unexpected gifts

I'd like you to meet our neighbors: Mrs. Dagmar and Mr. Hans-Peter, (or "Mr. Hans-Paper" as Karsten calls him).

They show up at the back fence every few days with some new treasures to entertain our kids... a box of matchbox cars for Karsten, some souvenir necklaces for Sommer, a collection of tiny porcelain animals from travels to Thailand for Annike. During a hot week at the end of the summer he pulled this tent out of the attic and spent an hour setting it up in the yard, along with inflatable mattresses and a camping table for the inside. You can imagine how thrilling that was for small kids.

We are collecting a string of similar stories after being here for over a month. I don't know if it says more about the generosity of German culture, or the heart of beauty still found in humanity. We are meeting people here everywhere we go who find joy in recognizing our needs, and then responding to them.  

A local mother at Annike's school dropped by one day with a pair of bicycles her son had outgrown, wondering if we would like to borrow them. She had no idea that every day Karsten had been asking me if he could have his own bicycle. Our teenage babysitters and family brought us boxes of Duplo Legos and Schleich horses - pretty much the two kinds of toys my kids love playing with the most. Don't have an old blanket to picnic with? Here's one. Need bedding for your relatives? Here's some. New to the area and need tips on the best places to visit? Come over and we will share all we know. I hardly have time to identify our own needs before somebody steps in to fill them.

At the beginning of this week a group of local ladies took me to a cafe for my birthday. Some of them had only met me briefly before, and none of them had known me longer than 8 weeks, but they showed up just to make someone new feel special. This was a birthday year I had quite low expectations for, as a new person in a foreign country with parents that left recently and a husband who is busy. It was a time of tremendous blessing and fellowship for me. 

I have been a believer in Jesus Christ for most of my life, but I can hardly understand what it feels like to receive gifts of this kind of unnecessary generosity from strangers. There is something about living in a constant state of need that invites others in.

Part of practicing the discipline of living simply this year means that we don't have everything we want all the time, and that is okay. When I use the word "need", I want to be clear that we always have enough clothes to wear and enough food to eat. Yet, we are living a life here that is not overflowing with the excessive abundance we have access to at home.

It means that the littler kind of needs arise and we get to wallow in them for a while before they are filled.

It means that we lack more, both physically and relationally. But it also means we are being drawn in by others who are gifted in beautifully different and individual ways. They have gifts to use, and they are getting to use them

It means that we are getting a reverse perspective on life, being on the receiving end rather than the giving end.

And it means that we are even more immensely grateful for those small sacrifices and gifts of unmeasurable value made on our behalf.

To make it work we have to be utterly dependent on God for everything. And I keep thinking, why would I have to practice dependence on God if I could depend on my lifestyle to provide for me? ... and... How would I understand the importance of giving gifts to strangers if I have never needed to receive them myself?

Living in a state of neediness comes with a fair amount of uncertainty. It isn't comfortable. It doesn't always produce the best emotions or feelings of stability. In it, however, we are finding so many unexpected gifts.

birthday week

We are rounding the corner on "birthday week" in Germany. We now officially have an 8, 5, and 3-year-old. All growing fast. All celebrated well.

Cakes were store bought for the first time ever. This might become a tradition. They were delicious, and stressfree since I didn't have to come up with some kind of animal cake decorating design (though the kids kept asking and did not understand that buying a cake also meant Momma wasn't decorating it.) If only I can get back to a European bakery for future birthdays...

Gifts were simple, with the goal being suitcase-sized for our eventual return trip. The biggest birthday gift was a visit from my parents, who spent the week on mini-excursions with us. They did not obey the suitcase-sized-gift rule. Karsten's ukelele may make a very nice hand-me-down for little German child a few months from now.



I often dedicate a separate post to each child on their birthday. In the spirit of our motto to live simply this year, instead, here is a simple slice in time of each child and what makes him or her unique.

Annike: 8 years old (on September 19)

Is... a kind leader, often serious and reserved in new settings, but has a creative side that is bursting below the surface. She knows who she is and the things that she likes, and this year of crazy transition hasn't changed any of those things.

