Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Back in the Blogosphere: Part 2

As I said in the previous post, a lot has happened over the past couple weeks:

1) We had a gospel meeting on September 14th and 15th. Josef Achatz and his wife, Uschi, come twice a year to Bremen from Augsburg. Now that Josef is retired, he loves traveling to different places to preach. The invitations sent out declared that "some burning questions will be explained," and I'd agree the lessons were a bit controversial for many people here. The topics discussed were "Why does the world need Christian congregations?" and "The fullness of life is found only in Christ!?" I honestly was a little surprised at how many visitors we had. I didn't hear any official numbers, but I know the room was full both nights, and quite a few of the members of the congregation weren't there.

I was also surprised at how much I understood. When Josef was here last January, I had a really hard time deciphering his Bavarian accent. When Americans think of German sounding "harsh," they're thinking of High German, which is spoken most purely in northern Germany, with Hannover supposedly being home to the most original version of the language. In Bavaria, though, the people speak a dialect closer to Swiss German, and both Bavarian and Swiss sound to me like the speaker is trying to sing while speaking. The pronunciation is much softer, and there is a lilt to the voice that isn't present in High German. Not to mention that some words and genders of nouns are different from those in High German. For some reason, though, this time I could understand Josef, perhaps because I talked with many Swiss women at the ladies' retreat in Neckarzimmern in May. Whatever the cause, it was nice to see an improvement in my language skills.

Overall, the gospel meeting went well. Josef did an excellent job, using multiple passages from Scripture to back up each of his points. Many people asked questions afterward, and good conversations resulted. Hopefully this will be the beginning of further contact with some of the guests.

2) Rebecca, Mimi and Rüdi's 4-year old daughter whom I've babysat many times, was admitted to the hospital last Tuesday because of breathing problems. Her blood oxygen saturation levels were low, and the doctors decided she had some type of lung inflammation. They put her on an antibiotic and started doing breathing treatments several times a day.

Rüdi was not able to work for most of last week because he had to stay with 2-year old Johannes while Mimi was at the hospital with Rebecca. On Friday Karen and I took turns staying with Johannes so that Rüdi could relieve Mimi at the hospital, and that afternoon I went to the hospital with Mimi and Johannes to visit Rebecca and to watch Johannes. Rebecca's room was about twice the size of an average U.S. hospital room, and Mimi and Rebecca's roommate's mother both were able to sleep in the room on beds next to their children's, which was nice for both families. Rebecca was basically confined to the bed because of her IV line and oxygen machine, and the oxygen tube taped to her little face made her look like she had grown cat whiskers. She seemed to be in good spirits, though.

I watched Johannes again on Sunday afternoon, and when Mimi came home, she said Rebecca was doing much better and would probably be released on Monday. Today I found out that she in fact was released from the hospital yesterday and should be able to go back to Kindergarten tomorrow. We are all thankful that she seems to be feeling better.

3) On September 13th, I discovered an orangish-brown puddle under the water heater in my bathroom. When I finally was able to talk to my landlord that evening, she told me I needed to call the repairman the next morning because she was going out of town. So, I called, and he said he could not come until Monday. When he came and looked at the heater, he decided he needed to order a replacement part and would call me when it arrived.

Now, a week later, I still haven't heard anything. To understand the full impact of the situation you have to know that the heater provides hot water for the shower and sink in the bathroom as well as for the radiators in my apartment. Without it working properly, I obviously have no hot water in the bathroom and no heat for the apartment. While I'm thankful it's September and not January, it has been in the 40s and even in the 30s at night here, and my apartment gets pretty cold. Also, it's nice to be able to wash your hair every so often. Mark and Karen have been kind enough to let me stay at their apartment several days, but Mark's parents and sister arrived in town today for a visit, so they already have enough house guests. Besides, when I'm paying the rent for my apartment, I'd like to be able to actually live there.

I decided Monday that enough was enough, so I called my landlord. After a couple tries, I finally reached her son and left a message for his mom to call me. She didn't call back, so today I tried again. Still no answer at home or at her work. So, this evening I wrote a letter and put it in her mailbox. I really wasn't sure what else to do. She still hasn't gotten in touch with me, so Elsa said she will try to call tomorrow and complain for me. Hopefully, hopefully, the situation will be resolved soon. I really don't want to threaten to not pay the rent (that doesn't exactly seem like a Christ-like thing to do, in my opinion), but that's the point I'm at with the situation.

