Leaving...in a few minutes

Well, it's 3:54 AM, Wednesday, Bremen time. I've been at the Abercrombies since Tuesday evening, and none of us have slept...because we have to leave at 4:00 to catch the streetcar to go to the airport so I can catch my 6 AM flight.

So, in a few minutes my trip to the U.S. officially begins.

See you soon!

My week

As many of you know, I’ll be flying to the States next Wednesday for my sister’s wedding. I’ll be staying two weeks in order to get ready for the wedding and to spend some time visiting family and friends. So, for those who have asked, I will not be at the Pan-European Lectureships later this month. I had been looking forward to going, especially since the location has been changed to Berlin (from what I understand this year is the first time the PEL have been in Germany), but Amanda’s wedding is the same day as the beginning of the PEL. Lord willing I will be able to attend next year.

As I wrote in the previous post, the past couple of weeks haven’t been so easy for me. I determined that in the time I have left before leaving for the States, I would fill more of my time finding ways to use the talents I have to encourage and to help the Christians in the congregation. Yesterday evening I babysat three of Kirsten and Karsten’s four children. Karsten is a radiologist who this year is completing special job training in a city about three and a half hours south of Bremen, and on most weekends he takes the train home to spend time with his family. After not being able to come for a couple of weeks, he is here this weekend. When I asked Kirsten earlier in the week if there was something I could do to help her, she said it would be great if I could watch the kids so that she and Karsten could go out. So, that’s what I did.

Then this morning I babysat for Mimi and Rüdi again so they could do more work on the church building. I've tried a few times to take pictures of Rebecca and Johannes, but Rebecca usually runs away when I have my camera. For some reason today she didn't mind. Perhaps it was because she had been playing "Hochzeit" (wedding) and wanted some wedding pictures. I even got Johannes to stand next to her long enough to get him in the photo too.

As far as the remodeling on the church building is concerned, the carpet was finally laid in the meeting room on the first floor about a week ago. Last Sunday the entire congregation was able to worship together. After almost two months of splitting into two services due to lack of a space large enough for all of us, everyone seemed happy to be able to meet as one group again. Here are some pictures of Sunday’s service:

So, the main work on the building is now done. The kitchen cabinets and countertop have been installed, and I heard that a new sink will be coming sometime soon as well. The downstairs bathrooms have sinks and toilets now and finally are fully functional. There are some other small projects to be done, but the entire building is now usable. We’re all happy about that.

Wednesday this week was a big day. I studied with both Jutta and Soyoung. With Jutta I’m still working on some passages from Ecclesiastes. Soyoung this week asked about James, the brother of Jesus, so we read various passages about him and talked a little about the book of James. I will still meet weekly with Jutta after I come back from the U.S., but I think I may only have one more chance to meet with Soyoung. She’ll go back to Korea on August 10^th, and hopefully she’ll have time to study with me between the time I return from the U.S. and when she leaves Germany. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know her and will miss her. She has come a long way toward faith in God since we first started meeting back in March. She is a never-ending fountain of encouragement for me. Please pray that the Lord sends someone to water the seeds of faith Mark, Karen, and I have been able to plant in her life and that her fledgling faith may grow into something substantial and will become a permanent fixture in her life.

Also on Wednesday I met Bill McDonough, who helped establish the Bremen congregation back in the late 1960s and early 70s. He and his wife currently live in Myanmar and work with Partners in Progress, and they stopped in Bremen to visit on their way to the States for furlough. Bill gave a presentation about the work being done in Myanmar, and afterwards almost everyone stayed for a “snack” that Helga had prepared. It actually turned out to be a meal. We all had a good time chatting while we ate and, for those of us who didn’t already know Bill, getting to know him and his wife. I learn again and again how vital fellowship is to life as a Christian.

So, besides the emotional stuff I mentioned in the last post and preparing to leave for the States, that was basically my week. I hope you are doing well wherever you are and whatever you may be doing. Thank you for your continued support, concern, and prayer. I appreciate them all and wouldn't be able to function without them. Gott mit Euch!

Confessions of a tumultuous spirit

I'm sure there are those of you out there wondering why I haven't posted in two weeks. The honest answer is that it's been a rather trying time for me, both emotionally and spiritually.

Before I go any further, I have to say that I debated about whether or not to blog about this. Finally I decided that I needed to, for a couple of reasons: 1) so that you can fully understand what is happening in my life and work here and 2) so that I could get this off my chest and better process all of it. Thanks in advance for your patience with me. :)

*****

I had eagerly awaited the end of my German class a few weeks ago, but the end of the course did more than just free up hours in my schedule. Elsa was busy working on the church building, and Jim has spent the past couple of months preparing for this summer's ETM course. (Note of explanation: ETM is a Bible and spiritual training program that Jim developed. He usually offers a basic course in the fall and then an advanced course with varying topics in the spring, but this year's spring course was moved to July because of the work on the church building. He writes all the material which covers a 6-week program with one intensive week when all the participants meet together. This past week was the intensive program in Chemnitz, Germany, near the border with the Czech Republic.) Neither of them really had time to meet with me. I spent a few days helping at the church building and continued with my weekly routine of ladies' Bible class, church, and studying with Soyoung, but I started feeling really discouraged. I went from having an overwhelmingly full schedule in April to having a more manageable schedule in May and the first half of June to having almost nothing to do by the end of June.

