Exciting steps forward

Well, I feel like I've hardly been home for the past week, but there's been a lot of progress recently, both in my struggles to get acclimated and in my work here.

Last week Jim, Elsa, and I wrote newspaper ads and created flyers advertising English Bible studies. We decided to have the people call Elsa since the German could be a problem for me, especially since it would be on the phone. Several people called expressing interest, but after about the first day, Elsa lost her voice. So, calls have been piling up on their answering machine.

Today I went to their house to work on Jim's library, and Elsa told me (okay, whispered to me) that she thought it would be good for me to return the phone calls since, according to her doctor, it could be another week before she can talk. I had a brief moment of panic...and then agreed with her. If this is going to get up and running, then I have to step out of my comfort zone and make the phone calls.

So, Elsa went through her routine with me, telling me what questions to anticipate and how to respond to them. She had all the phone numbers listed for me and gave me the notes she had taken while talking with the first few callers. I was doing really well...until she said, "Let me go get the phone and you can get to work." That's when the panic really hit.

I said a quick prayer, tried to squash the panic just a bit, and got to work. I ended up making appointments with two women to meet next week, and another woman said that not only is she interested in doing the studies, but her boyfriend and his son are also interested. I also have an appointment to study with Sylvia on Tuesday morning. Last Friday we had an "English movie night" at Jim and Elsa's house, and two people there also expressed interest in doing the studies.

So, I'm quickly ending up with lots of potential "students." I was really excited this afternoon after making the calls and getting a positive response from several people. It was nice to see some quantifiable progress. I'm really trying not to have any expectations, though. My goals are just to form friendships with people (Germans in general are very formal and don't open up to people who are not family or close friends) and to plant seeds. That's all I can do. God will make the seeds grow into what He wants them to be.

Also this week:

-I helped clean and organize the basement and kitchen of the church building in an effort to get the building ready to sell.

-I went to Braunschweig with Jim and the Abercrombies for our monthly visit with the congregation there. The trip is always exhausting, both physically and mentally, but it's more than worth it. The congregation there only has 9 members, and they love having us there to worship with them.

-I babysat three times for Mimi and Rüdi, once so they could attend a meeting for planning the remodeling of the new church building, and twice so that Mimi could work on plans for the ladies' retreat that's coming up next weekend. There's a lot that I can't do here, either because of my language skills or because of lack of expertise, but if I can watch someone's children so that they are able to do the work, then I feel like I'm involved in the work as well.

-I worked two afternoons in Jim's library. Every book he owns should now have his name stamped inside and a label on the spine, and all the books that needed to be reshelved are back in their respective homes. Now I'm waiting for Jim to finish transferring his database to a new computer, and then I'll begin cataloguing. Jim apparently hasn't had a chance to do any cataloguing in quite a few years. I'd estimate that there are about 1,000 books waiting for call numbers and entry into the database. I think there's a lot of work ahead.

-We had a baptism at church last Sunday! Aaron, the 10-year old son of Michael, who's been visiting here for a while, decided after discussions with his parents and Jim and Elsa to take on the Lord in baptism. According to Jim, Aaron's baptism brings the total number of baptized believers in the congregation up to 35. We're really in need of the new building, though, because I counted 58 people at services two Sundays ago, and there was no more room for extra chairs.

Another exciting thing for me lately has been my observation that I'm not having to work as hard to understand German. I guess you could say I'm learning to think in German instead of just in English. Being able to think in German makes life SO MUCH EASIER. When I was thinking only in English, I had to constantly translate in my head, and I perpetually felt mentally exhausted. Now I can have a conversation (albeit not yet about anything remotely complex) at a reasonably natural speed.

I think I first noticed my "break-through" two weeks ago. I attended a seminar at church that was led by Josef Achatz from the congregation in Augsburg. Topic: personal evangelism. Very apropos, considering that's what I've come here to do.

I make no pretenses of having left the seminar with complete understanding of what was said, but I can say that I understood much more than I thought I would. Granted, the fact that I had previous knowledge of the topic probably helped.

At one point in the seminar, Josef presented questions that non-believers might have about the Bible, and he decided to give us practice answering them. I tried to hide, but he eventually came to me and asked, "Woher nahm Kain seine Frau?" (Where did Cain find his wife?)

A moment later I heard myself saying, "Adam und Eva hatten andere Kinder, und vielleicht war seine Frau eine Schwester von ihm." (Adam and Eve had other children, and perhaps his [Cain's] wife was one of his sisters.) I was surprised at how almost effortlessly the answer came. I didn't have to think about it for a long time, and I didn't have to formulate the answer in English and translate it to German.

At the end of the seminar on Saturday, after I'd sat through almost seven hours of German conversation that day, I got a big smile, a pat on the back, and a "Congratulations! You made it!" from Elsa. Until that point I'd only been able to handle about two hours of steady German before my brain would begin turning to mush. Looking back I think that was because I was working so hard to translate everything. Now that my brain can switch back and forth to some degree, I don't have to find some excuse to escape after a couple hours.

A few people have asked me why I worry about improving my German when I only plan to be here for two years. My answer is this: To really connect with people, you have to speak to them in the language of their hearts. No mission work in a foreign culture can be truly effective unless it's paired with language study. People here may be able to speak English, but that's only an intellectual language for them; they feel in German. When I can speak to them in German, I show them that I respect them and their culture, and they therefore are more receptive to what I have to say.

So, my language progress is just as important as any other work I do here. Without it I wouldn't be able to do very much. I sure wouldn't be able to do babysitting, considering that I haven't yet met any bilingual 3-year olds. :-)