A few months ago I was at a friend’s house staying with his family. They moved to Germany about the same time as us however live in a different part of Germany so their kids go to German schools. As we were sitting around the table with both Americans and native German speakers, it was obvious that their two girls were excelling at learning German as the conversations were drifting between English and German. At one point, the oldest young lady said that Americans (excluding herself of course) sounded so funny speaking German. It wasn’t just our accents that made us sound funny but the way we make our sentences. She then proceeded to give an example by saying a few sentences how an American says them (accent and sentence structure) and then said that this is how it should be said (with her German accent and in ways Germans say things). I was first shocked and then laughing so hard. When she said everything like an American, I really sat there thinking - “That’s exactly how I would say it and that’s my accent”. Then when she spoke like a German I thought - “No wonder I don’t understand what people are saying so much of the time - they speak German very differently than I do”. I laughed so hard that I had to have her do it a couple of times as to me it was just great. Eventually, I had to ask them to do it on camera and send it to me (which they did and below is the video).
Now this might not be that funny to many of you but if you have ever learned a foreign language with actual native speakers around, I think you can relate. It also proves - learn other languages at a young age!!!
We’re really excited to announce the release of our new eDOT website . Being a technology ministry, our website gets scrutinzied a little bit more than most peoples’ sites so its nice have a refreshing look and interaction. For being an information website, I really like our new place. Our goal is that this will help us recruit more people into working with us both in full time capacities, short term capacities and even as volunteers. Based on WordPress (just like this site), it includes a blog (which I’ll be one of the writers on) and other changing parts.
This is a bitter sweet project as it’s Laura’s (our web developer) first major project since getting out of German Language school. And will be her last major eDOT project (at least for a while) as she’s about to have her first baby. Check out the blog she did about what it took to make this website work. Not only did she do a lot of custom code for it, but she originally used so many different Wordpress plug-ins (add-ons of code that people make specifically to work with Wordpress) that the system would crash. We actually had to scale back how many plugins we were using but it still works wonderfully.
The really cool part of this project was that everything we used was free. Wordpress is open-source and so are all the plugins (we did make some donations to some of the plugin writers just becase they saved us some much by already having the code).
So please check it out and feel free to pass the link along to any friends or family that may be interested in using their technical abilities for helping build up the church in Greater Europe.
We live in a small town in Germany where almost 10% of the population is English speaking. The reason is that there is an English based, Christian school here called Black Forest Academy. This is the last week of school around here and every year its a tough time for everyone. In most places of the US, you might have some people moving away every year but for the most part, people will be coming back in the school year after year. But in the missionary life, moving and change are regular occurrences.
This year I went to Alex’s last chapel time at school. It really took me back as I watched the principal of the school talk to each grade level and congratulate them but then ask - whose not coming back next year? This was a great year for Alex as none of the kids in his class are leaving however about 25% of the school is not returning. The principle would ask each student about where they were going, if they knew anything about the school they would be going to, and other questions. The hardest time came when it looks like about 50% of the staff of the elementary school would not be returning next year. Many teachers at these types of schools only teach for 1-3 years at a time. (However, Alex’s teacher was celebrating her 25th year here - she is such a blessing to us)
We plan on being here for quite some time however we will still have to have some time where Alex is going to be one of the ones standing up. US law requires that we leave Germany every so often to be able to retain our rights to social security. So Alex will have to be the one saying goodbye at least once however he has to say “Goodbye” every year as his friends are coming and going.
Alex’s age has the easier time of it. For those in high school here, things get very emotional. A majority of those in high school live in the dorms (while their parents work in countries all around the world). They live together and are like brothers and sisters. Graduation is a time of not just completing their lower education but saying good-bye to these close friends knowing that they will probably never see each other again as they scatter all over the world. The senior class has a tradition of staying up all night together before they start catching trains and planes in all directions.
These emotional goodbyes are really tough to watch. My heart goes out to these young people.
Sorry for being such a slacker lately about blogging. Been another period of travels and projects (some really good stuff brewing). Anyway, just thought I would easy back into things with a little video clip of Alex. Alex found the video setting on a little digital camera we have and decided to make a series of little videos. He seems to have had some fun so I thought I would put the clips together for your enjoyment (and mine!). Take care and talk to you more soon!!
[This started off as a status line on my Facebook page and started a discussion there that I would like to bring here and continue here (where we have a little bit more room and can invite more people to join)]
My original status line:
Been hanging out talking about how to reach those that want to know God but can’t stand the church.
Comments afterwards (names have been changed since this is a public place vs Facebook - not as public anyways):
MA: Who are you meeting with and what is your response to them? I am running into that with many folks myself.
My reply: Its the initial talks with several missionaries that live in the area and some house church advocates. To bottom line it, the reality is that you don’t do church, we are the church. Church is a life style not something you do on Sunday morning and that doesn’t mean having to talk about God every moment of the day but it means that you live life, pouring your life into others and having them pour their lives into yours. God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit will seep into your conversations as life continues. Remove the institution that is church to reveal those who have Christ as the church and people will understand it. Its a hard concept for many in the West to understand as we have church as an institution made up of programs and schedules which makes our walk with God compartmentalized and therefore to an outsider - our lives are compartmentalized and that makes our relationship with God only a part of our lives (and therefore hypocrites).
We live in a small town in Germany where almost 10% of the population is English speaking. The reason is that there is an English based, Christian school here called 