Since I arrived in October, I've had this feeling that I have to have something to show for my time here. I have to have results to display in order to justify to all of the people who have helped me get this far, especially those who have helped me through financial means, that their sacrifices have been worth it, that they made a good investment in me. Somehow I need to feel like I'm "earning my keep." And after my German class ended, I continued with the rest of my weekly routine of attending church and ladies' Bible class on Tuesday and studying with Soyoung and Jutta, but besides those things, I felt like I wasn't doing anything. And if I'm not doing something, then I'm not earning anything.

I talked with Mark and Karen about this, and they reminded me that there are a lot of things I do that I don't always notice I'm doing. They pointed out the benefits of the babysitting I've done and assured me that if I haven't done anything else here, I've encouraged them as they've adjusted to being here. I know they've been a tremendous help and source of encouragement to me, but I guess I'd never thought about how I could be helping them as well.

They also reminded me about the progress that Soyoung has made and how she went from not knowing anything about Christianity or the Bible to coming to church twice a week and meeting with me and with the Abercrombies for two additional Bible studies each week. She has a desire to study and an insatiable curiosity that produces questions for which I don't always feel like I have adequate answers. I started to feel rather egotistical as I realized that I was almost saying that the ways in which God has let me work in these other people's lives were "not good enough" because I was complaining about not having some big project to work toward.

Elsa was really the one who helped me reach a turning point by pointing out something I had never considered. While not exact quotes, this is essentially how that conversation went:

Elsa: "How can you earn being here?"

Me: "I feel like if I had something to show, some sort of result to prove that my work here has accomplished something, then I could feel like my time has been fruitful and I've earned being here. But I don't have anything to hand to someone and say, 'Look, this is what I did in Germany.' So really, I don't feel like I CAN earn being here."

Elsa: "And why can't you earn it?"

Me: "Because I'll never have that 'result' to show. This is spiritual work, and you can't package that and show it to someone. A lot of people count baptisms to measure the effectiveness of a mission effort, but I've never agreed with that. There is more to this work than baptisms. I've said for a long time that all I want to do is plant seeds, and I may never see how or when God makes them grow. So really, I will never be able to show anything that says I've been 'successful' here. And because of that, I don't feel like I can earn it."

Elsa: "No, that's not right. [Funny look from me.] You can't earn it...because it's a gift."

Whoa. That smacked me in the head as if I'd just run into a brick wall. While I long ago realized that those who have contributed financially to this work were assisting in God's work and not to me personally, I had never considered the fact that they were giving a gift. The Abercrombies and Elsa all insisted that those who sent me here and those who support me did/do so because they know me and feel I'm here to work for the Lord. Their financial gifts are to help me do that.

While all of this was very good for me to understand, there was a still a problem: feeling like I need to earn things has some rather significant spiritual ramifications.

If I feel a need to earn physical things in this world, how can I accept the crucifixion? Christ's sacrifice was the greatest gift ever given, and there is nothing any human can ever do to deserve it. If there was, the crucifixion would have been pointless. The reason Christ had to die was to pay for the eternal life that people never CAN earn. It doesn't make sense to me that I can be a Christian who freely and gladly accepts the blood of Christ but who simultaneously feels a need to deserve, based on what things I've done, THINGS that I have and am given.

I had a feeling that my life-long perfectionism had something to do with it, and I finally uncovered the connection. For as long as I can remember, I've been, as the saying goes, "my own worst critic." I am not happy with myself unless I feel like I've done something the very best that it can be done, whether it's getting the grammar right in a German sentence or cooking dinner for friends or creating an art project. My heart tells me that no person can ever be perfect, but still my brain whispers that maybe I can be the one to accomplish that highest standard. In the midst of all the other self-evaluation I was doing over the past couple weeks, I asked myself why I feel a need to strive for perfection, and the only answer I came up with is that I'm not happy with myself. Call it low self-esteem or what you will. Whatever the terminology, there's something inside me that doesn't feel good enough unless I'm doing the very best. If others see that I'm achieving the highest level attainable, then maybe they'll think I'm worthy of whatever it is and will like me more. Hence my need to feel like I'm earning things. Perhaps this is the source of all cases of perfectionism, I don't know.

I did not like this conclusion not only because I didn't like the idea of NOT liking myself and had never thought about myself as having a problem like that, but also because I realized how arrogant it is to think that I should and can be perfect when God doesn't expect me to be. God made me human and gave me certain talents and weaknesses. Only He is perfect. If I somehow was able to achieve perfection while maintaining my humanity, then Christ's sacrifice is, once again, pointless.

I had a very long talk with God about all of this and vowed to see myself the way that God sees me: inherently far from perfect because I'm human, but special and loved by God despite that and because I was made by Him in His image. And God doesn't make mistakes.

I can't help but think that part of the reason the Lord sent me here was to work through all of this and learn more about myself. Something tells me that wouldn't have happened if I had just continued with my life in the U.S. It continues to amaze me how God makes things in life work together for the best. His ways are not always my ways, and I usually only recognize them in hindsight, but they are perfect. And that should be enough for me.