Sharing life

2008-08-29T19:33:00.002Z

We're off on our honeymoon! Our flight leaves tomorrow at 10.50 am to Dublin. We'll spend the next two weeks at a cosy house with a view of the Atlantic at Ireland's South-Western coast.
Have two wonderful weeks everyone!

Our church wedding

2008-08-18T16:05:00.003Z

Dear friends, finally some pictures for you to catch a glimpse of our wedding. All photos in this post are copyrighted by Ruth Fletcher.

I can hardly believe it's been almost two months since we had our church wedding! So here is the promised post, better late than never :).

Though the week before our wedding the weather had been constantly changing, out wedding day started cloudy but dry. Later it turned into beautiful wedding weather - sunny, not too warm, some clouds. In the morning my DH and I made sure to remember to take our rings off which we had been wearing since our civil wedding. During those first hours in the morning I felt slightly nervous. But as soon as I left for the hair dresser, I started to just enjoy myself. After two hours getting my hair done I finally made it to the apartment of my maid of honor where I was to get dressed.

She prepared a wonderful light lunch with cheeses, fruit, little cakes, tea, juice - everything a bride could want and also be able to eat just hours before the wedding :). My wonderful friends who especially came over from the US, Jess and Karen, met us there and then we started "to work". They did my finger nails and my make up and I am so thankful for their competent help!
Then our friend Ruth who was also our official photographer - the pictures turned out so beautiful! - arrived and I got dressed. We had so much fun putting everything together and I seriously enjoyed being the "top model" and get scores of pictures taken in my friend Ulrike's place with all her special furniture.

My brother-in-law then picked us up with out wedding car, an oldtimer Citroen DS. It was so exiting to arrive at church and meet up with my Dad and our Pastor. I can hardly remember walking up the aisle on my Dad's arm. It passed so fast! I started smiling - or better beaming - that minute and never stopped until we fell asleep at night...

Our service was awesome. We so wanted it to bring glory to God and to show that He is the foundation of our lives and our marriage. (Many of our guests do not know Christ). My friends from my German church where I found Christ performed a song for us. Our readings were done in German, French, English and Kisuaheli. We are an international church, so our services are in English, but we both are German and my DH has family in France and we have many dear friends in our church who are from Africa. The Gospel Ambassadors - as they call themselves - lead the worship and also in the end led us out of the church. It was so special having them in our wedding. Our sermon was on the main reading from Ephesians 5:21 ff. Then we had the vows and the exchange of the rings. I am not able to describe those moments properly... Afterwards our friend John performed Johnny Cash's version of "Rose of my heart". Then we had prayers for us. This was a very special moment. Our Pastor asked everyone who wanted to to come to the front, gather around us and join in prayer. And suddenly almost everyone came to the front!
We also celebrated communion and then the Gospel Ambassadors really set us in the mood for celebrating and led us outside where we had a first reception.

In the evening we celebrated in a really cosy restaurant with plenty of food, good music and lots of fun! We also had a beautiful three layer cake done by our friend Julia!

2008-07-24T18:53:00.002Z

We are still alive and doing great :). Isn't this a nice opener after almost seven weeks without a post...? I can hardly believe I haven't posted once since June 1st. Even though so much has happened during the last weeks. First I alsways thought I'll keep it for after the church wedding - and now we've been married before God for more than a month already!

I will truly post wedding pictures soon. Right now suffice to say that we had a wonderful wedding which we pray really glorified the Lord. More details for another post...

What else happened around here? For a week two amazing friends visited us all the way from the US. Seven years ago at the first wedding of one of us we promised to all attend each others weddings - and we did it! Appleton, WI in 2001 - St. Cloud, Minnesota in 2004 - Bonn, Germany in 2008! It was so special having both of them here for our church wedding, helping with last minute preparations (lots of crafting :)), them meeting my DH finally, good food, fun times, some sight seeing on the side, making sushi, having multi-lingual dinners, sharing memories and just being together! I am so thankful for their love and friendship.

I had to go back to work four days after the wedding and work keeps me really busy. Personally I feel called by God to be a home-maker and a SAHM (at last for a long time before going back to work) and I am so looking forward to it. But right now God allowed for me to be in a different place with a very different occupation. I know that His plan is good and beneficial for me and I believe that there is a reason for why I am working right now. But I do long for being home ... Howver, I realized that this longing tends to lead to dissatisfaction with where I am and a lack of motivation for what I do that I have to battle all day. Because I also desire to work as unto the Lord in everything I do - be it at home, in the workplace or wherever He places me.
Right now I am reading "The rare jewel of Christan contentment" written in the 17th century. Yesterday while reading about the mystery of contentment one statement really stood out to me:

"[...} I know nothing more effective for quieting a Christian soul and getting contentment than this, setting your heart to work in the duties of the immediate circumstances that you are now in, and taking heed of your thoughts about other conditions as a mere temptation." (Jeremiah Burroughs)

I believe my desire to be a homemaker and a SAHM to be a good desire in accordance with God's word. But it turns into a danger if it keeps me from doing God's will and giving my all for His glory where I am right now.

To cleave...

2008-06-01T15:12:00.004Z

Finally, in less than three weeks we will have our church wedding!

More than a month

2008-05-24T15:04:00.003Z

It's been over a month since my last post ... life has been busy around here :). But besides lots of work there were many fun events too. Hikes, a wedding, shopping trips with DH, beer garden visits, dinners with friends, ...

We went hiking the first of May to enjoy spring which finally arrived here. Last Thursday was also a pubic holiday in Germany, so we drove across the border into Belgium to hike, walk around Malmédy and shop at a Belgian supermarket. That's always fun because they stock many Frensh articles too. We left with a shopping cart full of wine, ice cream, coffee, hard-to-find-in-Germany vegetables, fresh mussels and 10 (!) bottles of shower soap. Our favorite brand isn't stocked in Germany, so we used the opportunity.

The pictures above are from both trips.

Contentment through small things

2008-04-19T13:30:00.004Z

I had a busy week at work while starting treatment for some health problems. So I was home quite late most evenings. I am looking forward every day to the moment when I enter our small cosy apartment, DH either busy cooking dinner or relaxing in the living-room (he enjoys cooking about as much as I do). I have a hard time adjusting to the fact that I don't have much time to be a keeper of the home during the week, even though this is what DH and I chose together.
So I definately enjoyed some baking time today using my hands, working in our nice kitchen to make our home filled with delicious smells and make DH happy who just loves cakes, cookies and sweets.
So here is the result (it's a cake consisting of many small jam rolls):

Btw I tried this recipe on Wednesday and we both loved. It's a spring version of Tabbouleh, the original recipe is a vegetarian one. We skipped the walnuts and had marinated grilled meat on the side :). Seriously try it, it tastes great.

Tonight we have a charity concert at our church. Maybe my camera might even take a video that I'll be able to post? Hopefully I'll be able to share tomorrow! I also updated my sidebar with quite a number of links to blogs I read regularly.
Have a blessed weekend.

I cannot imagine ...

2008-04-13T17:44:00.001Z

this happening on the German Idol show. Even though the guy who had least votes last night was a Christian. But a participant singing a Christian worship song? I'd love it, but I don't think it will happen.
Btw "My Jesus, my savior" is one of my favorite worship songs. And there is a German version of it!

Chicken, books and other trivia

2008-04-06T11:41:00.008Z

Of course weekends have always been cherished, but I don't think I've ever appreciated them as much as now that I work from Monday to Friday. Now I definately agree that weekends should be a day longer ... there is never enough time to do all I would like to :).
Not much happened this week, but I decided to put up at least a short post again. Some of the things I love are cooking and reading.
I especially enjoy historical fiction. Here are some recommandations of books I recently read:

Anne Perry's WWI series, consisting of five volumes (No graves as yet; Shoulder the sky; Angels in the gloom; At some disputed barricade; We shall not sleep).
The Rose of Sebastopol by Katherine McMahon (Victorian England and the Crimean War)
Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir (Lady Jane Grey)

We also tried out a funny recipe DH suggested. The pictures may look a little gross, but the result was delicious. It is an interesting way to cook chicken with beer.