Loves... animals, animals, animals. Currently, she is infatuated with animals native to Germany. She is an incredible reader and speller, and loves to draw (mostly animals, of course). She is sweeter than ever while she plays with her younger siblings, and the two sisters have become quite good buddies over this past summer of having only each other as friends.

This year... she developed a joy found in being helpful, whether in the kitchen or with the laundry, or in watching her little brother. If it doesn't interupt her play time, then she loves to help!

We celebrated... with a trip to the "schwimmbad", and treats for her class at school, and cake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.


Sommer: 5 years old (on September 22)

Is... a talkative, social, bright little light in our family who remains charming and pleasant as long as she is not hungry or in some kind of discomfort (in which she decides everyone around her should also be brought down to her own miserable state.) We think she is pretty smart, but it might just be that she never stops talking, and has thus developed quite a vocabulary for a 5-year-old.

Loves... beauty in all forms, whether playing dress up or coloring pictures that use every color of the rainbow, or wearing all of her favorite sparkling accessories at the same time. She appears to also love talking, singing, or making noise of one kind or another, and there are days when she never stops.

This year... she became a better friend to those around her, including those at school, her siblings, and her mother. She can be the sweetest companion, and has come a very long way in learning to play kindly with her younger brother, who doesn't always appreciate or respect her love for having beautiful things.

We celebrated... with a trip to Alsace (France) and a ride on the carousel, and ice cream for lunch.

Karsten: 3 years old (on September 28)

Is... an even-keeled, easy-going, friendly little guy who enjoys making people laugh and having deep converstions with strangers, who are then charmed into giving him all sorts of things.

Loves... trucks and police cars that have moving parts like doors that open, and scary animals such as tyranosaurus rex and crocodiles. His imagination has recently come fully alive and the line between real and make believe is often a bit blurry in his mind. This makes for a lot of great conversation with him.

This year... he has become a care-taker with a compassionate side, wanting to protect and nurture the people he loves in his sweet little 3 year old way. He loves to "save the day" as any superhero his age should.

We celebrated... with trips to many different playgrounds in the area, and chocolate filled croissants, and cake at various times throughout the day.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this celebrating, and cake, we took explored Switzerland on some amazing day trips with my visiting parents. Lauterbrunnen (meaning "loud waterfall") must be one of the world's most beautiful valleys. Nestled in the Alps just outside of Interlaken, is a striking contrast of lush green cow pastures and steep snow-capped mountains, scattered with old Swiss architecture that adds to the charm. Here is a glimps of our train ride through Lauterbrunnen and hike around the base of the Jungfrau and neighboring mountains. It surely must have been inspiration for authors of fantasy novels, because it simply did not look real.

 

 

when things don't go as planned

We landed here in our clean and cozy home in the German border town of Weil am Rhein by such divine circumstances that I remain convinced it was not an accident. The row house in which we are living has been everything we wanted it to be, cementing plans that we dreamed up, prayed over, and tested regularly. Plans that were confirmed by a good God who knows how to light the path before us.

The narrow backyard and front of our typical row house,
lined up in community with around 20 other homes.

In a few short weeks we developed deep and growing relationships with a number of wonderful people in our proximity. We sipped tea in other backyards and carried apple crisp to the neighbors. The landlady invited me for weekly language practice over coffee, and her sweet teenage daughters have become our babysitters. Our children, who arrived with only a few tired toys, soon had an entire bedroom full of them because mere acquaintances began to shower us with generosity, passing on legos and toy trucks and horses that had been sitting in garages for a decade or more. Karsten found a new best friend in the retired train yard worker next door, who lights up when his little friend comes around. It took only these few short weeks before we began to run into people we knew ALL over town, in the grocery store, on the street corner, at the park, even in the airport. It seems too coincidental to actually be coincidence.

Relationship is everything we came to do well. Here we are, building those relationships with people from completely different backgrounds, and experiencing their gifts of love and welcome toward us. We are doing our best with what we came to do. But it isn't enough.

