A Work In Progress: Summer's a'comin! (actually, it's already here!)

Wow. Things just continue to happen!! How wonderful and strange! The past 6 weeks have been a slightly strange combination of busy and “down time”.

Our choir’s “Hamburg Tour” was a lovely day out with many of the choir members claiming it as one of their highlights of their year! We sang in three locations, two down by the Harbour and one in a local church(a number of people said they found the atmosphere of singing in the church particularly special), and all in all we had lots of fun, lots of laughter, and a good time spent together somewhere other than the Datzeberg! And I think we even managed to sound alright!!

Our "Glorious Leader", Basti Zaddach

Singing in the beautiful St. Pauli's Kirche

Our Audience...at least some people seem to have enjoyed it!

Then came another two “performances” on the Datzeberg, for the local “Balkonfest” (an amateur music contest with the stage being local balconies), for which we were the “special entertainment” and then another during the Premiere Evening of Polylux e.V’s “Die Geschichte”(The Story) project.

Ta-da!

Ralf introducing the Premiere Evening (with the Schall.platte Chor behind him...)

Ela (centre) interviewing Hasi (left) & Doreen (right) about their help with the project

First Showing!!

"Champagne Reception" afterwards

“Die Geschichte” project is a video project sharing the over-arching “God Story” of the Bible. Each clip is 3-4 minutes in length, sharing the narrative story of the Bible in simple, straight forward language. After our “Premiere”, we then released a clip each week for the next 4 weeks, following each clip with a “Campfire Evening”(Lagerfeuer Abend) each week, where people could come and discuss what they’d seen, ask any questions that might have come up, or simply discuss what they liked, disliked, etc...

These Campfire Evenings have been really special, and it’s been incredibly encouraging to see how people have responded and engaged with them. There hasn’t been “hordes” of people who have come along, but those who have have all been willing to join in the conversations and all have said that they’d like to see more of the clips and continue the evenings in the Autumn! (If you want to know more, here’s a link to a short article we wrote for the 24-7 Prayer website about it)

Lageurfeuerabend (Campfire Evening)

During this time I also had the joy of two visitors, first my Finnish friend Vilja and then my Scottish-American friend Crystal, who currently head’s up 24-7 Prayer Scotland. It was great to be able to introduce them both to my community here and to show them a little of “life on the ‘Berg”, and through Crystal’s generosity I had the additional, incredibly exciting opportunity to go see U2 in Berlin for their “Joshua Tree Tour”!!

U2 Concert - It was wet...but SO MUCH FUN!!

Showing Crystal the "neighbourhood" with the Neumann's

While Crystal was here we were also able to help the Zaddach family move house, which has been a big “prayer point” for our community for the last while. At Christmas they had been told by their landlady that they would have to move, and the since then there had been a “hunt” for a suitable home for their family of 6, in an area where there very few rental houses on the market. In the end, they found a large apartment that they felt would suit them, and they have now, finally, moved in and are beginning to “settle themselves” in their new home.

The next few weeks are mostly summer holidays for people here, with none of the “regular rhythms” of German class, Language Cafe or Choir happening, but I have agreed to house sit for the “lady with the horses” (Ute), and will be organising an evening of horse care and pony rides for a “Father & Child” camp that Caribuni is offering as part of their summer program! I think my German is now at a stage where I’ll succeed!

At the end of August I will pass my “One Year Anniversary” of having moved here (I will be posting another entry shortly reflecting overall on how that’s gone and how the future might be looking), and then will be finishing the summer with a “Road Trip” to help my friend Emma move from England to Spain, as she begins a new adventure of her own!

So as always, more things have been happening than I’ve realised! I’m beginning to hit a “stage” of feeling more and more at “home” here, although it will be interesting to see how the lack of rhythm and possible quietness of August will effect that. But, with many things to look forwards to (housesitting, Road Trip and then a visit to see the Slinn’s in September), I’m hoping that I will be able to fill my time adequately with “pro-active” activities (personal language learning, picnics with my Language Cafe friends, etc...), and am hoping that the slightly quieter rhythm will allow me time to begin uncovering some of the possibilities for the Fall...