Take a (large) beer can, open it and pour a little beer off into a glass. Prepare the chicken, either rubbing it with spices or a mixture of 2 TBS mustard, 2 TBS olive oil, 1 TS salt, about 1 TBS paprika spice and a dash of soy sauce. Place the chicken on the beer can, so that about a third to half of the can is inside the chicken cavity.

Put it upright in the oven at 200° C for about an hour and 15 minutes or until meat is cooked through. The chicken will be really tender and tastes great. We definately had fun trying it :).

Walk on Easter Sunday

2008-03-29T16:09:00.003Z

These are two pictures from our walk on Easter Sunday morning. After an early church service and a cozy breakfast we headed out for a walk with my in-laws. The weather around Easter was suddenly really cold with snow and rain, but on Sunday the weather was beautiful. I wanted to post something more substantial, but I have trouble concentrating as I'm sneezing and feverish... Wah!
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Food for thought over a long weekend

2008-03-20T20:28:00.002Z

We will leave tomorrow morning for a weekend with my in-laws. It's always fun and relaxing to visit them. They live a two-hour drive to the north-east from here. For those from Germany or interested in German geography: my in-laws live in Paderborn :).

But as for once I have a little time to blog, I thought I'd put up another post and leave you with a few quotes I came across while reading about Holy Week and Christ' sufferings on our behalf. The quotes are from Frederick S. Leahy's The Cross He bore. Have a blessed Easter, everyone!

"As we meditate on Christ's prayerful submission in Gethsemane, we should realize that there, as Philip E. Hughes puts it, "we see him enduring our hell so that we may be set free to enter his heaven". And so at unspeakable cost he drank "the cup" to the very last drop. [...] Now he gives to his people the cup of salvation (Psalm 116:13). These two cups, one so bitter, the other so sweet, stand side by side: the one cup necessitated the other. One cup was emptied that the other might be filled to overflowing. The first cup guaranteed the second. Both cups are precious and bear the hallmark of sovereign grace."

[Christ] never doubet the holy decree by which he came into the world to save sinners. And so the darker the night, the greater the storm and fiercer the conflict, the more he reached out to his Father and rested in his sovereign will.

A reminder during Holy Week

2008-03-18T19:08:00.001Z

If Ephesians teaches me to imitate Christ, why do I look so much like the world? If I examine my daily life, I am afraid of the answer. Do people see Jesus when they look at me, what I say, what I do, how I (re)act? It is my daily prayer that they do, but I fail in many ways every day. But I know that Jesus died to atone for my sin and to carry my weakness. His strength is made perfect in my weakness. Whatever little service and obedience I offer, God accepts it because of His son Jesus Christ and His perfect rigtheousness. He uses my humble attempts for His glory. And He looks at my heart.
I wanna be like my Jesus! Oh so much more than I can you here through words on this blog. That people may catch a glimpse of His love, mercy, patience, forgiveness, compassion through my life and through His dealings with me.

Whose priorities do you follow?

2008-03-16T17:45:00.002Z

As many of you know I recently started working full-time. It is an exiting though time- and energyconsuming job. First let me say that I do enjoy my job. However, working outside our home does not - as I knew before - make things easier. My DH and I both agreed that I would work too until we are blessed with children. Therefore we are both away during most of the day and decided to share many home responsibilities. Now I am truly blessed to have a wonderful DH who is a great cook and does not mind household chores at all. Still I believe that taking care of our home is first and foremost my job. I am the wife. The Bible teaches us that wives are to be helpers of their husbands and keepers of the home. Now how that is spelled out in detail may look different for every couples, but this does not change the basics. For this reason it is important to me to find enough time to spend time with my DH and then to clean, cook or make our home a warm, comfortable and relaxing place. At the same time I am so thankful for the wonderful, hard-working and caring husband God gave me.

If I shared this at work, I think most people would be rather surprised at my thoughts. Working really puts you into a career-oriented place, even if you did not expect it in that particular area of work. Many people assume that of course you want to pursue a career, put all your energies into your job and hire helpers, nurses, maids etc. for the "rest". The top priorities are or at least seem to be career and self-fulfillment. It is very easy to adopt those priorities if you are surrounded by them all the time and if they are "preached" to you by your co-workers.
These priorities, however, are not God's priorities. Personally, I believe that the Bible teaches us different values. My life is first about glorifying God and enjoying Him. Then comes my relationship with my husband and my "job" as a wife. I pray that God will help me to keep His commands in my heart and my feet on His way.

Stan Rogers Barrett's Privateers

2008-03-02T09:51:00.001Z

I just had to share this with you. Stan Rogers, a late Folk singer from Canada, is one of my favorite singers. I love Folk music.
The first time I heard this song was while studying a semester in Oslo, Norway. I went to an acapella concert (Atlantic chant) where a group of men sang this song. It's been a favorite since then. Enjoy!

Impressions from our last weekend

2008-03-02T09:15:00.003Z

There is the idea of a longer post brewing in my head, but to prove that I'm still alive and blogging here are some pictures of our last hike (up on a basalt hill):

A few of my favorite things

2008-02-09T10:58:00.000Z

I'm sorry that blogging has been scarce around here for the last two weeks. I started a new job and it keeps me really busy. But I promise to keep blogging :).
Today my head feels rather empty and I don't have much to say, so I thought I'd keep my promise to Hannah and show a few of my favorite decorations around our apartment. My DH is at least as interested in decorating as I am and he comes up with the best finds. Decorating really does not have to be expensive. You just need to keep your eyes open and have a little imagination :).
So lets go on a little tour:
The piano is the newest addition to our "furniture". It is my grandma's and quite old. I am so glad to be able to play the piano again, although I'm quite out of practice.

On the piano (and on the wall next to my side of the bed) we keep old family pictures. I love family history and I love these photos. I bought some of the frames on the flea market. They are really antique and I think they set the pictures of nicely. The big silver frame however is from Ikea and one of the other from Target (I brought it from the US). This frame here (from the fleamarket) holds the place card of my great-great-grandmother on her silver wedding. The writing says "Silberbraut" which means silver bride.

This is a picture of our kitchen table. One of my favorites is the green wooden tray with the apples. We found it in an antique store and my DH gave it to me for my last birthday. We found the old glas bottle with the label on a flea market for less than a dollar.

Here is another picture of our kitchen. The old scales on the window sill were given to my DH by his aunt who did not need them anymore. We use it to hold fresh herbs or plants.

This lamp is in our hallway. DH found it on Ebay. It looks beautiful when the lights are on.

Sunday school memories

2008-01-27T17:11:00.000Z

Tonight at our young adults Bible study, we will discuss John 10:11-21. What is Jesus teaching us through the image of Him as our shepherd? I'm exited for the meeting, they're almost always very inspiring. It's a very diverse group with members from Germany, Romania, Sweden, the US, Panama and several African countries.

However, when I prepared the study questions for tonight, it also transported me back in time to the early 1980s. At that time we were living in Norway. One of my favorite things then (I was about 6 years old) was going to Sunday school. It was not the typical Sunday school before or during a service, but a class for children led by a Salvation Army officer on a weekday. I remember singing songs, coloring pictures and especially many, many stories on a felt board. So many Bible stories stuck in my head thanks to this board and the kind, funny female officer who told them. This is where my faith journey began. Sometimes we received little pictures of Bible characters and of Jesus. My favorite always was the Good Shepherd. I still keep four of them in my hymnal. I thought I'd share one of them:

Hiking along the limes

2008-01-19T15:22:00.000Z

On the last Sunday of 2007 my DH and I decided to go on another of our hikes. As you can gather from the pictures, we don't mind hiking in not-so-perfect weather...
This time my DH picked a hike along the Limes. The limes dates back to the time when the Roman Empire was strong and stretched over huge parts of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The Romans fought hard to occupy the areas of the Germanic tribes living in what is now Northrhine-Westfalia. The Limes was the border between the Roman areas and the Germanic tribes. It consisted of palisades and watchtowers. Here are some impressions from our trip:

The spot of a former watch-tower.

