Fröhliche Ostern

Fröhliche Ostern. Happy Easter everyone. This morning I got to spend a delightful time in a local German church celebrating Easter. Unfortunately, Alex was sick and so Krista and he could not make it with us. However, Laura and Thad Davis are here for a week and they went with me. Laura and Thad are appointees with GEM and are currently raising their support. It was wonderful to celebrate Jesus´ resurrection even though it was all in another language (a language where I know some of the words now). The pastor this morning started his sermon on how during this time we some many times concentrate on the Cross and what Jesus did there. However, the change for us as Christians came when Jesus was resurrected from the dead. By dieing and resurrecting, Jesus provided for our salvation.

Now to get every one caught up on what has been happening with the Roes Family:

Krista and I are still in German Language School and are about half way done with what we are going to do formally. Our German skills have improved but we are definitely nowhere near fluent but just the other day, I was able to make reservations at a restaurant and I was very proud of myself for accomplishing that. We are also continuing to build on the relationships we have within our school however several people from the class have dropped out but then several new people have joined us.

Alex is still having a blast in his German kindergarten. While there have been some trouble with bullies, it doesn’t seem to deter Alex. Overall, I think Alex is well liked by his classmates as when we walk him into his class, they are all warmly saying “Guten Tag” to him.

The weather here has brightened up since we had four days of snow a few weeks ago. Today, it is going to be a high of about 60 degrees F so I am actually writing this out on our little terrace where we have gotten some outdoor furniture. The sun is warm as a cool breeze gently goes by. The flowers are coming into full bloom (accchhheeeeeoooooooo!!!) We are very thankful that God has called us here.

One of the cool things here is that some of the farmers who have parcels near the main roads will grow flowers that you can pick yourself and then pay at these barrels totally on the honor system.

Morgan (Tomorrow), we are having the eDOT team over for a picnic. Our apartment isn’t large enough for all of us so we are going to hike up the hill behind our place to a spot where you can overlook all of Kandern (our town). Up there is a little gazebo with a picnic table. It should be a wonderful time.

Ich wünsche Ihnen schönen Tag (I wish you a beautiful day – or in Americanism – Have a good day!)

PS – I wrote this whole note using a German keyboard layout; I never thought you used the “Y” key so much as the z and y keys are switched along with a lot of the punctuation keys.

Our refrigerator door

Our refrigerator here is built into the cabinets so you can’t use magnets to post things up on it. So the closest replacement we have is our website. So here is Alex’s latest drawing (he does at least one drawing a day in Kindergarten here). This one is of the Easter Bunny which is suppose to be coming by the kindergarten soon. I think he’s really excited about the chocolate that the Easter Bunny brings because the chocolate here is really (and I mean really) good.

Its funny, but he hasn’t really put together the association of the Easter Bunny and Easter. He still looks to Easter as the time when Jesus Christ rose from the dead and in doing so, made it so that we can be friends with God again. I’m not one to change my child’s mind about that.

First Outing to a German Church & Greetings

- We made our first outing to the German church this morning. We understood a bit. It was on a familiar passage (the Woman at the Well) so that helped a lot. When we came out Alex said “Are we going to go back here next week?” I said, “What do you think?” He said “That’d be good”.

It was about an hour and a half service. (We were told that it usually lasts 2 hours) The music was hymns done with guitar and piano. We had hymnals to sing out of. The pastor preached, with PowerPoint, on John 4. From what we could tell he gave a very clear explanation of the gospel and was quite animated in his preaching.

Alex had a separate program beginning with all ages singing together then breaking up for individual classes. He told us they played some games and then did a craft using a cut out of Psalm 119. There was an American little girl in there who took him under her wing.

So all in all, a successful foray. There is a more “contemporary” church in another town a little further away, that we will eventually try as well.

- In Germany when you are walking down the street or enter a store you must greet people.

Here’s a funny thing we say here:

Everyone above 60 says Gruss Gott- “God’s greeting”
Everyone above 40 says Gut Morgan or Gutten Tag – “Good Morning” or “Good Day”
Everyone abov 30 says Morgan or Tag – “Morning” or “Day”
Everyone under 30 says “allo” – “Hello”

When you introduce yourself you say, “Ich heisse Roes” – My name (is) Roes… So I’m known as Frau Roes. Only good friends may call me Krista. Nobody goes by “Miss Krista”.

