On Taking a Break

It has been a long time since I have posted on this blog. (This was pointed out to me by Grant. He's like my blog mentor. My Blogtor.)

So another semester has come and gone, and with the going comes the coming of the best of all possible breaks- Christmas break. And after sitting awhile in the midst of finally-taking-a-break-apathy, I have compiled several theses related to the idea of breaks in general.

1) Taking a Break is Possible. (I Sometimes Capitalize Things Like Titles. NBD.)

People need breaks. And yet, in the middle of things, a break often sounds totally unmanageable.

The Following is an Excerpt from a Conversation that Might be Real:

Friend B: "Hey, friend. You should take a break."

Friend A: "What do you mean, take a break? You have NO idea how much work I have to accomplish between now and the END OF MY LIFE. Which MIGHT be soon. I have more work than any other person! In the world! Who has EVER EXISTED!"

Friend B: "Oh, okey dokey. Well, I was going to watch a movie later."

Friend A: "I am wracked with guilt, torn between the needs of my good Friend B and my desire to achieve. No matter what I do, I will be letting someone down."

Friend B: "Huh."

An hour later, Friends B and A sit down to watch a movie. For Friend B, it's a break. For Friend A, it's an agonizing attempt to formulate his honors thesis while also concentrating on the witty banter provided by Friend B and hoping that some of his assigned readings will include huge charts and pictures. Nobody wins. Except Friend B.

2) If you take breaks, people will like you more.

I'm taking a break right now, and I have more friends than ever. Seriously.

3) The longer you go without taking a break, the more your breaks will suck.

Not uncommon: For people to try to just muscle through from August to Christmas (or the comparable period of time for adults. Which is probably Christmas to Christmas. Another reason for me not to grow up.) and then use up their entire break self in a concentrated period of time.

Problem associated with this: All the things that you want to do to take a break (write a novella, create a matching set of clay mugs, read that one book by that author that someone you respect likes, do your laundry) falls to your "breaktime", which has now been inconveniently compressed into 13 days of also experiencing Holiday Cheer, family obligations, and angsting out over what you're going to get your fave 7 people for Christmas.

4) Most of the people I know suck at taking breaks.

Myself included.

5) We should practice taking breaks.

Not just when we're forced to. Not just when we need one because we're about to explode from angst and tension and we end up breaking down in secret. Not just when we actually hate doing things that we love because we've forgotten that it's how we used to take a break. But all the time. Habitually. Taking time out of life to remember why we're doing it. Because I (and most people I know) came to a point this year where we forgot, and life sucked more. And practice makes progress, you know.

So, I have finally gotten around to writing a new blog. Now I just have to finish the Brothers K and do my laundry. So I can actually start Christmas shopping. So I can have an enjoyable Christmas with my family. Somewhere in there I'll let my friends know that I haven't forgotten them.

Yay for Breaks.

Sweet Sorrow (Aug 1-4)

And like that (I'm snapping my fingers), 8 weeks has gone by. The Crown team (and Karissa) booked their flights for the day before mine, leaving me 24 short hours to figure out how to say goodbye to a city that I've come to love. Before the Crown Team left, we found time to go out to authentic German dinner before heading over to the Brandenburg Gate for great Gelatto, group pictures, and a ride on the fun touristy bicycle for 8. (Note here- I definitely almost fell off this thing. Those guys go fast!)

We got to say goodbye to the Gnadenhaus, our brief but wonderful home, at 4.15 AM when the team had to head to the airport. Then again 3 hours later as my luggage made its way out with Katie's and Karissa's. Dropping Karissa off at the airport came next. This was a tough one- Karissa was a big part of my internship experience. Then a day of adventuring with Katie and Sarah before dinner at an American-style diner (that was a funny experience), and packing at the Careys' in anticipation of my 7.15 flight the next morning.

It was almost fun to pack up. I carefully set my Polish pottery amidst paper wrapping and soft clothes, remembering the day that Shelly and Sarah took Karissa, her friend Kat, and me to Poland for the day. I bagged up the Chocomel (a Dutch treat we grew up with) that I'd bought for my brothers, musing about the injustice that I'd found it only days before my departure. I folded my "Germany clothes", hoping that I'll get to go shopping with Karissa sometime soon in the States and remembering all the "Culture Days" well spent with her.