The woodpile of a charcoal burner.

An old border marker.

Focus on the cross

2008-01-18T15:38:00.000Z

This year I am following a scripture reading plan together with a friend. We will read through the New Testament in a year. I've done Bible in one year before, but now I am looking forward to less verses a day. I hope this will allow me to focus more on what I read than to just trying to get through with the amount for one day. I know though that this is a question of my heart and attitude.
One thing I especially want to focus on while reading. In going through every book of the NT I want to keep my focus on the cross of Christ and His atoning, substitutionary sacrifice. Last year God has really begun to open my heart and my mind more and given me a desire to understand more and more what happened through Christ's death and resurrection, what the meaning is and why it happened the way it happened. This is truly an amazing, heart-wrenching, awe-inspiring journey. I am exited for its continuing this year.

The first four months we read the gospel, not one gospel after the other, but the relating parts of all of them together. And the cross appeared on one of the first days:

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life. (John 3:14-15)

Jesus refers to an event during Israel's Exodus out of slavery in Egypt (Numbers 21:4-9). The Israelites were wandering through the desert and soon they forgot what God had done for them. So they started complaining against God thereby showing the rebelliousness of their hearts. So God sent poisenous snakes among them, an instant punishment of their rebellion and sin against Him. But when the people recognized their sin and asked Moses to pray for them, God provided a way out. Following God's instructions Moses made a bronze snake, put it on a pole and liftet it up. God had decreed that anyone suffering from the deadly bites who looked to the bronze snake should be healed and live.
Just like the Israelites we are lost in sin and rebellion against God. Ignoring our just as deadly condition we continue on a path which will lead to judgment and death - unless we look up to God's sign for all the people, God's sign for us: Jesus Christ crucified. Through his death we are safed from the reign of sin and may have eternal life. This, however, needs an action on our part. Just as healing came to the Israelites only if they turned their heads and decided to look upon that snake, salvation through Christ comes only if we look to Him in faith and trust.

A heavy heart

2008-01-10T17:06:00.000Z

-- edited in the last paragraph --

From my last posts it can hardly be told that my heart has been heavy lately once in a while. But what is the point of a blog if it only shows happy or cheerful moments and smiles. I am usually joyful and content, but not always and not right now while writing this.
Two years ago a friend was shot twice on a street after leaving the house of his girlfriend, lured out by a fake call that she was injured and in hospital. His murderers are a former aquaintance of the girl who never got over the fact that she dated another and one of his collegues, both former members of the armed forces. My friend died after a week in hospital. We had known each other from early childhood, my father and his father were school exchange friends. Every vacation is France we hung out together and were good friends. One summer 14 years ago it was more than friendship for several months and then we stayed friends. The trial of his murderers started two days ago. I can still hardly understand that he is not there anymore.

I just started thinking about the question if I too have to forgive his murderers. I mean they did not commit a sin which affected me directly. But the implications and the hurt affect me. I think we are called to forgive in situations like this too. But it is easier to think that we are able to forgive people who hurt us badly because we belong to Christ who calls us to forgiveness than to actually forgive a person when it happens. I have to carry this struggle to Christ who understands all our trials.

Things to eat before you die

2008-01-10T08:32:00.000Z

While browsing through one food blog after another I came across a Guide to the Globe - Things to eat before you die at the Traveler's Lunchbox. This list includes 1665 items (foods and dishes at restaurants) although some items are named several times as the list is made up by many different bloggers. I have always loved to eat and to try new kinds of food, so I thought I'll try and check how many foods on this list I've tried already (can you tell I'm lazy today?):

11. butter and garlic (love them, love them, love them!) 12. Cheese 13. Sushi 15. Foie gras (French goose liver paté, mentioned often in the list) and escargot (snails) 36. Deep-fried alligator (in Baton Rouge) 43. anything with cinnamon or lemon 45. Blueberries picked and eaten directly from the bush (as a child in Norway) 49. Cheesecake Factory Cheesecake (all by myself underneath the Hancock building in Chicago) 78. Muffaletta (mine wasn't from Central groceries but at Napoleon's in New Orleans) 83. venison 85. Fried Okra /squash / eggplant 87. Spanish tapas 88. Fresh porcini 90. Wild salmon 91. Italy 92. France 93. Spain 103. Fresh raspberries straight from the bush, still warm from the sunshine 106. Mussels 124. Freshly made chocolate mousse 126. Bouillabaisse 127. Wild Strawberries 141. Morrocan Couscous 144. Flammkuchen 159. Real bread 177. Beignets from Café de Monde, New Orleans 181. a raw oyster, just opened and slurped from the shell 198. Corn on the cob 199. Artichoke 216. Squeaky Wisconsin Cheese Curds 217. Fresh figs 240. Parmigiano Reggiano 261. Picking the bits off a chicken carcass 265. Any meal with friends 274. Champagne 275. Daim candy from Sweden 281. Seafood Gumbo 295. Apple Cider 311. Brunch 322. Reindeer 323. Prosciutto 324. Crème brulée 329. real French bread 343. Fried zucchini 346. Rösti 348. A slice of "Zopf" covered with butter and honey 349. An apple fresh off the tree 354. Chocolate gelato 356. Tapenade (Black Olive paste) 359. Pesto 360. Pralines (Belgian!!) 371. Trattoria/ristorante-style pizza from Italy 372. German-style roast pork knuckle (of course :)) 379. Belgian Frites from the streets (in Antwerp) 384. Fresh Croissant 386. Blini 398. A good 10+ year old red wine (so good!) 404. lamb chops 405. Lind dark chocolate 408. Italian wood fired oven pizza 409. Pork goulash with dumplings, Pilsner Urquell 410. Beef in stout with dumplings, Guiness extra stout (although I'd give my Guiness to DH) 428. roast rabbit 429. BBQ chicken pizza 433. Impromptu picnic in France after exploring the local market 434. Beef carpaccio 443. salt potatoes 487. Chocolate fondant 522. sausage and mash on a cold day 568. Germknödel 579. Pasta 585. A glass of Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise 588. Heaps of pancakes flooded in maple syrup 624. Stuffed grape leaves 642. Croissant bread pudding 657. Guacamole 738. Good Belgian beer 741. Fried plantain 748. Prosciutto di Parma 750. Nutella (this one made me chuckle, Nutella is a German chocolate nut spread) 759. An American Thangsgiving dinner 779. S'mores 780. Pears and raspberries 799. Profiteroles 813. Extra virgin olive oil 826. A bowl of onion soup, a loaf of bread and a glass of red wine 838. Fruit sorbet 853. Gazpacho 854. Tiramisu 860. Crepes 872. sharing an éclaire au chocolat with your sweetie (though not in Paris but in Southern France) 890. Banana pudding 971. a serious pecorino cheese 988. a roast chicken dinner 1005. Cantaloupe from Provence 1025. a tart, crisp, fresh, bright green Granny Smith apple 1038. Ratatouille 1048. Fresh Norwegian Shrimp caught that morning 1071. Un moelleux au chocolat 1072. Brioche 1078. Italian Antipasti 1086. a juicy apple strudel 1087. golden-brown Wiener Schnitzel 1088. Dampfnudeln with lots of hot vanilla sauce 1134. A really good made-from-scratch cake 1152. Hummus 1153. Avocado 1154. Tea 1158. Beer in Munich 1168. Octopus 1178. Sushi Nigiri 1179. Roasted red bell peppers 1183. Black Forest Gateau anywhere in Germany

- to be continued -

How to not minimize computer time...