Where’s my Chili’s!!!!!

Today it dawned on me that we have been in Germany for almost two months now. That means that I have not had Chilis (my favorite restaurant in the States) for over two months. Withdrawal is consuming me, I can close my eyes and taste the Buffalo Wings or the Bleu Cheese Bacon Cheeseburger. And then there’s the fries with just the right seasoning dipped in a nice Ranch dressing. (I know, you use ketchup but try the Ranch sometime). While we miss many things from the States (like movie theaters that play movies in English that we can somewhat afford), we are also embracing many of the nice things that are here like a freshly baked pretzel (see previous post about the adventures in ordering these), the quietness that is here on Sundays (only restaurants are allowed to be open) or the grandeur of walking past a building and seeing that is was built before Christopher Columbus discovered America.

So while I miss the things that are familiar, I am able to still see the awe and wonder that is before us here.

Thank you to those of you that are a part of all this through prayers, encouragement and gifts.

Please pray with us:

• that we will continue to pick up the German language so that we can integrate into the local culture
• that as we look for opportunties to have a personal ministry locally, that we will be bold and that we will see what God has purposed for us to be a part of
• as we are looking to the summer months which will be after language school, we are already looking at many ministry trips. Right now it looks as though by November, I will be traveling to Austria, Hungary, Switzerland (and not just for language school), a couple of trips to Ukraine, and possibily Poland. That’s just for starters. Luckily, Krista will be with me on a few of these adventures and even Alex will be on the Switzerland retreat.

Thank you so much. God bless.

I just want to be understood

This morning as Krista was walking Alex over to the kindergarten, Alex asked her, “Do you know how to say ‘OK’ in German?”

Krista responded, “OK.” Which is true as nobody really knows what OK stands for because its an acronym, right? Anyway, Krista then asked him, “Do you know how to say ‘Come here!’ in German?” Alex then shook his head and Krista said, “Komm heir!” which sounds just like the English saying.

Alex then responded, “Well, do you know how to say ‘You’re crazy’ in German?” Krista didn’t know so Alex replyed, “It’s ‘You’re crazy in German’!”. Smart kid.

Language school is wonderful. We are learning so much and just feel the confidence building as we are able to answer our teacher, talk with her and other students using our small German skills, and just feel like we are grasping what we are being taught. That is until we go out into the “real world”.

This afternoon, Krista and I went into a bakery to just get a snack while Alex was in a special thing for kids. We were so ready to use our German to order and pay for a couple of quarkballs (kinda like a round doughnut but with a kind of cheese intermixed into the batter), a Sprite, and a pretzel. However all of my confidence was crushed after I ordered the pretzel as she said in German that she didn’t have any pretzels and then gave me two choices of which I had no clue as to what they were. I just stood there like a deer caught in the headlights. I didn’t know what to say. I could see the pretzels right behind the clerk. How could she say she didn’t have any? I just wanted to point and grunt like an ape at what I wanted. After a moment of panic, an older German lady who was staying next to me made a comment to the clerk (my gut tells me she was questioning my intelligence level) to which the clerk just responded “Ja!” (Which is German for “yes” for those of you, which I think there’s only two, who know less German than I)

Finally, I realized what she was saying. Not because of the words she had used but because I actually looked at the basket of pretzels (and because Krista was prodding me to pick the first choice – I think she might have known what the lady meant) She was right; she had no pretzels as we would think of them. Ya know, in that heart shape with the criss-cross in the middle. She had preztel material that was shaped like a gigantic knot and some material that was braided like a rope. And that’s when it dawned on me that she had said the German word “Knoten” (guess which one that is). So I said “Knoten, bitte” (Knot, please) and she promptly turned around and retreived one for me. After I paid (which is easier since the cash register has a display telling you the amount), Krista and I moved to sit down at a table. Well, that when it happened again. The clerk asked if we were eating here and I replied, “Ja” (see above for translation) and then she asked another question. I again stopped dead in my tracks and my eyes got real big (and I was real thankful the older German lady had already left). Finally, the clerk pulled out a plate and offered it to me. The German word for plate is “Platte”.

Standing in a bakery with food ready to go, I felt so lacking. How am I suppose to be used by God to reach the lost when I can’t even get a pretzel ordered properly? But then I know I can relax and know that God is the One with the plan and not I. He was the One that made miracles happen so that we could make the move here. He was the One that had found us the perfect place to live and made it so that we are having a smooth transistion to the German culture. He is the One who is providing us time to go to language classes and He is the One that is going to get German into our heads.