4) Jim is, as Karsten announced at church Sunday, "schwer krank" (very, very sick). It started about 2 weeks ago with a sore throat and a weak voice and has come to the point of him being hospitalized on Friday. They've done just about every test imaginable and early on decided he had pericarditis (an inflammation of the sac around the heart). Now there are tests showing he has tumors (yes, that's plural) in his liver and spots on one of his kidneys. This evening at ladies' Bible class Elsa used the word "cancer" for the first time. Elsa said last Thursday the doctors were saying the tumors looked like "secondary tumors," but they didn't know from where they had originated. I've heard the word "Darm" (intestines) tossed around the past few days, and tomorrow a colonoscopy is scheduled, so I gather that they think he might have colon cancer. (Please know that last part is conjecture on my part based on all that I'm hearing.) Elsa also said this evening that it looks like the pericarditis and tumors are unrelated, though the pericarditis has led to the discovery of the tumors, which is a blessing.

To complicate the situation further, Jim and Elsa's daughter, Diana, is expecting a baby in about 2 weeks. Elsa was supposed to go the States to help Diana and then Jim planned to come a week later. After a visit with Diana and her family, Jim and Elsa would begin their annual furlough, traveling around the U.S. visiting family and supporting congregations and individuals. All of those plans have been put on hold for now.

I don't yet know exactly how all of this with Jim is going to affect me and my work here. When Elsa told me on Thursday about the tumors, I felt numb. Since Jim has been in the hospital and tests are still being done to reach an accurate diagnosis, the numbness has been joined by overwhelmingness. I think I could better deal with the situation if we had a definitive diagnosis. If the doctors said, "He has ____," then I could begin to deal with that. But while you wait for a diagnosis, you don't know how you're supposed to feel or what direction you're supposed to take in beginning to adjust and to cope. I know Elsa is experiencing this in a way that's so much more highly magnified than any of the rest of us, and so far she seems to be holding up well.

For me, though, I think the fact that both of my grandfathers and my mom have all experienced serious health problems in the past couple of weeks, and the stress of dealing with that from a quarter of the way around the world, added to Jim's situation, has overwhelmed me. I pray and hope for healing, and I ask God for inner peace in dealing with all of it. Besides that, I'm trying to go about the parts of my routine that are separate from Jim and Elsa, and I'm seeking ways to help however and whomever I can. I don't know what else to do right now.

5) The bright spot of the past week happened last Wednesday evening. After Bible study, Katia was baptized. She apparently studied with Jim and Elsa and attended church services a couple of years ago after the last campaign group from Harding University was here, but then she began attending a Portuguese-speaking Pentecostal congregation in Hamburg with her mother. She called Jim and Elsa recently (about the same time Jim was beginning to get sick), saying she wanted to be baptized, and was able to meet with them for a couple of Bible studies. She then decided that she was sure about baptism, and plans were made for Wednesday night. Katia wanted Jim to baptize her, but he was just not feeling well enough to be there, so Elsa asked Wolfgang to do the baptism. It was the first baptism in the new baptistry, and everyone was a little worried that the water pumps might not work right, but it all turned out great. We're all thrilled to have a new sister in Christ and, since Katia has decided not to continue going to Hamburg with her mother, a new addition to the congregation. I'm sorry I don't have a picture of the actual baptism, but I do have these:




Please, please pray for all that is going on here. Pray for Katia in her new walk with Christ. Pray for Jim and his health. Pray for Elsa and strength in dealing with the situation with Jim. Pray for Diana and her anxiously-awaited baby. Pray for me and the rest of the congregation that we might be able to help the Springers through this. We covet your prayers, and I know God hears them. How He will choose to answer them, though, we're still learning.

So often we don't see God's plans until after they've unfolded. While "they" say that hindsight is 20/20, I'd still really like to have perfect vision before then. Does anyone know where I can get the "hindsight glasses" now? No? I guess I need to shop for a large portion of patience instead.

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