A few glimpses of life in Berlin this month...

Using my major.

(I studied English/Creative Writing in college, which means that my blog posts should be far more crafty and clever than they presently are.)  I miss things about college... specifically, I'd love to sit in a cafe-- my favorite had mediocre coffee, great tables, and plenty of electrical plugs-- and write something again.

These past few weeks, though, a couple of people asked me to edit papers written in English.  So I get to jump back into the world of writing, albeit semi-vicariously.  I'm really glad they asked.  And I think I might find a cafe in which to read through this next paper...  I'm getting pretty excited as I plan.  I'm such a nerd.

The truly fun things that happen while I'm waiting for an apartment of my own.

I'll admit that I've been quite restless, frustrated, etc. about this apartment thing.  But I'm really trying to trust the Lord, learn from Him, and have patience.  And, as my roommate pointed out, we've done things that we otherwise wouldn't have because of it.

*My roommates and I cleared the furniture to the edges of the living room, dragged our mattresses in, and had a sleepover.  Two days later, we still haven't moved them back.  It's like a camp-in.  We plan for this to continue once a month or so, even after we're settled into our own place.

*About a week ago, I stood outside an apartment building waiting for the real estate agent to meet me.  (She never did-- I'm not sure if this was because of a failure on my part, since our conversation happened in German, or forgetfulness on her part.)  As I waited, an older woman came out of the building, and we began to talk.  What a sweet conversation it was!  She had patience with my German, and her friendliness as we talked about where I'm from and what I'm doing here, as well as her kids and her building, put a bright spot in the otherwise-frustrating night.  And I wouldn't've had this sweet conversation if I weren't searching for an apartment.

*I've found unexpected treasures in the city.  A few weeks ago, I viewed an apartment in an area I'd never visited.  A couple of blocks away, I found a square with a set of columns that had, I learned upon investigation, been there for about a hundred years.  The cafes, restaurants, and old buildings encircling the square and the stone fountain marking the center made it so quaint.  I'd love to return.

*My roommate and I took part in the *first-ever* Lange Nacht der Wohnungsbesichtigungen.  This means Long Night of Apartment Viewings.  This was an actual event, and it's hilarious.

In Berlin, culture and arts abound, and so there's a series of 'Lange Nacht's that give people the opportunity to experience them.  For example, I participated in the Lange Nacht der Oper last year.  You pay 10 or 15 euro, and then you can ride around the city to view little snippets of opera works, dance shows, etc., done by professionals.  This takes place between around 6 or 7 PM until 11 PM or midnight.  There's also a Lange Nacht der Museen (the museums are open till about 2 AM), Langen Nacht der Bibliotheken (libraries), etc.

But this year, the apartment-searching website service that I use jumped in with their own Lange Nacht.  This, I think, speaks better than anything of the incredible difficulty in Berlin right now for apartments.  From 6-11 PM, people boarded buses that drove them around neighborhoods in the city where real estate agents had opened up apartments for viewing.  The buses dropped people off nearby, giving them a chance to look around the apartments, talk with the agents, and decide if they'd like to apply.

I should have probably dedicated a whole blog post to that evening, because it was pretty great.  Turns out that the apartments we visited were far above our budget, but they were beautiful and we loved touring them.  Plus, now we can say that we were there for this momentous occasion.  ;)

Campus, students, and ministry...  The most important part of life in Berlin :)


The semester has begun!  I've loved meeting new students and talking about God, faith, and spiritual things with them.  And I've loved meeting up with students I know, catching up and talking about this new year.  Our first event, a "Welcome Back" party last Saturday, was great, and Alpha Course begins tomorrow!  I'll be writing a newsletter on Friday with more updates about ministry, so if you're not already on my mailing list but you'd like to be, please let me know!

From my last post, four months ago...

I'm sitting on my bed, surrounded by empty walls.  I've filled around six boxes, two suitcases, two garbage bags, and one large backpack, all of which are cluttering my floor.  I've said several see you later's, and have postponed the goodbye's till absolutely necessary.

The scene isn't much different today.  My floor is cluttered with three suitcases, three garbage bags, one large backpack, and more.  I've said several see you later's, though that's been about a month ago.  I've also said several hello's!

I am back in Berlin!  This ends my fourth week here, which might raise questions about the state of my bedroom...  The explanation:

We aren't homeless, but we don't yet have a home.  Berlin, as it turns out, continues to grow in popularity, so the apartment-search hasn't yet brought us a place to live.  We've been really fortunate to have someone apartment-searching for us, but I've recently begun to work on this, too.