2008-01-09T12:54:00.000Z

It's not that I absolutely have to spend less time on the computer. But I know that as soon as I will start my new job (sometime in the next three weeks - pleeease), I will definately have less time for blogging and keeping up with all the blogs I read and researching family history and digital scrapbooking and all those other (computer non-related) activites, if I don't want to spend every evening in front of the screen for hours.
Therefore maybe it is not the best idea to suddenly start exploring the exiting world of --- foodblogs! I love food and I love reading about food and pictures of food and I love to cook and to eat. My cookbook collection is ever growing and my DH is always alarmed when I mention a trip to that awesome cookbook store in Cologne. He warned me that new cookbooks are only allowed with new shelves to house them and we do not have any more shelve space. (But he gave me a cookbook as a Christmas present nevertheless!)

So here a some links to foodblogs I enjoyed and I'll add a food blogroll soon:

101 Cookbooks
Chocolate and Zucchini
Whipped
Nordljus (beautiful pictures)
La popotte de Manue (in French)

Family history

2008-01-05T18:01:00.000Z

I have always had an interest in old things: books, diaries, photo albums, furniture. Recently I started compiling information on my maternal ancestors. It has been a long-time plan of mine to put together a family history scrapbook.
We have quite a lot of information about my ancestors on my maternal grandmother's side. Fortunately these birth and marriage certificats dating back to about 1700 - which had to be compiled under the Nazi regime - did not get lost during WWII. Most documents and pictures from my maternal grandfather's family however got left behind when his parents fled Breslau in now Polish Silesia.
Therefore I was really exited yesterday when a recently discovered relative from that part of the family (his grandfather and my great-grandfather were brothers) emailed my the results from his several years of hunting for family information: a family tree dating back to 1703. (I just found out that I have relatives in the Church of Latter Day Saints in Utah.)

I wonder if I still have some distant relatives living in Poland. I know that it is was not easy living in Poland after WWII if you were of German descent. The high school I went to had a boarding school for boys from German Polish and German Russian families who emigrated to Germany. They hardly spoke any German which they told us was due to the fact that for a long time in Poland it was not allowed to speak German openly. They could only speak it in secret in their homes.
On my list of things to do a trip to Poland ranks rather high. Silesia is said to be beautiful and it will be extra special to visit knowing that part of family has lived there for centuries.

Favorite books of 2007

2007-12-31T14:12:00.000Z

I have always loved reading and even though I have a lot less time for it than I used to, I still read lots (ask my husband :)). So in 2007 I read quite a number of books and now decided to come up with a list of favorites.
I think I mainly read Christian books this year, so here are my top 3:

C.J. Mahaney, Living the cross-centered life (this is an awesome book; if you haven't read it yet, you absolutely have to in 2008!)
Jerry Bridges, Discipline of Grace (I almost twice through, still some pages left to read and mark)
Jim Andrews, Polishing God's momuments - Pillars of hope for punishing times (I believe it is so important to think about how to deal with trials and hard times before they hit us; I can highly recommend this book)

It's harder to come up with a ranking for non-Christian books, I don't remember all the ones I read in 2007, so here is just a list of three which I liked:

Allison Weir, Innocent Traitor (historical fiction; an account of the life of Lady Jane Grey; this was the best fiction I read in 2007)
Philippa Gregory, The Boleyn inheritance (historial fiction; this is no. 3 in a whole series about Tudor England; all of them are great)
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

New Year breakfast food

2007-12-31T13:05:00.000Z

Since we lived in Norway, one dish has always been part of the New Year's breakfast at my parents' home: Norwegian pickled herring. Now that my DH and I try to make our own traditions and memories, it is still part of breakfast on January 1st.
It tasts great and is really easy to make, so here is the recipe for all of you:

1 onion
1 cup red wine
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
100 g white sugar
1 teaspoon peppercorns
3 bay leaves
5 whole cloves
1 package of herring

Cut the onion into slices. Put it into a pot and add all other ingredients save the herring. Bring to a boil and then let it cool. Cut the herring into pieces, put into a storage bowl, pour the cooled sauce over the herring and keep it in a cool place for 2-3 days. (Although this year I'm only preparing it one day in advance - it will taste anyway :)).

Have a joyful New Year's Eve today!

German Winter Fun

2007-12-29T13:09:00.000Z

About two weeks ago we invited some friends over for a Feuerzangenbowle. I just found out that our friends Katie and John videotaped part of it - actually the most "important" part of lighting a cone of processed sugar soaked in rum over the warm wine, juice and spices.
As the flames are really pretty, I thought I'd share the video here too. And if you are interested in the viewpoint of our friends from the US on the whole experience - and life in Germany - just go to their blog and have fun.

Christmas memories

2007-12-22T11:54:00.000Z

One year ago my beloved DH asked me to be his wife :).

German and French Christmas decorations

2007-12-22T11:36:00.000Z

I could not resist sharing a few more Christmas decorations with you. I just took them out of the cupboard today, now that Christmas Eve is so close.
First, these are two very traditional German Christmas decorations from the Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge in German): the angel and the miner. They always go together. Later today I will put candles in the holders on their hands and we will light them when we have our Christmas celebration.

And this is our nativity scene which I put up today. These little figurines are from the French region of "Provence" which is in Southern France. They are called Santons. I've been collecting them for a while and really like them. A little different than the typical nativity, but not too much :).

Our first Christmas tree

2007-12-16T19:45:00.000Z

This is our first Christmas as a married couple living together. How many first times to experience! Both of us are from families who put up the Christmas tree on the evening of the 23rd - it is German custom to do it either that evening or on the morning of the 24th of December. We, however, decided to put up our tree early this year! So last Sunday (2nd of Advent) we jumped in the car, drove around and actually bought a tree from a farmer a few miles from our place. Btw our tree is a real tree, of course!
After cutting part of the trunk off and fighting with the tree holder (or whatever the right English word is) we decorated our tree together while watching a Brian Setzer Christmas concert DVD - which was a compromise between listening to a Christmas CD or to other CDs :).
Isn't it interesting to start new traditions when you start your own family? Adopting one or the other, a mix or something new and all your own? The decoration on our tree is a mix of both our family's traditions. Fortunately our tastes are rather similar - and we both like only old-fashioned tinsel. So now every day when it starts getting dark we enjoy the lights on our tree as we sit in our livingroom! Here are a few more glimpses of our tree:

Two-day trip to Austria

2007-12-09T17:38:00.000Z

Thursday morning my DH and I left for a two-day trip to Graz, the main city of Styria, Austria's South-Eastern province. It's a small quaint city and its old part of town is part of the World Cultural Heritage. I am actually a PhD student there, although I'm hardly ever in Graz. Fortunately I can work on my PhD here in Germany. But now I had to arrange some burocratic things, so we turned it into a trip. But these official duties took only about 20 minutes which left us lots of time to enjoy the city.
The weather on Thursday was beautiful. So we decided to hike up the castle hill and visit the Bell Tower and the Clock Tower. We also spent some time on the terrasse of a small café up on the hillside with a beautiful view of the city. We stayed up there until sunset and enjoyed watching the city with all the Christmas lights on. Then my DH and I strolled through the Christmas markets and looked for some Styrian food for dinner. Styria is especially famous for pumpkin seed oil btw.

The next day we visited the world's largest collection of old weapons. It was really interesting. The most amazing was a jousting armor for - a horse!

Christmas meme

2007-12-09T12:40:00.000Z

Mrs. Darling posted her own Christmas meme on her blog. So here are my answers:

1. What is your favorite Christmas carol: Ich steh an Deiner Krippen hier (I am standing at your manger) by Paul Gerhardt who wrote many German Protestant hymns.

2. What is your favorite secular Christmas song? Spontaneously "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas". It hardly ever snows here on Christmas...

