More projects...and BIG decisions

I seem to say this in every blog post, but it's been yet another busy week here.

I babysat 2.5-year old Johannes two mornings this week. It's been a long time since I last played in the dirt, but that's what we did for almost two hours one day, first at the playground and then in the sandbox in the backyard. Johannes had fun, and since his sister was at preschool, there were no sibling spats for me to break up. :)

Yesterday evening we had a planning meeting for the ladies' retreat that's coming up in about six weeks. Things are coming together well, and I've accepted/been given more jobs. The theme is "Your Will be Done," and one evening we're going to play a charades-type game acting out Bible stories that include prayer. I'm responsible for the stories of Gideon (Judges 6:36-40) and Daniel (Daniel 6:1-16), so I had to come up with pantomimes that show how prayer was used in each case. Last night we worked through all the scenes, making sure we could recognize the stories, and let's just say it should be very humorous when that night at the retreat comes around. I'm also going to be in one of three skits we'll be doing the first night. These skits were originally performed at a different retreat last year, and one of the young women won't be able to come in May, so I'm taking over her role.

We're also getting ready for the campaigners who will be coming in May to stay for four weeks. There's advertising and phone calls that have to be done ahead of time to ensure that there are people ready to study with the students soon after they arrive. In the middle of the advertising time, Elsa will be in California speaking at Pepperdine University's lectureships, and Mark and Karen will be in the States for their daughter's wedding, so I'm going to be doing a big part of the phone work since: 1) I'm the only other native English speaker in the congregation and 2) I did some phone work last year when Elsa lost her voice while I was making contacts for English Bible studies. When people respond to ads about the studies, we not only have to explain who the students are and what they plan to do, we also have to find out how much English and how well the caller speaks. That's not easy for a non-native speaker to do. Rüdiger has agreed to do some of the phone work (he speaks English very well), but he was hesitant about how much he was willing to commit to doing. Hopefully it will all get worked out one way or another.

I came to Bremen as a campaigner for six weeks in the summer of 2003, and I have to say it's odd to be now on this side of a campaign. In a way it feels like the transition I made from being a student worker at Harding's library to working there full-time and supervising students, some of whom were my former classmates and co-workers. It's not often in life you get to live both sides of a situation, and I pray my previous campaign experience will be useful both in making contacts and in working with the students who come this year.

Tomorrow afternoon, Elsa, Liesel, Sergej, and I will drive down to Gemünden (northwest of Frankfurt am Main) for the ETM Intensive Week. ETM officially started on the 17th, and the past two weeks have included work at home. We've been reading part of a book on personality types and doing some Bible studies looking at what Scripture says about various spiritual gifts. For now we've been concentrating on the "non-miraculous" gifts like teaching, evangelizing, and shepherding. Next week will see lectures and discussion, group work, and presentations. This week I've been trying to get myself ready to go and helped Elsa put together parts of the binders we'll be using in Gemünden.

For the entire 10 weeks of ETM we're supposed to spend 15 minutes each day in concentrated prayer and keep a prayer notebook. We're using the different elements of the Lord's Prayer as starting points and are incorporating other Scriptures as well. The goals are to strengthen our prayer lives and to learn to approach prayer from God's perspective, and it's not an easy thing to do. I've realized through this process that while I've never felt like I use prayer to provide God with a wish list of things I want Him to do for me, I still have been approaching prayer from my perspective rather than God's. I don't know how to explain that right now. I do know that I've noticed differences between my own prayers and those that I read in the Bible (David's in 1 Chronicles 17 and Hannah's in 1 Samuel 2, for example) as far as acknowledging who God is and what He's done and is doing. Beyond that recognition, I'm still working through it.

Aside from all of that, probably the biggest thing I've been doing lately is trying to figure out what step my life will take next. My 2-year commitment in Bremen officially ends in October, and my residency permit expires on December 1st. My plan has been to leave Bremen around the middle of November. I feel like I'm at a fork in the road, and unlike most forks, this one has an almost endless number of paths I could take. The two options I'm currently spending the most time weighing are: 1) going to graduate school and 2) extending my time in Bremen. There are pros and cons to each, and I'm trying to sort through them all and consider all sides. I know I can't wait too much longer to make a decision because I'll need time to prepare for whatever decision I make. I obviously would need to apply for grad school if I was going to go that route, and if I stay in Bremen I have to renew my residency permit (which apparently is possible if you can wade through the German bureaucracy again), make sure I have continued financial support, and get permission from my landlord to keep my apartment longer. As it is, I'm not the most decisive person in the world, and when it comes to big things like this I get even more paranoid about making the "wrong" decision or upsetting someone.

Please pray that I can have wisdom in making this decision. Overall I want to use my life to serve the Lord, and I know He can and will use me (as long as I let Him) no matter where I go.