Day of Rest

Everyone has arrived.  Krista’s sister and her family are here now.   They arrived this morning at 3:45 AM just like we did yesterday.  Speaking of which, let me give a little more detail to our travels so far while Krista and all the kids are in the pool (it’s cold water – I don’t do cold water!)

We left our apartment in Germany at a decent time and a friend took us to the train station.  We didn’t want to take our huge jackets as that’s just another thing to lug around and we knew we wouldn’t need them here in Kenya so we left them but instead wore layers for our trip.  That was good cuz we had to wait for our train and it was cold (as in below freezing with some nice wind).  Our first train came and we got on with no problems.  As we got on our next train we had a little bit of a hard time finding our seats and so by the time we figured it out, people had already assumed that we were “no shows” and taken the seats.  They were kind and easily moved when we showed our seat reservations.  We had an early lunch on the train ride and played Uno.  In the fourth seat was a lady who was rather amused by Alex’s enthuiasm.  We transferred to our third train in Mannheim, Germany.  This town is special as we can trace our Roes lineage to Mannheim in the 1880′s.  We know they had moved to the US from here by 1890 but some time after 1880.  So it was a special 12 minutes that we had to change trains there.On our third train, we found our seats just fine (we’d figured out how the numbers worked and changed now) and the a young woman was seated with us.  She was reading a book in German but it was obvious that she knew English as there were a couple of times Alex said something funny and she laughed with us. Read more >>

Arrived Safely & Enjoying Here

Well, no picture this time but just wanted to say we got here just fine (no sleep however).  Our train rides were good and our flights went well once we got on them.  Snowstorm and other things delayed our flight for two hours.  Unfortunately we only had an hour and half layover in Cairo (which was then a negative half hour) so things got interesting but it all got worked out.

Gotta run but just wanted to leave you with something Alex said as we got off the plane in Cairo (his first time in Egypt and Africa) – “One step for Africa and one step for Egypt”.  Glad he paid attention to Neil Armstrong.  Ciao for now.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Well this journey has started. I’m going to attempt to blog without my computer. Hopefully I’ll get to post more than just this post while on the road. We’ll see.

Hopefully this picture turns out well of Krista & Alex playing Uno on one of three trains we’ll ride on today. Alex & I were so excited about our first time to Africa that we both woke up early. We’re also very excited about being with Krista’s family for this time of the year.

Well, I want to get in on the next round of Uno so talk more later.

- Courtney

17th Wedding Anniversary – Part 2

For our 17th Wedding Anniversary, we slipped out of the conference we were in and made a trip in Prague, Czech Republic for dinner.  We’ve been to Prague before so we knew there would be a TGI Fridays and we decided to splurge.  Krista got the nachos she’s been craving and I got some hot wings and we shared a nice cheeseburger.  For Alex, chicken fingers with a good honey-mustard sauce.  These are all things that are hard to find in Europe, let alone find that taste as good as to what we remember having in the States.  We returned to our conference extremely satisfied.  Here’s a litte video clip of our time in Prague:

You eat like a Moldovian

“You eat like a Moldovian” my host said to me (through a translator as I don’t speak much Romanian and he doesn’t speak much English).  To me, this was a huge compliment.  Its very interesting as I travel in many different cultures that each culture seems very proud of its food.  So whenever I am in a place, I don’t try to figure out what the food is or try and figure out what it will taste like before I eat it.  Instead I watch my hosts and see how they put the food on their plate and do the same (sometimes in smaller quantities though).  I just try to experience the food as they do.  My main rule is – “Don’t ask, don’t tell”.  If you don’t know what the food is, then you probably won’t have a problem eating it.  I also keep in mind, that what some people say is “disgusting” in one place, others will say is a delicacy somewhere else.

For me, this is a part of my striving to be like Jesus.  Read more >>

Berlin Street Conversations – Part 2

Yesterday, I told you about our experience talking with Stefan while I was in Berlin.  As Charles and I continued walking, we decided to get out of the cold and get something warm to drink in a little shop.  There we met Saleem (or thats close to his name but I don’t know how to spell it).  Saleem is from Turkey and works in his good friends Doner Kebab shop (trust me, Doner Kebabs – a turkish like Gryos -  are really good here in Germany. I have one at least once a week or more).

We talked about where in Turkey Saleem was from and he asked us where we were from.  We told him we lived in Europe but that I was from North Carolina before and that Charles was from Texas.  That’s when things got interesting and it went a little bit like this:

Read more >>

Berlin Street Conversations – Part 1

This last week, I had the opportunity to be in Berlin with the leadership of our mission, Greater Europe Mission.  We took a break from our meetings to go into a part of Berlin and do some Prayer Walking or as some call it, Spiritual Mapping.  (If you don’t know what this is, I would suggest doing a web search on the topic – great stuff) Essentially, this is where you ask God to reveal to you what it is He is doing in the area and open up your eyes to see what the state of the area is spiritually through praying and speaking with people.  I want to share with you a couple of conversations I got to be a part of during this time (this blog is 1 conversation, I’ll blog the another one later).

I went on this adventure with Charles, a missionary based in France, and therefore I became the interpreter since I knew more German (scary).  As we were walking, a young man, whom we later found out to be named Stefan, approached us asking if we lived in Berlin.  He held a stack of papers like he was doing some sort of survey.  As it turns out, he was getting people who lived in Berlin to sign a petition to allow students to have the choice of taking a religion course instead of ethics.  Currently, everyone is required to take ethics but if they want to take a religion course, it is only offered after normal school hours.

The conversation went a little something like this: Read more >>