10/16/17 Five weeks into our 10-week
assignment! We’re enjoying our jobs, keeping busy, and are very comfortable in
our nice apartment in the “Pink Palace” in the charming 1500-resident village of
Büsingen, Germany, on the Rhine River!
So far, I’ve worked with the regional
personnel coordinator, emailed the regional missionaries and updated spreadsheets
with their current information, helped the finance guys with a couple of small
projects, and inventoried the storage area (next, reorganizing and labeling!).
I enjoy all the projects I get, usually connecting with lots of people and
doing things I enjoy!
This German village is so interesting – it’s
unique in that it’s surrounded by Switzerland and actually has a Swiss zip code
AND a German one. All the homes in the entire village are heated by a central hot
water system powered by solar panels. And, by contrast, the grass in the field
where these panels are located is kept short simply by grazing sheep there! The village has recycling and trash collection
down to a science! Also, energy is being saved by keeping the village’s
streetlights turned off from midnight to 4 a.m..
We’ve taken long walks around the village
or toward Schaffhausen, Switzerland (less than 3.5 miles away), along the Rhine
River – it’s beautifully clear with boaters, ducks, and swans. And you can even
see fish! German and Swiss folks are very health-conscious; you’ll see people
out walking or biking from early morning to early evening.
Our second Saturday, we borrowed a car and
went to the Salvation Army Bröckenhaus
or Bröcki (second-hand stores here
are VERY nice) and found lots of bargains (even found a curling iron since I
had left mine at home!!), then drove into Schaffhausen, Switzerland, where
there was a farmer’s market happening all over town on the cobblestone streets!
There were flowers and plants and vegetables, meats and breads and cheeses — so
fun and so charming! After wandering around the town and soaking in the sunny
day, we bought lunch from a vendor – bratwursts sticking out of a paper
wrapper, accompanied by a slice of brown bread that you put a heap of mustard
to smear on your brat as you ate it!
On Sundays, we catch a ride with
missionaries to the International Church (it’s the congregation we knew from
before but, with the sale of European Nazarene College land, now they’re
meeting in the international school cafeteria in Schaffhausen). Besides most of us from the Regional Office,
there are some American/Swiss families and other ex-pats, some Germans and
Dutch folks. October’s memory verse is: Everyone
who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Romans 10:13. The kids
have been showing off with their memorization of the passage!
This month celebrates the 500-year
anniversary of Martin Luther’s reformation papers, 95 theses/questions to
challenge the Catholic Church’s beliefs and practices, defiantly nailed to the
door of the Wittenberg Castle church on October 31, 1517. While we may have
heard this information before, it seems more personal this time, to be in this
country where Protestantism started, on this particular anniversary!
There was another anniversary, on October 3
– Unification Day, when East and West Germany were reunited as one country in 1990.
German offices were closed so we borrowed a car and drove to Lucerne, Switzerland,
for the day, sharing a burger at the Holy Cow restaurant, walking their famous
Chapel Bridge, and indulging in some coffee at Starbucks!
Evenings, I cook and knit, often watching
an old movie or British drama on YouTube (while Dan is researching all the IT
work and upgrades needed here). I finished knitting a gray linen scarf and
started a pair of baby booties because one of the Syrian refugee families here
just had a little boy. The pattern needs some tweaking to fit a newborn. (One
day, Dan and I watched another pregnant refugee woman walk up and down the main
street many times; maybe she was trying to hurry things along!) Our first week
here, there was a church ladies game night that included a Swiss, an Italian, a
Brit, and some Americans) and some were interested in learning to knit. The
little booties will be an easy, quick, and practical beginner project. Good
thing there’s a variety store here called Müller that sells yarn and needles;
sometimes even the Aldi stores have them!
We’re grateful to have a washer and dryer
that’s just for our use, down in the basement of our “Pink Palace", but
they’re pretty small, so I wash more loads than at home. It’s also been pretty
easy to borrow a car a couple of times a week and get to the local German Aldi
which has a great selection of food and other things (it’s only 2 miles away
but we leave Germany, enter and leave Switzerland, then we’re back into Germany)!
We’ve had apples from New Zealand, peaches from Spain, avocados from Chile. The
Aldi even has a bakery with lots of rustic breads and pastries! We may come back
heavier unless we keep walking!
The Regional Office has a relationship with
a group of refugees/immigrants who live in the apartments purchased by the
village a couple of years ago (that used to be part of the European Nazarene
College). And that group of mostly Syrians had already blessed the Nazarenes
with a special dinner to thank them. On September 30, I made a large shepherd’s
pie and an apple cake for the dinner that the Regional Office hosted for the
local refugees. What an evening it was! Being good guests, the immigrants
brought several lovely cakes to share for dessert. At first, Dan and I were at
a disadvantage – we spoke no German or Kurdish, so we did a lot of smiling and
watching. Those who had some German and/or Arabic expertise used it with our
guests who have been in Germany between 1 and 2 years and are learning German.
The little kids were adorable! Since several of us provided food, there was
LOTS and, after the meal, the Syrians used one of their cellphones to play
music and do some traditional dances! The women watched and talked about the traditional
cakes they had made – one of these days, we might even get a cake-baking lesson
from the mama! We also shared traditional sayings/proverbs about friendship and
hospitality and sang national songs. Dan and I sang “Take Me Out to the
Ballgame”! What a privilege to experience this kind of ministry!
The next evening, Arthur and Annemarie (the
Dutch Regional Director and his church-planter wife) had us come upstairs for
dinner (to the 3rd floor of our house - we lived there last time, and now we’re
in the ground floor apartment). What a lovely evening we had; they are very
caring people, excellent hosts, and they want to connect with their staff –
even us short-timers!
As we begin our 6th week of this
assignment, several people are out of town, so the office is quieter than
usual. That will change, of course! I’ve been asked to help with an office
birthday celebration soon. More projects will come up and we expect to continue
some work over the internet after we return home.
In the meantime, I’m still gleaning
information to make the weekly bulletin for our home church! Dan also is involved, posting the bulletin on
the church internal Facebook page and keeping in touch as a church board member
while the rest of that group are continuing the interview process for a new
pastor.
We hope this not-so-brief update helps all
get a glimpse of our days here. It is such a privilege to be used here in these
ways while we have the skills needed and the blessings of good health to use
them.
Those who follow and care about us are
always in our prayers as we thank God for your prayers and support.
Blessings,
Dan & Janet
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