So today, for example, my roommates and I squeezed into an apartment full of people who, like us, thought the place was "schön"... beautiful... and it was!  Now we apply and wait to see if they pick us.  It's the apartment competition of 2011, and we're aiming for a win.  We'd love prayers for this!

Aside from the apartment scarcity, though, Berlin's great.

I've returned to the days of student life-- learning, homework, and even a quiz coming up soon.  Our team's been in language school the last several weeks to learn more Deutsch.  Though I'm far from good (quite far in fact), I've learned so much.  I'm really grateful for this time... and for the stories that come with it.

What happens when you try to learn another language:

Sometimes, you have too many words in your head.

Today, walking through a big bookstore on a busy street, I found myself in someone's way.  I opened my mouth to apologize, but what came out was a mixture of the German entschuldigung and the English sorry... the combination of which is:  "Shorry."  As in, "Oh, shorry."  At least I said it quietly.

Sometimes, you don't have enough words in your head.  You forget words that you have been using since you were five.

Last night, I forgot "lighthouse."  I'd just read the German word (Leuchtturm) on a postcard and wanted to translate the phrase for a friend, but this is what happened in my head:

Leuchtturm.  Light tower.  Light tower?  No... that's not it.  Light... light-- Light tower.  That's not it, right?  Is it?  What is it?  [....]    Light... Lighthouse!  Lighthouse!!


And I majored in English.

Stories aside, I'll be sad to end my time in language school.  Great discussions, fun classmates, and a very helpful teacher have made these weeks really neat.

After next week, though, the university semester begins... And I can't wait for all that comes with that!  To spend more time on campus talking with students, and to get going on the events we're planning-- this is what I'm truly excited about.  These are the things I love, and this is what makes me so glad to be in Berlin.

I'm sitting on my bed, surrounded by empty walls.  I've filled around six boxes, two suitcases, two garbage bags, and one large backpack, all of which are cluttering my floor.  I've said several see you later's, and have postponed the goodbye's till absolutely necessary.

I'm heading home!  And... I'm coming back.  :D  I am absolutely thrilled that I'm only saying "see you later" to the city, many friends, and the work here.  It's been an amazing year, and one I'm so very thankful for.  I'd love to share more about the process of deciding that my time here would continue... Send me an e-mail, or, if you're in the US, you can call me in a week or so!

Everyone keeps asking me how I feel about the fact that I have only x number of days here in Berlin.... and it's sort of a long answer.

I'm sooo not ready to say goodbye to those who won't be here next fall... even as I write this, I'm getting a little teary.  I love that the world is big, but it makes goodbyes so darn hard!  What great friendships I've been blessed with this year.

And, I'm sooo excited to see the people I love at home!  Skype is awesome, but I can't wait for face-to-face talks with my parents, hugs from my sister, fun with my friends, and worship in my church.

I'm looking forward to the work I'll get be part of at home this summer-- I've got a lot going on, but I think it's going to be great.

 And, I'm already really excited to start work here again in the fall.  I've been talking with others about ideas, plans, and hopes, and I can't wait for another year!

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...On another note, I'm also worried that I'll never be fully packed... :0)  And, I'm looking for something to read on the plane ride home... Let me know if you have any suggestions!

Some things in my life this week.

I've already written about the fact that Berlin is like a miniature world... meaning, people from everywhere come here.  I love it.  There's so many languages... and a lot of people want to practice their English.

So, we've decided to start an English cafe group.  We're going to hang out at Starbucks, sip coffee, and talk to people who wanna practice.  How fun is that?  We meet for the first time on Friday.

Sometimes we'll check out song lyrics and texts in English, too... So I'd love to know your favorite song, poem, etc.  Maybe we'll read it one night!

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Last night, a bunch of us met together to sing to the Lord.  We do that every week, and I'm so grateful.

There's a lot of things that I love about this time.  I love to sing.  I love to sing about the goodness of God.  I love to study something in the Bible and then pray about it with everybody else.  I love the fact that God uses this time to reveal things... cool things or convicting things.  I love that when I'm convicted of something, I can confess it to God and to others, and nobody condemns.  I love that God created music, and that He's worthy to be praised.

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"And I am going to shoot you."

"Dynamite.  Blow up!"

"Wait... can she shoot me?" ...  "Yep, she has a big gun."

"Jail time."  ... "Ughh.  I've spent a lot of time incarcerated."

"Finish her off..."

This is a selection from the conversation happening in my living room.  As I write this blog post, removed from the battle, my friends are threatening death.  They suggested that I blog about it, and so I am.

They're playing Bang, which is best explained as a sort of Western (sheriffs and outlaws), card-ified version of Mafia.  It's kind of a big deal on our team.  I might get in on game two.