3. What is your favorite Christmas movie? The Muppet Christmas Carol

4. What is your favorite Christmas memory growing up? Christmas in Norway with lots of snow and looking at picture books while sitting in a nook behind the Christmas tree.

5. Do you shop early or a you a late shopper? I want to shop early, but then suddenly it's only two weeks until Christmas... WAH!

6. Is your tree real or artificial? Real of course!

7. Do you still put tinsel on your tree? Yes, but only silver tinsel.

8. Do you read the Christmas story every year on Christmas day? I read it on Christmas Eve, but by myself. At our home we did not have this as a tradition. I hope to do this differently in my on family.

9. Would you consider yourself to be a grinch? I have to admit that I never watched the movie or read the book...

10. Are you more like Scrooge or Father Christmas? Father Christmas, I think.

11. Do you make homemade gifts for friends and family? Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't.

12. What was the worst Christmas present you ever received? I don't remember although I'm sure something would qualify...

13. What was your favorite Christmas present ever? The engagement ring I received last year :).

And I'll skip no. 14 because I don't have any kids. So feel tagged everyone and if you do the meme, leave a comment please. I'm looking forward to your answers!

Advent season

2007-11-29T08:33:00.000Z

Now the month of November is almost gone and December is at the door. The season of Advent will begin this weekend, a season of darkness and increasing light, a season of waiting and preparing ourselves for the birth of our Savior. Did you know that in all four gospels Christ is called the Savior only twice? The first time He is announced as the Savior by the angel who appeared to the shepherds (Luke 2:10). Savior - what a wonderful word!
We always have an advent wreath which by the lightening of more candles each Sunday points us to the arrival of Christ, our light in the darkness of this world.
This is the first advent in a long time where I only work 9 hrs. a week, but there is so much to do before I start a full-time job in January... Still I want to keep myself focused on what Advent and Christmas are really about, to keep it introspective and directed towards the good news the angel proclaimed on Christmas.
We just started decorating our place, so here are two peeks for you:

Reformation day treat

2007-11-09T17:40:00.000Z

Ligonier Ministries had a special offer on Refomation day. They sold the Reformation Study Bible for a reduced price. I've been thinking about ordering it for a while now and so I just couldn't resist... It arrived on Wednesday and I am really exited.

Although I sometimes wonder what exactly is the attraction of a new Bible. The Word of God does not change. God remains the same - yesterday, today and forever. The same is true for His word. That is so comforting! Maybe the attraction is the pristine pages. No hand-written notes yet, no colored line next to verses ... A new look at familiar passages and stories. Also new study notes at the bottom of the pages and new articles about special topics. Can you tell I'm exited?

Btw in the background on our coffee table you can see a little fall decoration I put together. I love fall :).

Reformation Day

2007-10-31T20:15:00.001Z

Today is Reformation Day celebrating the day on which Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis on the door of the main church at Wittenberg. From this starting point of the reformation events lead to the council at Worms with the famous words "Hier steh ich nun, ich kann nicht anders" (Here I stand, I can do no other) and then to the translation of the Latin Bible into German during the protective imprisonment of Luther at the Wartburg.
I visited the Wartburg and also Wittenberg as well as some other places connected with Martin Luther in 1996, 450 years after his death. It was really interesting and impressive.
The hymn during this video is Luther's "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott". At my first service at my church during my six months in Oslo as well as in my church here in Bonn we sang this song - in English. Which is always a little strange to me as a German, but really great.
Have a blessed Reformation Day!

Some reflections on Eve

2007-10-07T13:39:00.000Z

Eve, the first woman. She seems like a natural starting point for a Christian woman who wants to understand more about God's intention for her, more about what it means to be a woman.
I am currently studying the women of the Bible with a wonderful friend of mine. We're reading and working through "The remarkable women of the Bible" by Elizabeth George. And of course the first chapter was all about Eve - the first to experience so many things which are integral parts of most women's life (being a wife, a mother, experiencing the pain of childbirth and the agonizing pain of loosing a child). She had to figure out the same things we sometimes struggle with: her relationship with God and her relationship with her husband. What does it mean to be a woman and a wife?

Here are some of the things which stood out to me while pondering Eve's story:
It is good to be a woman. God created woman with a special purpose. She was necessary for creation to be finished. God first created the animals and the man. Then He declared

"It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." (Genesis 2:18).

The suitable helper was the woman. Only after having created the woman too, God pronounced creation "very good" (Genesis 1:31).
Woman is created for the man. She complemets him in ways no other created being and no other thing can. The special bond between man and woman, I think, is expressed through the fact that God did not create the woman from dust as He created the man, but He created her out of the man's rib. Man and woman belong together.

Woman is created to be a help meet. As a wife she is to be a help to her husband. The Hebrew word for help meet is "ezer" which means help. It derives from the verb azar which means to surround, to help and to protect. The same verb is used for God's help in several verses throughout the Bible, e.g. Deuteronomy 33:29 or Psalm 115:9-11. Therefore a wife is called to support her husband, to complement him and to be a help to him. According to the meaning of the verb azor, this help is strong and active, an image we also get from the woman of Proverbs 31. But at the same time it is clear, I think, that all her activity should not be directed at her own advancement or success, but at the man's (and that of them together and their family). A wife is called to support her husband, not herself alone.
In this context E. George mentions a verse from the NT.

"The man is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of man" (I Cor 11:7).

To be truly honest, this is a verse I'm struggling with. Not that I dislike its implications per se, but I do not understand the meaning of this verse very well. What does it mean that the woman is the glory of the man? Does it mean that her behaviour reflects on her husband? Does it have implications for how she is to treat her husband in public? To be respectful to him and not to belittle him in front of others (that's definately not glorifying your husband)?

God also issues the creation mandates. Man and woman are called to be fruitful and to subdue the earth. After the fall part of the punishment for Adam and Eve - which we still suffer today - is connected with these mandates and their specific roles. The pain of childbirth is greatly increased due to the fall (Genesis 3:16). But God was faithful and helped Eve through the births of her sons (Genesis 4:1). This is another lesson we can learn from Eve. No matter how grivous our sin, God is faithful and deals faithfully with us according to His word.

German onion pie

2007-09-27T16:17:00.000Z

This is a very typical German dish. It is eaten mainly during the early months of fall and accompanied with a very young white wine which is still fermenting in the bottle (Federweißer).
I prepared this recipe lately for our friends Katie and John from the US and I thought I'd share it with you.

Preheat oven to 425°F. First you prepare a dough similar to a pizza dough. You need

500 g flour
one 42 g lump/block/cake of yeast
1/4 litre (250 ml) milk
110 g butter
salt

First you dissolve the yeast in some lukewarm milk. If you use a kitchen aid or a Bosch MUM you add all the ingredients safe the rest of the milk and let the machine prepare the dough. Add the milk little by little, so that the dough does not turn too sticky. Let the dough rise.

Afterwards spread the dough on a baking sheet.

Now prepare the toppings. You need
200 g cubed bacon
75 g butter
appr. 1.2 kg Spanish onions (others will do to I guess) in stripes
300 g sour cream
3 eggs
1 TS caraway seeds
1 TS grounded caraway
salt & pepper.

Fry the bacon in the butter on medium heat. Add the onions, the caraway seeds and pepper. Then pour in half of the sour cream. Simmer until the onions are soft. Let cool.

Mix the rest of the sour cream with the eggs, season with ground caraway and then add to the onions.
Spread this on top of the dough.

Put into the oven and let it bake for about 40 minutes.

Enjoy!

