th of February, and back at RIT the end of the week. I have way to much to do but it should all be delightful so I'll try not to complain.

See you all soon!

[- R N W -]

The Day Erik Came to Town

A Bishop decides to donate an expensive property to a parish far far away to help them invest in young people and be able to have event there. A student travels from America and get's to use the property and it's great and he's thankful. The Bishop dies and is buried in the cathedral where he had been his whole life. Another American student decides to go study in the town of the bishop for a semester. The first student visits the second student, goes to the cathedral and finds that there in that small city Osnabrück are the remains of the generous donor who so affected the first students life. What are the chances that American 2 would end up in Osnabrück and American 1 would get to visit and simultaneously visit the grave of a man he was quite grateful for.

True Story.

American 1: Erik P.

American 2: R N W

Quotes from a Pastor

I was at a conference this weekend at my church. I learned a lot of really awesome things and serious things but here is where I share with you the sillier things:

[-] "I look like I'm leading worship by myself, but actually it's me, my guitar, and 2 angels; my personal angel and the worship angel."

[-] "When the Bible says newly born (the German version of 'born again'), it's not like a new car. In the greek it's like a new Jumbo Jet (since they had those at the time)"

[-] "The Holy Spirit is a person, not a slime."

[-] "There are 3 things we never prophesy about. Those are: births, deaths, and marriages."

[-] "Every person is a blessing. For some it's a blessing when they come, and with others it's a blessing to have them leave."

I tagged this as poetry because it's that beautiful.

- peace!

Dog Attack!

So I was walking from the bus stop to church, about a 7 minute stroll in an area more or less deserted on a Sunday morning. Well all of a sudden this very angry dog comes running out of a driveway. Consider that it may have looked roughly like this dog's little brother:

Thus, it was significantly smaller in stature but with comparable ferocity. I didn't have my camera available or I would have whipped it out. I was debating between running off screaming and just laughing at it. I had just read though about a kid who was attacked my wolves and knew the most important thing is DON'T RUN! I figured my situation was similar and decided not to run. His teeth did look rather sharp though and I wasn't gonna tolerate any biting.

So back to the story, he's on the sidewalk between me and where I need to be. He keeps coming closer. I like to keep at least two feet (unit of measurement, not literally) between me and snarling dogs. When he came into that bubble I decided to back up, but he keeps coming. I guess he missed the hint that he was invading my personal space. I warned him (in a very stern voice) that if he attacked I would be left with no choice but to kick him in the jaw. The odds were heavily in my favor in such an occasion. I didn't really want to kick him. I wouldn't really know what to do with a dog that had a broken jaw whimpering on the sidewalk. I didn't think about the fact that the dog speaks German, but nonetheless he seemed to get the message. We circled each other like boxers in the ring until he was no longer blocking my way, and with a few more stern words I was on my way. The hound, utterly intimidated ran back up the driveway from whence it came with it's tail between it's legs. Victory was mine and I didn't have to hurt anybody. I continued on my way to church with a chuckle and little extra adrenaline flowing through my veins. I went on to have a rather marvelous day with lots of food and friends.

Also, have I mentioned I'll be back in Pittsburgh February 28th. If I haven't already outlined my plans between now and then I'll write about them soon. I'll take a look.

peace out,

Holidays part 2 (Silvestre und das neues Jahr/New Years)

The New Years celebration was a great time all in all. I traveled with siblings Marlene and Jonas, as well as Ruth (girl in the red hat) and Sven (not pictured) first to Hamburg on the 30th. There we are on a boat on the Elbe (note the huge chunks of ice in the water, it's amazing we didn't go down like the Titanic). Our teeth were getting cold in that picture and with the wind over the open water... it didn't turn out the best picture, but it was a cool experience.

From the river we then went through exploring the city and then to the house of Sven's family where we ate good food, played cards, Wii, and spent the night. Next day we drove up to Eutin on the Baltic Sea. It's a super small town with lots of cool people. There is another church in our network there so we went to celebrate the New Year with them. It started with 2 hours of worship followed by fireworks, food, and dancing once 2011 came around. It was weird realizing that for most of you it was only 6pm. Anyways I should mention that all of that was after having a delightful dinner with my host family and about 20 other people.

Turns out the guy hosting is studying mechanical engineering too, only he's about 27. People seem to end up in school at much later ages here. Anyways it was cool to talk to him a little bit about what ME is like in Germany vs. the States.

The next day we visited the Baltic Sea and took a stroll down the icy beach. it was beautiful though. I just don't know how the swans and ducks managed to sit in the cold water =P On our way back we stopped for coffee and waffles which really hit the spot. Then as it got dark we made the 2011 picture you can see with sparklers and long exposure times. We had a lot of fun with that.