And then, the next morning, I left. It was hard to believe that my surroundings could change so drastically in 24 hours- from the energy and life of Berlin Mitte to my little house on Tolowa Trail in Lima, OH. But change they did, and I'm adapting slowly. This was one of the most powerful summers that I think I've had. It is hard to be back, but I'm excited at the ways that God will continue to use the experience and the ways I've grown this school year. Now it's only a few short weeks and off to Wheaton for a new house, homework, and a lot of friends I haven't seen in far too long.

And really, for Berlin and Europe as a whole, goodbye is best said in the immortal words of the Terminator.

"I'll be back."

Peace.

Speak English, please! (July 22-31)

This is going to be one post about 9 days simply because English Camp was a week of no-computer, no-phone, no-internet hanging out, and it's worth just having one blog post dedicated to it.

So English Camp is a week-long attempt at an immersion learning experience for German youth who want to improve their English language skills. The kids all eat breakfast with us (the Crown Team, the Careys, and the Interns), have English class, lunch with us, free time and activities with us, more class, then more activities and dinner with us. Dinner is followed by Etwas Mehr ("Something More") sessions and small groups, all in English, and then Snack time. The counselors and leaders were consistently able to be heard from my post in the kitchen- "Guys! Speak English, please!" It was a week of exhaustion, fun, laughter, and lots of "lost-in-translation" kind of moments. We had German kids from all walks of life, all modes of expression, and all levels of ability when it came to their English.

I worked in the kitchen with Sarah and Lea during English Camp. 6 American Breakfasts, 5 American lunches, and 7 American dinners, all with one Mrs Sarah Carey at the helm. Some of the kids were rather reticent to try everything that we made (seriously, kids? Who doesn't like Breakfast Burritos?), everyone had to try everything at least once, and most even found that we surprised them with unexpectedly tasty food.

So some background on me- I love to be in the kitchen. Food is, without question, one of my biggest love languages. Generally, the things that I make in the kitchen turn out pretty well. That is, while I'm no Rachel Ray, I love trying new things, experimenting with flavors, and creating treats for my friends. So I found out I was going to be in the kitchen for English Camp, and I was like, "Yes. Finally, something I'm good at from the get-go. Piece of cake."

I'm telling you, God finds the funniest ways to humble me.

From burning cookies on the first night to using granulated sugar instead of powdered for our nice desert, and every possible blunder in between, it must have taken Sarah and Lea a lot of grace to put up with me. I burned myself twice, once in picking up a coal that I thought was not hot but which was, in reality, white on the other side (It's okay. You can say it. "That was real dumb."). I put too much baking soda in the buttermilk pancake batter (which God took care of with a quick overnight miracle), my pudding didn't set, and overall the week might have been pretty darn discouraging if I wasn't swimming in the grace that my co-workers and my God had for me. In the beginning of my internship, Ben asked if I was a perfectionist, because if I was, I "might have kind of an interesting time here".

And so, God doesn't require perfection. This is a thought tried and true among Christian circles. I'm almost hesitant to reflect in this direction for fear of triteness, but if I haven't been able to nail it down as a lesson well learned, surely there's someone out there who also hasn't. And if there's not, you can rejoice with me as I swim farther into the sea of truly knowing our God. Our God who does not require perfection.

It almost tastes good to say such a beautiful thing. I serve a God who has total grace for me. For every batch of gross pancake batter and gritty pudding, God has grace for me. For every time I judge someone for thinking differently than I do, or act immaturely or in manipulation, God has grace for me. As an extension of that, my family in God has grace for me. I don't ever, ever earn my place as a servant of the King of the universe. I can never earn the right to call other believers my brothers and sisters. And yet, at the end of a week where I made more mistakes, both in the kitchen and out, than I thought were humanly possible, I am still as loved as I was in the beginning, simply because there is grace from a never-ending source.

English Camp was a wonderful week of making relationships that will last, both with my fellow workers and with the campers. I saw kids try foods that they were unsure about and like them. I saw people try to make friends with people they were unsure about and like them. I saw God's grace and love moving in and around the counselors, the cooks, the students. We all learned something about God this week.

And we're all definitely going to be friends on Facebook.

Peace.

My Berlin (July 15-21)

Well, it's official- the Crown Team has arrived, and we are all getting settled in our new home, the Gnadenhaus (German for "Grace House). It's a big old house that the owners rent out to missions teams who've come to bring Jesus to Germany, specifically to Berlin. What a great place! It's big and beautiful, feels like a home, and has the biggest dining room table I've ever seen. (No kidding- it's basically a dream of mine to have a table so big someday.)