Mini-moon

2007-09-15T11:56:00.000Z

I thought I'd share some more pictures. A week after our wedding we left for a weekend get-away to Leipzig as a mini-honeymoon (or as our friend called it a "mini-moon"). We spent three days in Leipzig which is situated in the Eastern part of Germany (which was the GDR until 1990).
My DH's father was born there as was my grandma, so there is quite some family history attached to that city. Fortunately the weather was great. We spend hours walking around different parts of Leipzig and sitting in nice little pubs. Some of the sights we did include the Thomaskirche (the church were Johann Sebastian Bach, the composer, worked and is buried), Nicolaikirche (where they had the important and famous prayer meetings connected with the Monday demonstrations which led to the downfall of communism in the GDR), the Stasi museum (Stasi was the secret service in the FDR spying on the citizens), the German Administrative Court and the Völkerschlachtdenkmal (a monument commemorating the battle at Leipzig which the Allies won against the invading French emperor Napoleon I in 1813).

Nice surprises and lots of cooking

2007-09-08T15:55:00.000Z

This week was filled with nice surprises. I received several packages with the mail, two on Monday and one on Friday. The first two contained books (have I told you already that I love books..?), R.C. Sproul's Knowing Scripture and Real.Life.Scrapbooking by Rebecca Cooper.
Then on Friday I received some new scrapbooking supplies. I especially love the chipboard mini monos by Basic Gray and the Photo Cube Kit from Making Memories. For the first time I also ordered lots of different patterned papers. I'm exited for keeping some memories with them :).

I also cooked lots this week. Almost every day we cook from scratch. So on the menu we had Chili with cornbread crust (a first), a pie with fennel, apples, potatoes and blood pudding and also a German onion cake with bacon. I will post some recipes with pictures hopefully later next week!
Have a wonderful Sunday!

To read more about this banner, scroll down to the next post!

Great give-away!

2007-09-04T14:36:00.000Z

Tim Challiess has started a new round of give-aways on his blog. It is an incredible chance to win interesting, challinging and good Christian books. This time the prize is really special: you can win all six volumes of the Reformed Expository Commentaries series. I am so exited about those books. I downloaded the first chapters of the commentary on Hebrews and I love it. There is so much solid biblical information in there.

So you can participate in this give-away too. You can reach Tim's blog by clicking on the banner below and then enter the give-away. To be honest, this would also increase my chances of winning, because every referral leads to another ballot in the drawings for the one through whose site the referral came. But of course I would be really grateful if you access the site through the banner anyway :).

The Wedding

2007-08-15T14:36:00.000Z

We've been married for six days now! The wedding was beautiful and so much fun. Although we were a little worried the day before. It didn't rain - it poured! For hours water came down, thunderstorms raged and a town close by Paderborn was flooded... But on Friday morning after a little drizzle from the sky, it stayed dry for most of the day.

In the morning we prepared the car which would take us to the town hall. My DH's (yeah - can use that abbreviation for the first time :)) brother drives an old-timer, an old French Citroen DS. Then it was already time to get dressed ourselves and off we went. We forgot my flowers, but fortunately a cousin living next door brought them to the town hall. Everybody started arrving. Quite a lot of friends decided to take the two-hours drive to Paderborn to celebrate with us. My Matron of honor just made it on time!

Then the ceremony began. Of course a civil wedding ceremony speeds by. It took only about 15 minutes, I guess. But the lady conducting our wedding did a rather nice speech and was all friendly. The room was really pretty, the building is quite old. I couldn't stop smiling for a minute. After publicly confirming that each of us wanted to marry the other one, it was time to exchange the rings and of course for a kiss!

Here my DH places the ring on my finger. Then I signed the official documents for the first time with my new name. I still have to get used to it!

Here are our rings:

Afterwards we celebrated right outside and took loads of pictures. And we had to wait for the next couple - our friends got married half an hour later (by coincidence!).

This is a picture of both our close families together.

This is my Matron of honor, pregnant with her third daughter. I wish you could all get to know her!

And here we are with our car!

The bride and groom!

Then we left and continued to celebrate in the garden of DH's parents. The lady in front is my sister! She came all the way from Munich by train... We always have lots of fun together :).

Our wedding cake! And our great friend who made it herself. She'll bake the wedding cake for the church wedding too. It looked great and tasted delicious (chocolate & orange cake).

The cutting of the cake

It was a wonderful day. I am so thankful. God has blessed us so much!

In less than 48 hours...

2007-08-08T18:30:00.000Z

This morning we picked up our rings. We decided to have them engraved next year for the church wedding. We also bought a shirt for him and a pair of high heels for me. This afternoon I got my nails done (really enjoy that, but normally am not willing to pay that much just for nails) and my dress is ironed too.
I am really exited! Tomorrow morning we're off to Paderborn to help with the last set-ups etc. We're just hoping for sunshine on Friday.

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Ephesians 5:22-33 (NIV)

Just five days away

2007-08-05T19:44:00.000Z

Did you see the addition to my blog header? This week will bring the most exiting change in my life so far... On Friday I will marry the love of my life. I will become a wife.
This will be our civil wedding. Here in Germany you are required to do a civil wedding first before you can do a church wedding. We decided to have our church wedding next year, mainly because of my legal bar exam.

I am very exited. Not nervous or afraid though, but exited and maybe a little apprehensive too. It is a big change to go from girlfriend and fiancée to ... wife. I have been dreaming of marriage for so long, it seems almost unreal that it is really about to happen THIS week. I am so looking forward to the future with my beloved and all that God has in store for us.

I wanted to post more in depth about becoming a wife and glorifying God, but unfortunately I am so tired that a meaningful post will have to wait until next time...

So sad, but such a beautiful song

2007-07-27T06:50:00.001Z

I watched this video for the first time at Anna's blog. So sad. As I'm getting married soon, I think about children often. I love children. I still dream of having many. But sometimes I wonder - what if I will not be able to conceive? What if there will be no children? How will I handle it if we have to wait for a long time. I have several dear friends who had to wait a long time or are still waiting. It can be so heart-wrenching.
No matter what God's plan is for me, I know I want to act in a sensitive way around young married couples who have not had children yet. Who knows their story?

Book shelf revelations

2007-07-25T15:31:00.001Z

I was looking at my book shelf and wondered what its contents reveal about me. Owner definately likes historical fiction (mainly Tudor period), biographies (missionaries/preachers) and children's books (especially old-fashioned or Astrid Lindgren). Has already finished the last Harry Potter too (loved the end).
But when I look at my books on faith and Christian living I can really see the different stages of my walk with Christ. I think the first Christian book I bought must have been"Questions: I have always wanted to ask..." by Werner Gitt. The cover is so 80s... I don't think I ever read all of it.
Then I think started a period when I mainly read books associated with Pentecostal or Charismatic churches. Some that stand out (for different reasons): Don Gossett's Praise Avenue, Benny Hinn's Good morning, Holy Spirit, Jackie Pullinger's Chasing the Dragon.
I definately went through a YWAM-period: Loren Cunningham's Is it really you, God and Winning God's way, Floyd McClung's Father Heart of God, Holiness and the spirit of the age and Living on the devil's doorstep, Joy Dawson's Intimate Friendship with God and Intercession: Thrilling, Fulfilling, Steve Shamblin's How to grow up spiritually and Tom Marshall's Right relationships. I still love those books. They helped me to grow so much.
Afterwards I started reading biographies. Amy Carmichael, Jim Elliot, John Wesley, Jay Bakker (Son of a Preacher Man - great book), Bill Wilson, ...
But when I look at the books I bought and read over the last year or so is when I look at the books that definately provided a growth spurt and mean the most to me: R.C. Sproul's The Holiness of God, John Piper's Desiring God (although I'm still not through this one), Elisabeth Elliot, Let me be a woman, Nancy Leigh DeMoss' Brokenness, Elisabeth Prentiss' Stepping Heavenward, C.J. Mahaney's Living the cross-centered life and Jerry Bridges' The discipline of grace. I'm still reading the last one and on my shelf Jeremiah Burrough's Jewel of Christian Contentment is waiting for me as well as Mary DeMuth' Building the Christian family you never had. I love to read.
Which books mean the most to you in your Christian walk?

