A Work In Progress: Frances Update! (Jan/Feb. 2018)

How am I?

I’m doing well! :) Christmas and New Year’s was a lovely mix of community, friends and down time, with my friend Emma coming for a visit, myself helping out with music for the local Christmas Eve service (learning, singing and performing German carols and songs within 3 weeks! I was quite proud of myself!), and enjoying a wonderful Polylux Community Christmas meal after the service on the 24th. Emma & I were both amazed and impressed by our first German New Year’s, with just how much German’s seem to love their fireworks! We watched from my balcony for nearly 2 hours while the entire city below us exploded with colour and very loud explosions!

Polylux Christmas Meal, with Emma visiting

Our highly elegant (albeit tasty!!) Christmas Dinner!

My first REAL Christmas Tree (of my own) in 10yrs

Bailey's Hot Chocolate while we watch the New Year's fireworks

January began well with what I felt to be anticipation for the coming year, despite having recognised previously the effort and patience that would still be needed going forward. As we moved further into the month I found myself struggling a bit with various levels of frustration and anger, which I eventually realised came mostly from the ongoing challenges of seemingly having nothing of “my own” in the areas of work or projects or “accomplishments” here, which I realised suddenly was challenging me a LOT in how I define and measure personal success or value. I think this might be an ongoing theme for me going into this year, in learning how to enjoy and ‘dive in’ to things here fully, but at the same time not relying on what I do to be the expression of my own personal worth or value. In some ways, these feel like fairly obvious, commonsense things which I should, of course, be aware of and grounded in! But at the same time, I’d venture to say that we all have many unconscious, underlying thought or belief patterns which are sometimes faulty or at least slightly distorted, so I’ll show myself some grace and look forward to discovering a healthier version of myself!

The trip to Ramsgate came at a good time for me, with a few extra days spent in Guildford being able to catch-up and get perspective with friends there, before coming back to a cold but gorgeously sunny Germany!

My friend Beth and her gorgeous daughter Mary Joy

Evening Church Service at Emmaus Rd Church, Guildford

From here, I’ll be continuing with my German class at Caribuni, and although most of “my” Eritreans have now moved to other cities or neighbourhoods :( I am really enjoying the current class of Syrian ladies, who are all so eager to learn and who have great senses of humour in the learning process!!

Ava has now begun going to Kindergarten, which means that Katharina doesn’t need me quite as much for babysitting duties, but with Benaja and Elisa both in early infancy I’ll wait and see how/if I can best support those new families along their way. I have also agreed to a part-time job for Polylux e.V, doing some cleaning for them in their offices. I’m pleased to be able to do this, as their existing cleaning woman has been struggling with the work load since they moved into the new offices last May, and so I will be helping her out, as well as earning a small wage which will be helpful for day to day costs! :)

Now, looking forwards towards the Spring, I will be continuing to help Katharina and Ela with developing the community 24-1 Prayer Events (quarterly days of prayer) and working with Katharina to plan and host the 24-7 Mission Team when they come in June. I’ll be rejoining the Schall.platte Chor later this month and look forwards to whatever productions we work towards this term, and will be continuing to develop the daily processes of practicing language, understanding culture and deepening friendships.

Thank you for reading! :)