So this is the week that Karissa and I got to take the team around Berlin- our Berlin. We got many chances to walk with them through the city and show them our favorite spots, including Napoljonska's, which is our impossibly-named favorite cafe to go to for waffles and crepes. It's on Kastanienallee if you're ever in Berlin, and definitely worth checking out. Though, I'll admit, when I tried to take Katie Meyers there, I got totally turned around and it took about an hour just to find the place. Yes, I can even get lost going from one end of a street to another. (Not really. I just didn't go far enough. But still!) It was a little ridiculous.

Having the Crown Team here has been a lot more fun than I expected. We're all slowly bonding together, as we spend the days doing various projects and enjoying one another's company. One day we cleaned and painted the Salvation Army building, where we also hold our Freischwimmer services. Another day, we had a birthday party for a very special 4-year old boy (Yes, Travis Carey, I'm talking about you!) and then the team went off to play pick-up soccer and get to know some area youth while I stuck around to hang out with the family.

I've really enjoyed getting to show this city off to the team. It reminds me of the excitement of first arriving, of the passion I had even before I arrived to come and work in Germany.

This has been a quiet week, one of helping to make food for 21 people, going grocery shopping early in the morning to feed hungry mouths delicious Germany breakfast (by this I mean cereal), and of learning that God is even working during the lulls in the action. This is something that I forget easily- it doesn't have to be exciting or adventurous all the time. The Gnadenhaus is pretty quiet at night, outside of occasional back massage chains or adventures in sharing one computer betwixt all of us. Our days are filled with hanging out with each other and the missionaries, working and playing and talking about life. God is making us into a real team, just in time for English Camp to come down the chute. Ready or not...

Peace.

Ch-ch-ch-Changes (July 8-14)

The week before the Crown Team gets here. Just passed the significant landmark of my first ever Lego Brunch, which is an outreach that my church (I love that I feel like it's mine) puts on every month in the Zionskirche (Is that supposed to be two words? Very possible.).

I won't lie- I'm terrified for the Crown team to get here. Make no mistake, coming they are, and I will be excited about them when they get here. I might even make a few friends! But I am nevertheless a little anxious as they prepare to come (and we prepare to have them). It's nice to feel like part of the small family of the Berlin Team- the Kragts, the Careys, the Joneses (while they were here), and the Interns (that's us!). Karissa and I have had a lot of freedom to explore the city, visit our favorite cafe, take the Bahn to random places, and otherwise learn to know the city better. With the arrival of the Crown team, especially with Karissa standing as their fearless leader, I'm not sure how much of that we'll be able to hang on to. I'm trying to be ok with it- I really am!

Also, I want to talk about salad. Specifically, the making of salad. I've made more salad since I've been here than in the rest of my life put together, and I eat salad at home all the time. But here, I've made Macaroni Salad, regular salad, salad with fruit, salad with homemade dressing, coleslaw (I more helped and watched with this one). If it's a vegetable readily available in Germany, I've probably made it into a salad at some point on this trip. You may ask, "Are you trying to eat especially healthy while in Europe with all the skinny, well-dressed girls?"

No.

Well, okay, yes, I am trying to eat healthy, but that's neither here nor there. Actually, one of my primary responsibilities as an intern has been to help Sarah Carey in the kitchen, getting ready to help to feed people at various times throughout the last month and change. Here I have my big ideas about my internship, about how I'm going to help the missionaries with big, important missionary things and use all my big important relational gifts, and they're asking me to make salads because that's what they need. They need enough salad for 75 people at Lego Brunch or whatever function we're doing.

God humbles me in such funny ways sometimes. "Natalie," he says to me, "I am calling you to pursue your dream to be a missionary. I am bringing you far away, to a land that you'll love. I'm helping you to raise money and have peace. I have called you here... to make some salad."

But you know, that's where the need is. I have the privilege of being called here at all, to know that this is what God's asking of me right now. So I'm moving forward in this internship, making the best darn Macaroni Salad a girl can make (no kidding- Sarah found a really great recipe!), looking to when the Crown Team arrives, and wondering if they prefer dressing on top or on the side.

Peace.

I have a Dream

And so does the Berlin Team! This is the week that we went to Wahren, a town in North Germany that borders Lake Mueritz. It was a vision trip to see if that's a town that God might call the Team to in the near future. It's about two hours from Berlin by car (it was really strange to spend so much time in a car after weeks of public transit and walking!), and it looks like a perfect little Germany town. If you have a stereotype of Germany anywhere in your head, of quaint buildings and little shops and narrow, cobblestone streets, this town probably fits the bill. It was a little surreal to be there, but it was a joy to get to participate in the beauty while being there.