Life doesn't always go the way we plan it.

This chapter of our trip is about to end prematurely, and we feel a mixture of sadness and disappointment over this. The piece of the puzzle we have been missing all along is a German residency permit. We chose not to expend too much energy worrying about this before arriving because this piece sounded much simpler to obtain than so many of the other pieces that divinely fell into place (all described well here).

You already know I am going to tell you that we didn’t get it. I beat down doors looking for employment, networked my little heart out, and became best friends with the local authorities who process the applications and permission, but doors just kept slamming shut. It has been humbling indeed. Which I can thank God for, because humility is something that brings us closer to Him.

It isn’t that our plan B is so very bad. Plan B has always been to live in Switzerland instead of Germany and continue with the same heart and desires on the other side of the border. Plan B is still a beautiful plan, but it does change EVERYTHING…. from Annike’s school experience, to the language we all learn and practice, to the church community we hoped to have, to the amount of money it costs to live (ouch!), to the connection to German culture that is part of Christian’s familial heritage. The most tragic thing we feel now is that it curtails the relationships we have been building with the wonderful people we have met here.

Life is full of all kinds of disappointments to our expectations. Ours doesn't compare with some of the tragic turns I am witnessing in the lives of friends, including cancer and sickness and consequences for decisions that seem unjust. The one thing we can count on is that life will invariably NOT go as planned.

Looking at our whole story, I can't conclude that we were wrong in being led this direction, or that we have misstepped in some way, or even failed to listen at some point along the journey. Looking at our whole story, I have to conclude that this is right where God has us intentionally. Even if it wasn’t what we expected. Even if it changes everything.

In these past weeks all of our energy has gone to figuring out what is next, trying to rewrite some semblance of what will work for our family. We have been on a time line (dictated by our visas) to make a tough decision. I felt I was groping around in a darkened pitch black room, trying to catch hold of one solid idea that would work for the five of us involved in this journey. The choices were vast, each one setting off a waterfall of effects.

In a desperate moment of silence, groping for substance, I grabbed and held tight to one truth: “look for My face in the dark.” 
Quit groping around, the face of Jesus is all you need. It will shine brightly in a darkened place.

When things don't go as planned, it can feel that we have been overlooked, neglected, or forgotten. The book of 1 Thessalonians has been a special encouragement to me as it is a letter written specifically to remind a group of people that they have not been forgotten. Not only are they not forgotten, but they are remembered... for their faith, love, and endurance.

“We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, 

your labor prompted by love, 

and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

1 Thessalonians 1:3

This same book ends with a piece of invaluable wisdom about what to do when we don't know what to do next. Discerning God's will in the midst of our many daily decisions can be confusing and frustrating. Not every choice is clearly outlined in a practical way, meaning that there isn't a Bible verse telling us which house to rent, or which university to attend, or which friend to reach out to. There are days when discerning God’s will can feel murky at best. Yet, here it is, specifically addressed:

“Rejoice always, pray continually, 

give thanks in all circumstances; 

for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Friend, if you needed to hear that today too in the midst of painful indecision, or a glitch in the plans, please know that you are not forgotten, and you know what God's will is:. Rejoice. Pray. Give thanks.

In our case, it has led us to a place where we are grateful to finally have the vague outline of a decision made, even if it is not what we originally hoped for. We have around one month left living in Germany before we move to a temporary housing situation in Switzerland. We will rent another family’s home near the center of Basel for three months while they travel overseas (nearly the only thing we could find in weeks of searching!) Come January, we will be back in the same boat, trying to figure out what is next and where to live.

This is not a plan with which I am fully comfortable, as it doesn't offer me the stability or consistently I so desperately want right now. It doesn't allow me to plan very far into the future, as I am anxious to do. And it doesn't allow me to grow roots in our neighborhood. Always, I have to remember that "the plan" can't become the thing we mistakenly begin to follow. We follow after Jesus alone.