He is also the One that is going to reach lost and has invited us to be along for the ride. What’s the ride God has invited you to be on?

Its been a month….

We just passed the one month mark in our move to Germany and honestly, life is a new adventure everyday. As Krista puts it, things are a lot like the US except for about 15% and that 15% is what you have to watch out for. Its like when you are driving. You can easily see the similarities between driving in the US and Germany except when you come to an intersection. You have to look for a yellow diamond or dots on the road to know if you are a primary road because if you are not a primary road, the car on your right has the right of way (and the Germans don’t even look left to make sure you are yeilding to them). One nice thing though is that there are very few stop signs in our area – they are all yield signs which goes right along with my driving habits. Also, when you do see a stop sign, it literally says “STOP” on it instead of the German word “HALT”. I figure they use so few of them that its cheaper to import them rather than make their own. (However, they seem to have exclusive rights to the sign that means “No speed limit” — )

Just to let you know some of what we’ve been doing over the past few weeks (sorry for not blogging but we just got our internet connection this last week).

1) Alex started Kindergarten soon after we moved into our place three weeks ago and has been having a lot of fun. Kindergarten here is not like Kindergarten in the States. Its much more of a hands on learning approach and they are not yet learning reading or writing but are learning dexterity skills. Alex is just finishing his certification to be able to be in the woodshop. Yes, they have a woodshop where the kids can make things using saws, hand drills, hammers, etc. I know the thought of giving sharp tools like this to 3-6 year olds is foreign to most Americans but here they expect the children to obey the rules and at the first sign of not obeying them, they lose the right to be in the shop. I haven’t heard of any accidents or even a cut in there.

2) Krista and I are in school as well. After we moved into our apartment, we started looking at language school and figured out that the next classes we could jump into wouldn’t be until April if we didn’t jump into the one that had just started. So we had hoped to wait until February to start German classes but instead we started two weeks ago. We are actually going to Basel, Switzerland Monday thru Thursday for three hours of classes (its only about a 40 minute drive due to traffic and border crossing). We started the class a week late but we have easily caught up and are enjoying it. Although somedays we go home and are just completely brain wiped. It has been funny as we have started to use some German words around the house.

3) The week before last, our eDOT team here in Germany went to Switzerland for a strategic planning time. I was able to join them in Beatenburg, Switzerland (which is near Interlaken) while Krista and Alex stayed home to keep on the same rhythm. If you ever want to see a beautiful site, the Interlaken area in Switzerland is just gorgeous (see the photos in the Photo Album in the Germany/Switzerland area). During this time, I really got to see my role in eDOT shape up more and to see where there are some needs that I can help with. I’ll talk more about my role another time; especially once I get thru language school and dive into ministry.

4) We bought a car a few weeks ago. Its a 2004 Ford Focus station wagon. Its not the size of a US station wagon but it is larger than the really small cars here also known as Smart Cars. Its a Turbo diesel which means it gets about the equivalent of 35 mpg but has great torque so you can get up to speed really fast. In Germany, you drive fast then slow then fast again and you are expected to go as fast as you can until the speed limit lowers and when it goes up, you better be up to speed. Even the traffic lights flash the yellow light before switching from red to green so that you can be moving by the time it turns green.

5) We have been slowly but surely getting our apartment set up. It can be a long process. Jumping into language school has slowed things down. Just this last week we were able to borrow a vechicle that was long enough to get our schrank (read that as warddrobe) for our bedroom. Then it took me all of Friday with an electric screw driver to put it together. IKEA is great except for the fact that eveything has to be assembled. Saturday was unloading a bunch of clothes that we still had boxed up and loading them into the schrank. We did get our DSL (Internet) connection installed this last week and we purchased a TV with a DVD/VCR and a satellite receiver. Its nice being connected to the world again and being able to get news. With our satellite, we are able to get channels from all over the world including Tunsia, the Middle East, Cuba, and of course Europe. What we don’t get is any US channels (except for CNBC). We get about five channels in English – CNN International, CNBC, Sky News, BBC (these last two are British) and Al Jeezera English (honestly, Al Jeezera is fascinating to watch). So if we want English, we are watching the news. But we do get to watch things in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Czech, Polish, Russian, Arabic and several other languages that we haven’t identified yet. The DVD player was set for “Region 2″ which means it would only play European DVDs and DVDs that didn’t have a region code. (USA is Region 1) But thanks to some great websites out there, I was able to find a hack to be able to make it play all regions. Now the DVDs we brought from home work just fine.