This was definitely one of the most exciting things that I've done on my internship- to go with the whole team and scout out God's Will. We got to go to dinner with a man who lives out there, along with his parents who live nearby, and talk about their vision. Michael (hopefully that's a correct spelling) has an unbelievable passion for his hometown. It was actually very convicting- he lives in a small town on a lake, not too many people, not too much nearby. But his dream isn't to go and make something of himself, to find adventure out there in the great big world, but rather what he wants to do more than anything is bring Jesus to this small corner of Germany where most people don't know Him.

I live in Lima, OH. It's by far not the place of my dreams- for one thing, it's in America, but that aside, it's not always suited me perfectly. To a point, it's easy for me to think of Lima as the ideal place to escape from, and to think that nobody should want to live there. It's even easy to forget that God is working just as powerfully in Lima as he's going to in Wahren. But God has made all of us so differently because there are so many different ways that he asks us to work. And you know, I don't feel like I'm called to Lima for the rest of my life, but that doesn't change the fact that God will use me there too. My vision, I'm discovering, has to first involve bringing the Kingdom of God where I am, and then I can worry about specifically where God is sending me.

Please pray as the team puzzles over the vision for Northeast Germany, and for me as I learn more about what it means to serve God.

Peace.

Walking the Streets

This is late. Very late. My apologies. But this is also one of 6 leftover blogs that I'll be posting (in quick succession!). Hope it's not too late for you to think about it.

My partner in crime in Berlin, Karissa, spent a lot of her time working on projects for Alabaster Jar, a ministry that works in the West of Berlin with prostitutes. Once in a while, I got the chance to go with her. This particular week, we gave hand massages and manicures while chatting with the girls.

Tina looks like she could be in her late 50s, but in reality she's in her early 40s. She has short, reddish hair. She hails from southern Germany, where her 10-year-old son lives with her parents. She speaks German only, no English, but we were still able to have decent conversation as I practiced my language skills with her. Her hands were weathered and tan. Her tights were ripped, her skirt short, her top low-cut. When she first walked into the cafe, she was quiet and unsure. When I massaged her hands, she turned into a little girl. She smiled, laughed, talked to me. When I finished her second hand, she smiled and reached out her first again. "Another? May I have another? Es tut so gut! It does such good for me." I did each of her hands three times because she kept placing another hand in mine. She'd close her eyes and sigh, thanking me for doing this one small thing for her. Instead of spending time in jail for a tax problem, she's chosen to volunteer at this cafe for two months. Once she even came in to pray with us, though she was insecure and didn't know how.

The second girl never told me her name. She is cute and alive, with dark hair and pale skin, constantly talking and shifting from one place to the next. I had to call her away from distractions three times just to finish doing her hands once. They were calloused, and the nails short. I got to hear about her unstable relationship with her girlfriend. (Many of the girls who do this job are lesbians.) She told me that her landlord makes her have sex with him instead of pay rent because she's usually broke. I could see scars on her arms from where she'd injected life-ruining substances into her veins. She comes back to the cafe because people will listen to her and love her.

Socke came in late in the day. When she first walked into the cafe, I started to kick her out, because no men are allowed. Her head was totally shaved, her baggy shirt and oversized shorts hid any curves she might have had, and her shoes made her feet look huge. There was nothing about her that suggested that she was, in fact, female. She had just started to come to the cafe the previous week, but she'd lived and worked in Berlin for 8 years. She asked me if I liked the city as I began working the tension out of her hands. I told her yes, and that I liked the energy and the people. She said that it got old after awhile. Scars from hypodermic needles stared at me from the crook of her elbow.

I expected her hands to match the rest of her- abused and manly. Instead, her hands were soft, her nails trimmed short, her wrists fine. She was silent through most of the massage, looking out the open door and seemingly waiting for it to be over. When I finished, she smiled in friendship and left after telling me that she'd really enjoyed it.

For every girl, I wondered when the last time was that someone touched her with love, the last time that someone really wanted to cherish her. It's such an intimate thing in such a different way to hold somebody's hand, to work lotion and scrub into the skin that's been so abused by its owner. Hundreds of other people could touch those hands in the lifetimes of these girls, but it could be that they're never held without demand, without expectation, without judgement or lust ever again. You can see it in their eyes. They're hundreds of years old but they have no wrinkles. Shells of people offering a shell of intimacy to shells of other people.