However, this plan does seem to be the best we can currently come up with. And it is covered in rejoicing, prayer, and giving thanks. So we proceed, remembering to hold our plans loosely and hold Jesus tight.

**************************

In the meantime, in between hours of emailing and searching online forums related to our above dilemmas, we have found some time for a little local exploration...

At the top of the medieval Rotteln Castle with a view from Germany into Switzerland...

Grindelwald and a glimpse of the Swiss Alps...

Enjoying a periodic dip in the Rhein River on a hot day, flowing right through the center of Basel (10 minutes or less away from us)...

Drinking from one of the numerous fountains scattered throughout the city that runs clean water 24 hours a day (an anomaly for these Californians used to skimping on water use)...

The beautiful churches, and

beautiful old walls get me every time...

living out of a suitcase

My suitcase has just been unpacked for the very first time in over a month. All five of my shirts are lined up nicely in a dresser, next to both pairs of my pants. It feels so good to be pulling the clothes out of an organized drawer rather than the mixed up jumble in my suitcase.

One of our family goals on this trip has been to “live simply”. It might be what we are seeking most in the very core of our hope for this trip. We say it over and over to each other. Back at home, the lines between needs and wants have blurred, and our lives are far from simple.

Now, after being constantly on the move for over one month of traveling around Germany, living out of 3 suitcases for our family of 5, squeezing into tiny 1-bedroom apartments or hotel rooms, living with very little convenient access to Internet, repacking everything into the limited trunk space of our car over and over and over again, I feel it is finally safe to say that we have indeed been living simply.

(Pictured below is all that we came with for the next 9 months. Most of it is car seats and children!)

And I was soooooo ready to unpack that suitcase.

Overall, it has been a good experiment. But humor me with
10 of the reasons I know we have been living out of suitcases for too long:

1. I have reached a new level of expertise at plugging up hotel showers with a plastic bag and a washcloth in order to bathe my children.

2. Among the wadded up balls of wrinkled clothing, I am choosing between a shirt with a spot on the front and a shirt that smells bad.

3. It seems almost everyday we have hot dogs for lunch and hamburgers for dinner. We think we are being creative when we mix it up and instead have hamburgers for lunch and hot dogs for dinner.

4. We have eaten at McDonalds more times in the past month than in our entire 13 years of marriage. Hamburgers, of course. Lunch or dinner, depending on how creative we are feeling.

5. My children have started calling all homes and apartments we visit “the hotel”.

6. I have begun to think of a Nutella sandwich (chocolate hazelnut cream) as a healthy snack. Better than more gummies, at least.

7. I find myself giving the sniff test to every bottle of milk I pour, because the milk has often been out of the refrigerator for far too long.

8. The pink clothes are pinker than ever. So are the whites. We will call them casualties of my husband deciding it was more convenient to launder our clothing in one full load rather than two small loads. Good thing I like pink.

9. The kids have a new hairstyle we have dubbed "car seat head".

10. Instead of asking for Nutella sandwiches, my children have begun to ask for “Hotella” on their sandwiches. It is time to be in a home.


A few days ago we moved into a simple row house with a small backyard and the tiniest little freezer you ever did see. It is clean, and modern, and has plenty of drawers for our meager amounts of clothing. We are rejoicing because it is more space than we have seen in a while. Everyone is ready to have a door to close periodically. It is good to be reminded to rejoice in the little things. It is good to unpack the suitcases.

Below is our road trip at a glance, photo journal style:

Stop A: Stuttgart.  Where I got almost no photos while we recovered from jet lag.

Stop B: Lübeck.  Where Christian's mother was raised. We visited with aunts and uncles and admired the many beautiful spires in this town surrounded entirely by canals.

Stop C: Sylt. The island where we rested for 2 weeks, visited with family, and explored the windy seashore.

Stop D: Denmark. We stayed in the section of Denmark called Fyn, but squeezed in a day trip to Copenhagen. We had the most amazing visit reconnecting with old friends who have triplet daughters that we last saw a few months after their birth - and now these girls are 11! Denmark is another beautiful country with castles and a the tales of history written over building fronts on every corner.

Stop E: Kiel. To hold some windmills, of course. And for a birthday party that reunited cousins and will long be remembered.

Stop F: Rothenburg ob der Tauber. A magnificently midieval city, with its defensive wall still in tact. Sunset was a magical time to walk the wall that runs for a mile and a half around the town center.

There was plenty of ice cream and many ornate town centers along the way...

Stop G: Basel and surrounding area. It is here we will remain for the majority of our time overseas. The suitcases will undoubtedly get packed and unpacked again, but for much shorter weekend jaunts.

Our road trip around Germany was unforgettable. The historical sights were outstanding and the scenery was beautiful, but it is the rekindled relationships that will be long remembered.

work and rest: the island of sylt

This was written some weeks ago. Since then we have had almost no internet connection, and posting this was nearly impossible. While we are now 2 or 3 weeks further into this journey, I still want to share what was on my hearts a few weeks ago, comin freshly out of a season of huge transition:


Here we sit on the island of Sylt, situated in the blustery North Sea, at the most northern point in Germany. Some of the houses with their charming reed-thatched roofs date back to the 1600s, older maybe. The characteristic rock walls are green with plants that took over centuries ago, grasses growing in all of the crevices. The air is fresh, coming from miles away off the sea, and is famous in Germany for it special properties.

It is a break that we need, coming at the end of months of planning and praying and pursuing finite details necessary to make this year of living abroad happen. And here we are! In Germany surrounded by German-speakers, and pastries, and sausages, and all kinds of pickled salads. And lovely people who are quick to practice their English skills rather than suffer my German.

I don’t know who is reading this, or your understanding of our journey thus far. I can’t remember what I have and haven’t said to whom. Today’s post is both a summary of what we are doing in Germany, and a review of the vast blessing we have felt in getting to this place with so many of our questions being confirmed, if not answered. It was as if a few months ago we were standing in a long hallway full of doorways. Slowly, after a loud amount of knocking, and perhaps some jiggling of the handles, the doors came open one by one. It has been a tedious process, but now that we are at the end of the hallway we can look back through it and see all the way to the beginning, doors left standing open.

We did everything backwards to make this trip happen, and not for a minute do I recommend this. In our case, however, it seems that the order in which we proceeded has become a part of the testimony of the trip.

My husband (Christian), has long wanted to give our family an extended experience in living abroad, creating an opportunity for the character growth and new language skills that are acquired only through being immersed in another culture. For a number of reasons that I will not go into, the timing seemed right to pursue this. In April, he applied to a single program at the University of Basel in Switzerland for a masters’ degree in public health focusing on epidemiology. Then we waited…

… except that we couldn’t wait for too long because we had to make a lot of decisions about how our summer and our future year was going to look. We had to decide to walk through some of the doorways even though we knew the main entrance wasn’t yet open. A tourist visa for an American in Europe is 90 days, but we needed a visa lasting a minimum of 9 months. To apply for extended stay, we needed the letter of acceptance in hand from the university. Thus began our somewhat backwards approach:

…Without any confirmation that this year away would be possible, Christian gave notice to quit his job.
…We purchased plane tickets.
…We traded in our car for one we could pick up and drive in Europe, establishing dates well in advance for the European Delivery program.
…We listed our California home to be rented out during our hopeful stay abroad.
These are just the big things. I haven’t mentioned any of the minor things, like the hours spent online looking for information about schools for the girls, and housing arrangements, and investigating the likelihood that Christian would actually be accepted to his program, and driving all over town to pick up copies of important documents we needed to have in place.

Three and a half weeks before our scheduled departure the acceptance letter from the University of Basel arrived in the mail. It felt almost too good to be real. Hallway Door Number 1: OPEN!

Even with a letter of acceptance to a university program in Switzerland, there was no guarantee about the ease of obtaining a longer stay visa. We spoke to several discouraging people along the way who found joy in planting seeds of doubt. The most legitimate issue with obtaining visas was going to be the timeline. We had three and a half weeks to get our visas processed before our flights out of the country, and the process standard took 8 weeks, with no way to rush service. It was literally out of our hands.

There was a strange thing happening at the Swiss Consulate in San Francisco, procurer of our visas. They were scheduled to move their offices to an entirely new building during the time of our application. Perhaps they wanted to push all of their paperwork through, or perhaps they were just being kind, but a few days before our departure we received an email saying that if we could come to San Francisco tomorrow, we could pick up our visas before the office closed for their move across town. The visas had been processed in 3 weeks. Hallway Door Number 2 (or number 35, depending on which of the many details we are counting): OPEN!

There are so many pieces to this story just like that, which I am not able to fully convey here. Another example is the great uncertainty there was around finding a solid tenant who wanted to rent our specific home at our specific price for the specific time period we wanted to be abroad. It was hard to believe when the first people who walked through the door wanted the house on those terms, and we really liked their family. We understand well the reality that upon returning home we may find our house not at all the way we left it, but that is part of the journey of surrendering our earthly possessions over in favor of treasure that lasts. There was great peace about these renters, and it felt like Hallway Door Number 25 swinging wide OPEN.

Doors have continued to open since being here in Germany. In the short weeks since we arrived, we’ve received the warmest welcome from old friends and extended family (on Christian’s German side), making it feel a little less like traveling in a foreign country and a little more like a visit with people we haven’t seen in a long time. The biggest logistical hurdles were miraculously squared away in one short afternoon, when we both registered Annike for school in a bilingual English-German Christian school, and found a furnished home to rent that far exceeded our expectations. The home is located in the perfect part of town owned by the loveliest landlady. After days, or weeks, or months of prayer over some of these larger decisions, it is like finally finding the missing puzzle pieces underneath the couch cushions. The answers fit and feel incredulously right.

Don’t mistaken me, however, and think that because we sense the great blessings in the midst of big decisions, that the process has been an easy one. The final month before our departure from California was one of the most hectic and stressful of my life. We had to deep clean our house, and pack up all of our personal belongings to leave our home spotless and maintained well for renters over the next many months. On paper this did not sound like as much work as it was in reality. On top of the many daily decisions being made, there were plenty of unforeseen hang ups. One example being only 5 days before we left when Sommer had the audacity to break her arm (aaaahhhh!!!!) resulting in hours and hours of time spent getting x-rays and waiting for doctors. She’s doing just fine now, of course. Throw in a last minute drive to San Francisco to pick up our visas, and you have a crazy mother on your hands!

What I am trying to say is that while we have had many confirmations of this particularly chosen path, it still took a lot of hard work. Following this dream did not coincide with the option of laziness. There were tasks that needed to be done, and the only way to do them was by pushing forward with our own heathy hands. Working hard, and praying harder, feels like a big part of the character being built in us through this process. Fortunately, there were plenty of blessings collected at intervals along the way to keep us persevering.

History shows us that great adventures are always prefaced by a lot of hard work. With that thought in mind, I believe it may also be the aversion to hard work that keeps us from some of our greatest adventures. Over the last many months one thing that has been hammering into my head is that I never want the fear of hard work to stand between me and something better that God might have for me.


God created human beings with this great capacity to be a part of making dreams He has given us happen. Sometimes a lot of sweat and physical labor is involved. Sometimes a lot of emotional work and changes and choices have to be chipped away. Sometimes there is an interminable amount of patience and perseverance required of us. I believe that while God does like to hand us things for free, His bigger goal in our lives is faith-building, and it doesn’t take a lot of faith to be handed something that we weren’t expecting and we never asked for.

I don’t know where this year will take us. I can’t see the future or the entire big picture for this out-of-the-ordinary sabbatical of sorts. I do know that we have been working pretty hard, and that while it is important to be willing to work, it is also important to find that divine balance between working hard and resting well. For the moment, we are thankful for the blessing of rest found here on this island in Northern Germany. Perhaps it will restore us for the work ahead.