Overall, we are working through adjusting to life in Germany pretty well. I’m not going to say its totally smooth sailing but then what fun would that be. I like roller coasters and honestly, that’s the life God has for us right now. So as we throw up our hands in the air and scream “Weeeeeeeeeeeeee”, will you keep the following in your prayers:

1) Pray for us to stay healthy. Alex had an ear ache a week ago and the doctor said that his ear was completely blocked with wax. We have medicine now to loosen and dissolve the wax but we want him to stay fine. Also there’s a lot of flu stuff going around and Alex and I are already coughing and sneezing (Krista has always been the more healthy one but keep praying for her too).

2) Pray as we continue to work on language school. While we don’t need to know German to work with eDOT, but it does make life easier for us living in Germany plus we want to be a part of the German community that we live in. Kandern is a beautiful town with a rich history (it was deemed a town in 1610) and the people here are wonderful. We want to get to know them better.

3) Pray for our family relationships. During this time, our stress levels are higher and we are tired much of the time. Pray that God will give us the strengh to build each other up rather than take the easy roads in working on our marriage and parenting.

God bless ya’ll
(I’m still in the south – just Southern Germany).

Roes Update – Week 1 – January 19, 2007

Dear friends and family,

We are doing very well here! We arrived Tuesday, January 10th and we’re able to stay at the e-Dot director’s home for the first week. This was wonderful to get over jet lag and not worry about what to cook.

Last Tuesday (the 16th) our container arrived. In one hour 15 of our new best friends had everything placed into our apartment. It’s not a very big apartment (by American standards) but everything we brought fits very nicely. The last few days have been unboxing and running around finding things. Yesterday we went to Ikea and Super Wal-Mart (yes, they have that here) to find wardrobes, and appliances. Our e-Dot team mates have been so helpful taking us around and helping us learn the rules of driving.

Alex had a ½ day try at Kindergarten on Wednesday and really loved it. He’ll officially start next Monday, the 22. He is doing very well and even had a short play date today. He especially loves his new bunk bed that one of the other missionaries gave to us. We are all getting used to the walking and the amount of time that it takes to get anything done – mostly because of a much slower pace of life here and the fact that we don’t know where to find things.

We will be picking up our new (to us) car tomorrow. It’s a Ford Focus Diesel Station wagon we bought from a local dealer who “takes care of the missionaries”. Courtney got a chance to follow behind the dealer as he test drove one of our car options on the autobahn. He got up to 111 mph. That’s not the one we’re buying, but a similar one.

Our phone was installed yesterday but our DSL will still take a couple of weeks so please be patient if we don’t reply to your e-mail promptly… but we would like to hear from youJ.

Overall we are doing well. We are overwhelmed with decisions to make, often with vague or incomplete information to base those decisions on… but we keep on going.

Some prayer requests:

1) We are blessed with a beautiful apartment and know its God’s gift as a resting and re-energizing place for us to base out of. Our clothes washer/dryer combo unit in our kitchen is having problems. It runs for 2 to 45 minutes and then cuts out for no reason we can discern. We are praying that it is “user error” rather than something truly wrong as we’d hate to have to buy a new one at this point.

2) Our landlord’s mother, Frau Vollmer, lives downstairs. She is 83 but lively and loves children (read – can tolerate loud noises). We are unsure of her relationship with God but pray that as we become great friends that we can be a light to her.

3) Alex will start school on Monday. Pray for him as he gets used to language and cultural challenges. There are 2 other MK (missionary kid) boys that go there. Also pray that as our family interacts with the teachers and the parents that we will find opportunities to become friends and share our faith.

4) We will be starting language school in February. Pray that we can choose the right school and that our minds will begin to absorb the language here.

Quote of the week: From Frau Vollmer our landlord’s mother who lives downstairs: “So do you speak Oxford English or American slang?” – She wasn’t being insulting at all, just an honest question that I wasn’t sure how to answer.

Thanks to all of you who give and pray so that we can be here,

Krista and Courtney Roes