So Alabaster Jar is there, offering a place where others will look at them without judgement, give them water or a sandwich, and tell them to come back any time. God is moving there. Please pray for this ministry. Please pray for me as I continue to process the times that I got to work there.

Peace.

Saying Goodbye

Hey all. Week 2 update! (I'll be honest, I'm very excited to get to week 4. It's been quite a week!)

Don and Sarah Jones have been missionaries in Berlin for 4.5 years. Don is a former youth pastor in the States, and Sarah is his unbelievably beautiful wife. They have 2 kids, Dane (5) and Jenna (2).

Don and Sarah loved working and ministering in Berlin, but at the end of 4.5 years, the CMA is sending them back to the States for home assignment for a year. This was a really hard thing. I never stopped to think about the idea that when you go on home assignment, it can sometimes feel like you have to take a break from your calling. I went to their house with Karissa to help them pack up and re-pack, trying to stay within the limits of luggage they could bring back. We packed their pretty Polish dishes into random scraps of newspaper and old supermarket ads as Sarah drove their dog to his new year-long home.

Jesus once said, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." He was explaining to a teacher of the law the cost of following him. There is no guarantee that I'll give you a home on earth, he says. I want you to follow me, but know that all you can expect is that I'll lead you in my ways. You won't always feel at home. You won't always feel comfortable. But I'll be leading you.

And so, as these missionaries follow God's specific call for them, they really have been asked to give up the idea of "home". They live 4 years here, a year there, pioneer new towns to be ministered to and move again to see what the next years will bring. Watching them trust God with their desires for home, and their desires for their kids to have a home, has been so powerful. Especially as they are sent home to America when their hearts are still so fully in Berlin. Ben offered a really good insight about it: "The thing is that the Holy Spirit who was working through them didn't leave with them. He's still working here, even as he's with them in the States." What an idea, that we even have to trust God with our calling (or, in this case, that we must take a short break from it and trust that he's alright without us).

So now the team is down to the Kragts, the Careys, and the Interns. Please pray for Katie Kragt this week, as she's at LIFE Conference in Louisville. God really used those conferences in my life- please pray that he does the same for Katie. Also please be praying for Sarah Carey, who's expecting in February. Morning sickness does not do a lot for the missionary lifestyle!

For me, pray that God uses me while I get to be here living my dream.

I've got a big post about ministering amongst prostitutes in the city coming up. It's really something.

Oh, we're halfway there...

So, I've been in Berlin for 3.5 weeks now, and this is officially my first blog post. Being present is a good thing. Leaving people out of the loop is a bad thing. This is an officially stated intent to change with apology.

Here's a recap of Week 1. Come back later for the Weeks 2 and 3 editions, along with forward progress.

Week 1. Arrival. Meeting the team here made me excited to work with them before I even knew exactly what I was going to do. The Berlin team of which I get to be a part for a short while includes Ben and Sarah Carey, Jerry and Shelly Kragt, and Don and Sarah Jones, with all of their kids. My first night in Berlin they took me out to get ice cream. Since ice cream is the tie that binds, that's when I knew that we were going to work well together.

One of the first things I noticed is that people in Germany speak quickly, and in very, very long sentences. That is, while I'm still trying to piece together the first clause, they're already on to the second paragraph. The missionaries speak primarily English at home, but the church I'm attending, and most of the work that I'm doing, is all German all the time. Needless to say, I was intimidated at the prospect of having 8 short weeks to get to the point where I felt comfortable bringing the Kingdom in German. But God is good, and if I need to get there, I'll get there.

I journaled every day during my first week here. I would write out a prayer every night at the end of my reflections, and by the next day I was already seeing the ways that God works right under my nose, and I miss it if I'm not watching. Simple things would happen. One night, I wrote a prayer that God would allow me to develop closer relationships with the missionaries already, and the next night I got to have a 1.5 hour conversation with one of the couples. When I'm at home, I don't take time to journal because my life at home is not very exciting. At school, I study and get to know my friends better. At my parents' house, I sleep and get to know my family better. But God has not been working in the exciting things that have been happening to me. I haven't been gifted with tongues or the ability to speak fluent German overnight. I haven't prayed the Sinner's Prayer with any formerly hardened atheists (yet). I haven't turned the city of Berlin on its head, but when I asked God to give me a friend, he gave me a fellow intern who I really love. When I asked for good conversation, it overflowed. These are things that aren't a result of this exciting time in life, but just a result of praying for small things in life that matter.

Those are some thoughts. I love it here. God is good.

Tune in tomorrow for a gripping Week 2 recap: Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow!