Autumn Colours & Thoughts

Sigh.  So much for my “brief, shortly following, Annual Summary”...

So instead, you get a bit of a longer, “Combined Summary”...

August was a pretty “good” month, with a fair amount of “downtime” and the brief, slightly strange experience of hosting pony rides for the Caribuni “Vater & Kind” Camp.  The weather finally decided to become “summer”, so I also spent a fair amount of time on my balcony or cycling down to the Tollensesee, trying to “figure out” what my "next stretch" here was meant to look like.

One of the Sunflower seeds we planted at Easter, actually GREW!!

Picnic with Habte, Habtom, and Zeru!

Lake-time...always good!

In some ways, this shouldn’t have been a terribly big “Deal”, because really, why would it be?!?  But when I made the initial move here last year, I somehow managed to plant in my mind that the “One Year Mark” would mean all kinds of change...

I assumed that by that time:

1. my German language skills would be “up to scruff”;
2. Because of my language acquisition I would obviously be able to get a job;
3. Getting a job would mean I wasn’t having to ask/rely on the generosity of others, to be here;
4. By getting a job and becoming able to “pay my own way”, I would no longer feel a need to “justify” what I was doing here;
5. That “what I was doing here” would of course, immediately solidify itself into a fully-developed, “5 Year Plan” for my time here...what initiatives I would help polylux e.V achieve, what steps would be needed to develop a full-blown “Boiler Room” community (a.k.a local, grass-roots “church”), etc, etc, etc...with, of course, me as a “driving force” behind it all...;

Ha! Instead, every time I asked, I simply felt God saying “Sorry, answers aren’t coming yet!”, or else, “I really am sorry, but you might as well stop asking...you’re not going to get “the Answer” this way...”.  A bit frustrating, a bit confusing...but what He DID give me was a picture of a spiral pathway, with all the steps laid out, but with no visible signs of what the steps might be/stand for.  But with the knowledge that my job was simply to continue walking this spiral path and, as I stepped on each “square” (kind of like a hop-scotch board), each step would show itself as it needed to...either as obivous, exciting, a challenge or an unexpected surprise!

This helped me to “let go” of some of my “angst”, although still not really allowing me a clear picture for my Autumn!

And, many of the things that I had thought of as possibilities, began to shrink/disappear...

• Did I need/could I take the B1 Language Certification Exam?
• I didn’t need to, but I could, but they only happen twice a year (seemingly) and cost more than I had expected...
• Without the B1, could I still get a job?
• Technically yes, but because it’s still only a base level course, my language level would still not “cope”, as daily interaction or instructions would be spoken much faster and be harder to follow...
• Could my massage qualification come into play?
• Not yet.  To work as a Massage Therapist I would need to 1) register my qualification to ensure that it could be recognised here (paperwork & money), and 2) would need the B2 Language Cerificate...(yeah, still working on B1 thank you!!) 

This all also caused a fair amount of “challenging” to my personal sense of worth and security as I began to realise, or at least began to feel, pretty useless and vulnerable.

Enter, at just the right time, a wonderful weekend “get away” to Paris and Valencia, again through the kindness of friends, to help a friend move from the UK to Valencia, followed by a quick trip to England for another friend’s wedding, a brief stop at my Aunt’s (always good for me!!), and then a week with my other wonderful friends, the Slinn’s, in Ibiza!

Notre Dame, Paris

ROAD TRIP BABY!!! (Starring Emma Rose!)

The Amazingly Wonderful Dave & Liz Slinn

Tilly & Seb showing me the wonderful Ibiza "sun"!!

I find movement really helpful for me, in processing thoughts and emotions.  Whether by going for a walk, or putting my headphones on and taking a “train, plane or automobile”, I find my thoughts tend to get “unstuck” a bit and I often find that I can pray and talk with God about things, more clearly.

While away, I began to get a lot of moments of “quit trying so hard”, “this isn’t something that you can, or should ‘make happen’” or, “you are not here to ‘do’ things ‘for’ them!! Stop trying to ‘do’ things!!  You are here to HELP, to SUPPORT, to LOVE...”

I was also able to have some good conversations with other people and began to see again, what was already happening and being done in this place!  There are so many, amazing, simple, “little” things and “big ideas” that polylux e.V are already involved in, or developing and thinking about, it began to strike me again that they already have loads of people “doing” things...and I began to gain a growing re-awareness that my role here is primarily prayer.  Praying for them, about them, with them...and also, maybe, somehow to help “grow” prayer within us as a “24-7 Prayer Community”, and hopefully eventually within the wider community on the Datzeberg as well?

About this time, a few other things began “coming up”.  Polylux e.V asked if I would like to help organise and run a Prayer Team here, next June.  I began to realise that my “helping” with Herzstuck could possibly develop, if I actually took time to think about our times together and different ways that we could possibly develop them into an actually encouraging and strengthening time for us as a Core Team, and then who knows, eventually for the wider Datzeberg community as well?  And finally, Katharina asked if I would like to help with the up-coming Prayer Weekend... Basically, a few, very “small” things, but which began to reveal a possible pattern.

The visits to England and Ibiza were great, getting to catch up with friends and family, and hear and see some really encouraging and inspiring stories, but what was almost more encouraging for me was arriving back on the Datzeberg and realising that there were things that I could ‘do’.  I could pray.  And I could try and think of ways to help prayer become easier, more natural, and deeper for the community I’ve become a part of.  And I could dream and pray and plan with God about why he wants a Prayer Team here next June, what should we be praying about for that, along with the practicalities and logistics of where people can sleep, transportation for getting around the region, etc...

Community Weekend in Prillwitz, Germany

Love listening to these guys "jam", Prillwitz, Germany

Sharing Our Stories, Herzstuck on the Community Weekend

And that pretty much brings us to today!  There are other questions going on at the moment, too, about budget and finances, private health insurance, which I’ve discovered that I apparently need if living in Germany, and the ongoing challenge of believing that I am in the right place for the right time, for me, regardless of how crazy and irresponsible it might look like to “normal” society...but I am not “normal”(as far as I can tell!).  I am chasing after a God who loves me immensely, challenges me daily, dares me to trust more deeply and live more fully than I could ever have imagined, and who promises that if I place Him first, if I choose to try and love Him as He loves me, He will never let me fall.

I’m little. He’s big.  He doesn’t necessarily make problems or difficulties “go away”, but He’s always there in the midst, and it’s amazing how He “moves” through the world and people around us! :)