Impressions from Southern France

2007-07-01T12:08:00.000Z

I'm finally back - through with the written part of the legal bar exam and back from a two week vacation in France with my beloved.
Here are some impression from our trip:

BEcause of the warm weather flowers grow fabulously in Southern France. This is just some random house in the village of Ramatuelle. We hiked there one day.

Here I am in St. Tropez. I know it's mainly famous as the vacation place of the rich (do you see that boat in the background!?), but we love it for its port and the tiny streets and the Place des Lices where we can sit, have a drink and watch the old men of the village play "Boules".

We went on several hikes during the first week. This one went along the coast, it included quite some climbing. I was wiped afterwards. But it was great for the tan ... ;)

Last Monday we decided to do a day trip and went to the Gorges du Verdon (Canyon of the Verdon River). We drove along the Southern shore of the canyon with lots of stops to take pictures. Afterwards we rented a pedal boat and paddled into the canyon to watch the scenery from down below and take a dip into the Verdon.

Afterwards we visited Moustiers and the Abby of Thoronet (see above picture). It is one three Cistercian abbeys in the Provence and was just beautiful.

Quote for exam times

2007-06-10T15:38:00.000Z

He that is mastered by Christ is the master of every circumstance. Does the circumstance press hard against you? Do not push it away. It is the Potter's hand. Your mastery will come, not by arresting its progress, but by enduring its discipline, for it is not only shaping you into a vessel of beauty and honor, but it is making your resources available.

Mrs. Charles E. Cowman

What type of chocolate are you?

2007-06-02T10:08:00.000Z

I couldn't resist this quiz I found by accident. Actually I went to the site to take a test on how much of a feminist I was (take a look at Crystal's result at Biblical Womanhood Blog), but then I ended up taking this one instead...
I disagree with being naive or a flirt - but I seriously do love white chocolate :)

You are White Chocolate

You are White Chocolate
You are sweet, caring, and truly very innocent.
Whether your naive ways are a bit of act or not, people like to take care of you.
You are a quiet flirt, and your power is often underestimated!

What Kind of Chocolate Are You?

Did you ever want to know...

2007-05-29T06:40:00.001Z

how to make a real chocolate mousse? I came home on Sunday from our young adults Bible study and heard lots of laughter from the living room. I had to join in when my beloved showed me this. It's so funny! So of course I had to share it with you too.
Btw I also recommand the one about making donuts!

My first digiscrap

2007-05-11T20:14:00.000Z

Today I finally managed to do my first digital scrapbook page. I love scrapbooking with paper, but this was great fun too! And I thought that maybe it was time to announce something on my blog for those who don't know yet. I know the text is German, but can you guess from the pictures?
The scrapbooking kit I used is the kit "Amore" from Shabby Princess.

My difficulty with letting go

2007-05-10T19:40:00.000Z

Sometimes I think if there is one thing I'm good at it is - worrying. At least where I am in my life right now. Many of you may know that I will take the written exams of the German legal bar in three weeks. And of course it is farely easy to worry about that - grades, jobs, career ... Even though I do want to be a mother and a home-maker, I would be lying if I said that I did not care about my final grade. But of course there are enough other things to worry about as well ...

BUT truth to be told I do not want to worry. And I think I should not worry either. I believe that God is sovereign. His will will come to pass. Nothing will happen that He does not allow. So no matter if my grade is good or bad, God has a plan with it. Many times in the Bible we are told not to worry or find assurances that we can rest safely in God's hand and trust Him. Here are some verses that come to my mind when I try to fall asleep:

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? [...] Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?" Matthew 6:25,27

"For we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose." Romas 8:28

"Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He care for you" 1 Peter 5:7

"The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe." Proverbs 18:10

I do give my care and worries to the Lord - but I'm really good about taking them right back out of His hands too. I really need to learn how to let go! Sometimes I get so frustrated with myself. My only hope is clinging even more (a lot more!) to God. Running to Him with everything right away. And bringing Him my anxiety again and again.

Another reason I do not want to let my worries rule me, is for the benefit of others around me. Don't get me wrong now, I think it is a perfectly normal and also sometimes beneficial to share your anxieties with your friends or your husband or someone else close to you. But I think we should not be a burden either. It is difficult to make a general statement on this, I hope you will get me right.
I just know that I don't want to be complaining to my beloved the whole time about my worries. My expectatons are from God, I should never forget that (Pslam 62:5). I don't want to burden someone to much, e.g. to the point that they are just frustrated too or that I turn into an almost-always whining person who isn't at all enjoyable to be around.

Last Sunday our Pastor shared four rules with us. He was taught them at a Pastor's conference by a 93-year-old Benedictin monk from Hungary who had to spent ten years in a Gulag. These were the rules he and his fellow-prisoners came up with to survive the Gulag:

Don't complain.
Find joy in the little things.
Be humble and noble.
Cling to God

I think these rules are very true and I hope they will help me through these days. To help me put into practice what God teaches me in His word.
There is an old German hymn by Paul Gerhardt (from 1653) that has also been very helpful to me. I'll quote my two favorite verses for you (and sorry for the German :)).

Befiehl du deine Wege und was dein Herze kränkt,
der allertreusten Pflege des, der den Himmel lenkt,
Der Wolken, Luft und Winden gibt Wege, Lauf und Bahn,
Der wird auch Wege finden, da dein Fuß gehen kann.

Auf, auf, sag deinem Schmerze und Sorgen gute Nacht,
laß fahren, was dein Herze betrübt und traurig macht.
Bist du doch nicht Regente, der alles führen soll,
Gott sitzt im Regimente und führet alles wohl!

House styles - Fachwerk

2007-05-10T06:05:00.000Z

Sarah at Walk slowly, live wildly has a great post on alternative homes.
My Beloved and I would love to build a house later (or better have it build). I think I'd also enjoy buying some really old house and fix it up. We'll see if we can ever afford to make that happen.
My favorite style of houses so far is either a Scandinavian house or "Fachwerk". That is a style which is very typical for some areas of Germany. The picture below shows me in front of a whole row of Fachwerk houses.

Full of truth and grace

2007-05-08T11:09:00.000Z

Just a little thinking and dreaming (not very profound, I'm typing this out during a short break in studying criminal law for my legal bar).
The church I would love to attend ... It should be a place which is full of truth and full of grace. A place where people will hear the truth. Where they will learn more about our God and all His attributes (not concentrating only on one of them, like "only" His love or "only" His holiness). Where they will learn to love God's word and to live according to it. Where there is room for sermons which teach profound theology, but also spell out how to live it. A place where people can be who they are - and where they are loved and accepted. Where they are also lovingly corrected. Where people truly love the Lord and love each other.
A church where there is room for the family with ten children and the family with no children. For the married and the single, the old and the young. A church that is open for the doubting and hurting and the ones who seem different. Where they can experience God - through His word, but also through love and grace extended by His people. Where the young single mother is welcomed, and the guy who is tattoed all over, and the alcoholic and the business man and the lonely elder lady...

A church full of love, truth and grace.

Pray for Heather

2007-05-03T07:15:00.000Z

Please pray for Heather. She was diagnosed with a tumor in her brain. Today (Thursday) will be the first operation. For more detailed information please go over here to her blog.
Reading her blog over the last week has been edifying and so encouraging. It touched me a lot. So please pray for her and for her family.

Another time and another place

2007-04-30T05:45:00.001Z

I know that this song is very different from the last one I posted... Kutless and Sandy Patti within a week. But I love this song. It really makes my heart burn for that sweet someday when we will see Jesus face to face. What a wonderful hope and future to sustain us through any trial.