Sunday then we went to church there and then out to eat. I included a picture of their menu. Note the names of the Pizzas... I ordered a Pittsburgh Pizza. I asked why it was called that but they didn't know. It had spinach, turkey, and cream cheese? I tasted surprisingly good, just not at all like Pittsburgh.

Finally we traveled back home and got ready to start school the next day which was sad, but we had good memories and more friends to show for it. Notice the sunset picture was taken at about 3:30pm. It's crazy how far North we are (Erik I can't imagine Sweden). It's good to know the days are getting longer. Happy New Year everyone!

Holidays part 1 (Weihnachten/Christmas)

Despite the tremendous amount of time recently available to me the desire to blog vanished over vacation so now it's time to elaborate a bit on what happened with all that free time. So I'll sit here in bed (before midnight I might add), sipping hot milk with honey, and listening to Philipp Poisel who you can check out on Grooveshark for some really laid back German music.

So here’s a recap of my Christmas. We could say it started at about 1pm on Friday the 24th. I began the trek towards the church on the far side of town (small town mind you) with Flugelhorn in hand, Christmas music playing, snow gently falling, and a good dose of optimism in my heart. I decided against the bus because it was nice to just be out in the snow. Upon arriving we practiced for an hour for the service and then just spent time talking and being jovial, drinking tea and the like. We made it to the service, which went off with out a hitch. Some regular worship, along with some Christmas songs and a teaching. After lots of hugs and Merry Christmas’ we all ran off to our houses to celebrate. I went back with the Bösling family who include Charlotte and Lars (pictured below) as well as some more siblings. We got to their house in their big redvan, and then waited up stairs for a bit. When we heard the bell we all ran into the living room only moments after the Christ child had escaped out the open window (they have a lot of open windows here). We just stood there for an awkward few minutes staring at the Christmas tree with lit candles instead of a string of lights. Finally we dove into the presents. I got a scrap book from the 6 friends at church who are roughly my age with a lovely picture of them all on the first page. Their 10 year old, Mirko, got a remote control helicopter which has provided loads of entertainment. We were starving by that point so we sat down to dinner which was Raclette. We pile potatoes, peppers, mushrooms, Raclette cheese, and probably other stuff too on these little metal trays that you put into the Raclette grill (google image search it). Then we cooked little pieces of chicken and shrimp on the top of it. It’s like the dinner table version of roasting hot dogs around a fire. Afterwards we sat in the living room and chatted and had a good time. I learned a lot about the family, the church, and Germany in general. The next day was Christmas, which isn’t quite as significant in Germany as the previous day. I went over the Böslings again around noon to make apple crisp. I didn’t have any measuring cups to work with but it turned out to be delicious anyway, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Desert is after lunch. So it got to be 2:30 and a handful of relatives and roommates etc. made it the Böslings house to partake. We started with the most delicious tomato soup I’ve ever tasted. Then we moved on to the red sauerkraut, potatoes, turkey, gravy and...stuffing cornbread pudge balls? or something like that. Anyways, it was all rather delicious (lecker in german). Once we had made it through the apple crisp and coffee and recovered a bit we went to see Narnia in theatres in 3D, in German... The voice overs they used were pretty convincing with the exception of the snobby cousin Eustace. They definitely gave him a snobby voice but sounded more like a cartoon than a real person. Here’s the trailer in German. Anyways, went back the Böslings and talked lot’s with Mr. and Mrs. and had a great time and more coffee. Sunday the 26th was the final day, it involved venison, lot’s of guitar, small children, and more spending time with people. There it is, that’s Christmas in Germany. New Years post to come soon.

City of Snow - Schneestadt

Firstly I just want to point out that this is my 100th post and I started this blog in mid-February. I'd say that counts as perseverance. Definitely enjoying having all this stuff together in one place and going through the process as well.

Secondly I just invented the word "Schneestadt" but I think I'm allowed to do that because that's how the German language works. Instead of using adjectives they just cram words like "Schnee" (snow) and "Stadt" (city) together.

I've mentioned I think that my church meets on the 6th floor of a building on the north edge of the city. I've been meaning to bring my camera for weeks and I finally did. It's a lovely snowy day. The first picture is a close up of the second one. You'll notice that those churches are about the tallest buildings in the city. They are situated pretty roughly in the middle. Granted Osnabrück is a small city even by European standards, but it's a stark contrast to skylines like Pittsburgh.

View more recent photos here. I just added another 15 photos to the end of the album.