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My family comes to visit me in three days!!!!  

I.  Can't.  Wait.

There's different kinds of questioning.  Sometimes, finding the answer is a process in which I rush from door to door-- I'm gonna find it-- slamming shut mostly untouched rooms after a brief glance.

And then there's the questions for which I want to make time in my day to open a door, jump on the bed, peel back the wallpaper, run my finger over the photographs, check for inscriptions in the books, try on the dresses in the closet, and know... And then, leaving the door wide open, make my way down the hall and turn the next knob.

These are the kinds of questions written all over my journal these last couple of weeks, coming from wise people and curious people.  They're questions that I need ages to answer, but it's okay.

I'll try to post my thoughts on some of these, but I've got some more thinking to do first :)

On a semi-unrelated note, Easter's next week.  Three quick thoughts, because I'm going to post more about Easter later.  

1)  I-can't-believe-it's-the-middle-of-April.  2)  Looking forward to celebrating here.  3)  Love hearing people's holiday traditions... so, how will you celebrate?

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."  (Hebrews 13:8)  I'm glad we've got a holiday to celebrate, but I'm also glad that we can celebrate all the time, because we serve an unchanging, living God and Savior.

Tier = Animal

Kangaroo.  It tastes like steak.  I know this because they serve kangaroo at an Australian restaurant in the city, and I recently ordered it.  The first time, I had kangaroo on a Caesar salad, and the next time, I had a kangaroo wrap.  They also serve crocodile.  I might try it sometime, but I'm not sure.

Bulldogs.  Are headed to the Sweet Sixteen!!  Go BUTLER!!  :D

Polar Bear.  Ohh, Knut.  Berlin Zoo's famous polar bear.  Apparently they're supposed to live until, like, 30-something, but he died yesterday at the age of 4.  I never even met him.

Mice.  Can apparently haul a lot for their size.  I saw a piece of bread moving along the u-bahn tracks today, and peered closer to find a mouse of similar proportion clutching it.

I'm told that last winter, the sun was so scarce in Berlin that the news TV's in the U-bahn kept a count of Days Without Sun.  But for the past I-don't-know-how-many-days, we've been amazed to see the sun show up.

Even though temperatures have been mostly below freezing, I still catch glimpses of spring every once in a while.  I'm looking out my living room window, and I see the bright, sunlit apartment building across, a patch of cloudless, light-blue sky, and the branches of a tree that I think has begun to bud.  Sidewalks are slowly filling with people, dogs and their owners spend more time outside, and one of my teammates has a box full of flowers poking their green stems out of the soil.

My favorite season is Christmas, I think that snow is magnificent, and there's nothing better than a fire in the fireplace.  BUT, I really love spring.  And I can't wait for summer.  Hooray.  :D

He reigns.

Psalm 47:8 says, "God reigns over the nations; God is seated on his holy throne."  

This is how you say "God" in the languages of just some of the people I've met in Germany this year.


(I used Google Translate, so hopefully this is correct...)

Belarusian:  Бог
Chinese:  神
Czech:  Bůh
German:  Gott
Greek:  Θεός
Italian:  Dio
Korean:  하나님
Portuguese:  Deus
Russian:  Бог
Spanish:  Dios
French:  Dieu


The name of God is a beautiful name, a powerful name, and a name worthy of praise.

(Sometimes I'm intimidated to write a blog about what I'm learning from the Lord.  This is mostly because I feel as though I should have incredibly insightful things to say, and that I should say them in incredibly impressive ways.  But really, all I want to do is share.  So... this is what I'm learning from the Lord. :0)

Last Monday, my friends and I were asked the question, "What do you need in order to hear from the Lord this week?"  I wasn't sure, and so I asked the Lord what I needed in order to hear from Him.

He led me to the end of the book of Job.  You know that part where God's telling Job about how amazing He is?  I really love these chapters.  Read Job 38-41... it's sweet.

What I needed was to understand who God is.  I was reminded as I read that God is so God, and I am so not.  I don't know why I deceive myself into thinking that I have the authority to question Him... I totally don't.  I do believe that I can ask Him about the things that I don't understand... but what I realized is that I've been doing that with an attitude of frustration, without recognizing God's goodness and authority.  I toss questions at Him to complain.

But you can't read Job 38-41 without seeing God's authority.  And after hearing the Lord talk about His greatness-- a talk so powerful that before He starts, He tells Job, "Brace yourself like a man," (38:3)... after this, Job concludes:  "Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know" (42:3).  I love this... the realization that when I don't understand something, when in my head I say, 'I don't like that'... in reality it's too wonderful for me to know.

And what's even more crazy is that this God who created the universe, God who knows and has control over every detail of the universe, and whose ways are too wonderful for me to know-- this God, knowing how sinful we are, came to earth to die on the cross so that we could have a relationship with Him.  How much sweeter I understand salvation to be when I understand how great is God who gives it and how much I don't deserve to know Him.

What I Like Today.

Yesterday someone asked me why I like Germany.  Most of my time in Germany has been spent in Berlin, so my response really described why I like Berlin.  I've got a good list, but I'm also still finding answers to this question, and probably will be for a while.

What I like about Berlin today:

Sun.  Blue sky.  The fact that these are things to celebrate.  I left my bed almost a full hour before my alarm because I looked out the window.

It's like the whole world's represented here.  The guy who asked me why I like Germany is from north Africa.  He's married to a woman from Germany, who I met through a friend from Russia.  Last night I hung out with a girl from Belgium.  It goes on and on.

Berlin seems like this funny mix of city and not.  As though someone took a big, important, skyscraper-type city and stuck it on top of a friendly, park-filled neighborhood kind of city, fitting things into place until it was Berlin.

This is what I like about Berlin today.  But it's only a little past noon, so it's an unfinished list.

Some things I saw as I walked around Berlin.

Last month, Christmas markets filled the city.  In a post a while back, I gave a description of the first market I attended.  That one, located in my favorite of the 'tourist spots' in the city, was fancy and beautiful.

Later, someone from Germany showed me a great Christmas market hidden away in a neighborhood.  People filled the market, but it was cozy and perfect.  Walking there on my second visit, I discovered this car, on which someone had left a "love note" in the snow.

The gold squares on the ground around Berlin bear the names of persecuted Jewish people who were removed from the buildings in front of which the squares are set and taken to concentration camps.  One rainy day, my roommate and I noticed that someone had honored these memorials with their own tribute.  Siegfried and Fanny both died in the year after they were taken from their homes.

My dad and I might be the only two people who would get a kick out of getting wet wipes along with my meal at McDonald's in Berlin, so this picture is for him.

I'm pretty sure (thanks to Google Translate, which is super helpful) that there are at least three languages on this thing-- English, German, and Czech.

Christmas holds different things for different people...

Weinachtsmarkt.  Christmas pudding.  Hot weather and lots of cooking.  Sausages with potato salad.  Parade through town.  Christmas carols around the piano.  Goose.  Presents on Christmas Eve.  Presents on Christmas morning.  Sleep.  Candlelit service.  Friends.  Family.  No celebration.

These things are aspects of the Christmas season experienced by people from six different countries. One of the most interesting, enjoyable, and eye-opening things about spending Christmas in this new place has been to see the Christmas holiday through the eyes of friends.

People have talked about the fact that during this year of life in another place, "normal goes out the window."  Sometimes throwing things out windows can feel really fun.  It's exciting to experience whatever fills the spot that normal once held.  But that phrase can also feel like a fur coat in July-- I want to shrug out of it, and sometimes I begin to panic, because I'm pretty sure heat stroke isn't fun.

Though I'd be inclined to think Christmas would fall under the 'fur coat' category, that wasn't the case.

Normally, on Christmas Eve, I love to stand with my family in the pew of my home church, grasping a lit candle and singing "Silent Night."  I keep the blaze alive as long as possible, because this is my favorite part of the evening.

This year, I stood in the balcony of a 100-year-old German church, sang a song in Latin describing the coming of a Savior, and looked out at the faces of friends.  We sang carols on the way there and threw snowballs on the way home.

Normally, on Christmas morning, my sister and I wake up, throw on our robes, and make our way downstairs to the living room, where the Christmas tree glows and breakfast-- bread eaten every December 25th-- will bake soon.

This year, on Christmas morning, two miniature Christmas trees greeted me from my kitchen window as I gathered goods to make breakfast-- scrambled eggs and waffles-- at another apartment.  There, we piled presents under a Christmas tree fashioned from a green blanket and post-it notes.  It was truly one of the most special Christmas trees I've had.  And we cheered as we opened each gift.

Normally, for Christmas dinner, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents gather for dinner-- ham, butterscotch pie, and so much more.  We open gifts again, play my favorite card game, and stay overnight, waking up to my aunt's breakfast spread.

This year, for Christmas dinner, friends gathered for food-- porkchops and bratwursts, peanut butter pie, and so much more.  I met new friends, read about Christmas, and had fun conversation all through the evening.


I love the normal, and I love the new.  And I love the fact that the center remains the same.