Frugal decorating tip

2007-04-27T15:19:00.000Z

We just moved into an apartment two months ago. And I moved from a studio with kitchen to several rooms. And of course the kitchen is now an extra room. As most of our rooms face south-west, we suddenly needed kitchen curtains.
I'm not necessarily a curtain lover. It really depends on the kind of curtain. And we had spent quite a lot of money on new furniture already. So we wanted something cute which fits our style and isn't expensive.
We managed! In a decorating magazine we saw dish towel curtains. It looked really cozy and kitchen-like :). So after checking our own dish towels (too stiff or not pretty enough) we bought a pair at Butlers for under 4 € and a plastic curtain rod with hooks.

Here is the result (unfortunately the pictures are a little dark, even though we have sun and over 90° F):

Song of the day

2007-04-25T15:39:00.001Z

This song really spoke to me this morning. As my legal bar exams draw closer, I experience quite some stress and anxiety. I need to remember that God IS a strong tower. He is my refuge. He is the only one who can satisfy all my desires. Not grades, not success, not a job.

"The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and are safe."
Proverbs 18:10

Lent reading

2007-04-05T05:43:00.000Z

Over the weeks of Lent I have been re-reading "The Jesus I never knew" by Philipp Yancey. It is one of my favorite books, I go back to it quite regularly.
It sometimes amazes me that after having read the Gospels many times, there are still connections and things about Jesus I have never realized or that have slipped my mind again... Although maybe that is just human? Of course I know that we can never fully understand Jesus, but I enjoy learning about and from Him more and more as a way of getting to know Him better.
Seriously, go and read the book. :)

Now I started Yancey's book "What is so amazing about grace?". I'm really exited ... I want God's grace to be more real in my life and also in my relationships with others instead of just being "head-knowledge".

Have a blessed Holy week!

Visual DNA

2007-04-01T16:02:00.000Z

Hat tip to Catez.

It was not always easy to choose an image. For example I don't really prefer spending my vacation in a tent (although I've done it and it was fun) - but I love being in nature. And there wasn't a bedroom image where I thought "this is it!" But it was fun anyway. I found out that not very many people picked the same images I did. Interesting. So how does your visual DNA look like?

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

I'll be home for Christmas

2006-12-23T11:03:00.000Z

I'm going home today to spend Christmas with my parents, sister and grandma. We always put up and decorate our tree on the 23rd. That's rather typical for Germany - it's either the 23rd or even the 24th. Then the tree stays up until after the day of the magi.

I have always loved the Christmas season. It has never again been as exiting as when I was a little child, but it is still a wonderful season of the year. Although I definately miss the snow... far too warm around here this year.

So when I go home for Christmas, I still do certain things and read certain stories which were part of my Christmas as a child. They are still dear to me and belong to Christmas.
No. 1 is decorating the tree. I still enjoy doing it and I've never (!) missed it.
Then there are some old books I reread every year at least in part. They were my mom's when she was a child and one is from her grandma even, I think. Just sweet old stories about the Christchild (who brings the presents), about helping others, ... And I love "A Christmas Carol" by Dickens.

On Christmas Eve we will attend church in the late afternoon. Then my dad will light the candles on the tree and all the other candles in the room, everybody will be waiting outside and then he will ring a bell and we can enter. It is good that some things never change - even if you reached the age of 30 :).

Have a blessed Christmas!

Musical memories

2006-11-22T16:52:00.000Z

I really enjoy music. And I like quite different styles too. But sometimes I think I just like a song because of the memories associated with it. If I heard such a song now for the first time, I might not even like it very much (maybe I would, but anyway...). But as it is there are so many important things connected to this song that listening to it evokes special feelings.
Here are some of the songs I really like that might fall into the above-metioned category :)

"It is finished" by Petra. This song was part of my very first Christian music cassette shortly after I became a Christian. Need I say more...
"In the kingdom" by Whitecross. Same cassette. Btw I do like rock music :)
Worship songs from the late 80s - early 90s. These songs were my first songs, the songs we sang at my first bible study group. With most of them, I do not know the English lyrics cause we always sang them in German, but here are some: More love, more power - Victor's crown - Oh Lord, your tenderness. These are still part of my favorite worship songs.
"My Heart's Cry" (St. C. Chapman) - such a touching song!
"Don't let the fire die" (St. C. Chapman)
some old songs by Carman (definately in the category of memory-related...) like "Our turn now" or "The third heaven" - the latter one still gives me goosebumps though

Little snippets

2006-10-21T12:54:00.000Z

I sometimes fear that the impression other people get of my life is that all my time is consumed by preparing for the bar or by touring around the country taking pictures or by fun fun fun. None of them is true, of course. The up-coming bar exam (June 2007) is taking up much time and even more thought. It would actually be better for the bar if I was really studying all the time... But I have a hard time studying in a constructive way and not doing this, then doing that and doing something totally different inbetween. Still seven months to go though!
And I don't always travel around and have fun either. But my beloved and I enjoyed some really fun trips over the last months. (I'm still not reconciled to the thought of having to study on Saturdays...).

What else has happened lately? Our church had its annual church retreat and I really had a good time. We did the "Walk through the Old Testament". It was quite fun and brought some random information together into the big picture. It is so interesting to learn about God's working in the OT. What really struck me was the connection between the Passover in Egypt and Christ's sacrifice for us. Christ is our passover lamb! It was amazing and revealed some of what happened on the cross to me in a new way.

Last week a dear friend and I started doing a bible study together. We started "Breaking free" by Beth Moore. The passages are mainly from the book of Isaiah. This week we learned about the four kings of Judah during Isaiah's lifetime. So we read a lot of II. Chronicles. That has never been my favorite book. When I read through the Bible and was reading Chronicles it seemed rather boring (like: I've read this stuff already in Kings!). So what an experience! Suddenly II Chronicles was really interesting. To read about those kings and their particular weak points and sins and then to realize that those weaknesses and sins are still rampant today. And that we still have to deal with them ourselves.

Christ needs to be my all more and more.

Happy pigs

2006-10-16T13:19:00.000Z

The 3rd of October is the German national holiday, so my beloved and I used that day for a short but fun trip. We really enjoy going on short trips around Bonn. First we visited a small village close to the Belgian border, Monschau. It is very pretty, but very touristy too.
Then we drove into Belgium and toured the Ardennes (a mountain region spanning Southern Belgium and part North-Eastern France). We enoyed small streets, rivers and hills. And we tried to hunt for monuments - there were signs for them, but we were unable to find them. But one such hunt led us high up the hills to a tiny village and those happy pigs on the picture. Aren't they cute. They were definately enjoying the outdoors, eating good natural food and having hardly any stress related to those over-crowded facilities pigs are usually held in nowadays. And happy pigs make good meat :).
Last Friday I bought a cookbook (as you know i'm almost addicted to them) which only features recipes for pork. It' s written by a butcher from the French Ardennes. So we had a casserole of mashed potatoes, fried onions, bacon, hazelnuts and black pudding. Yummy! (Hope this doesn't gross you out too much ;).

Entering another decade

2006-08-17T17:03:00.000Z

About two weeks ago I turned 3-0. I remember that when I was sixteen life at thirty seemed so boring to me. Now I know that this assumption is definately not true and I am convinced that every age has its fun and its wonderful moments. And its trouble too. I do not think I am right now where I thought I would be at 30 – although the image changed once in a while. I have always thought I’d be married by 30 and have a bunch of kids. I wanted to be a young mom. This has not happened yet. God must have other plans. I definately didn’t imagine a PhD (never did until about a year before I graduated). The last ten years had wonderful moments and very hard ones. I thought I’d share some that just pop in my head. My beloved took the picture the evening before my birthday. Maybe I chose the braids to deny my age (LOL)?

1996	Graduation from high school; starting legal studies in fall; Christian summer camp in Tuscany; Christival; “Luther tour” – visiting some places connected in Martin Luther in Eastern Germany; seriously considered marrying a missionary
1997	three week vacation in Colombia; Christian summer camp in Tuscany again; big German church festival in Leipzig
1998	first internship with a lawyer; to Mallorca twice; Christian summer camp in Norway
1999	a week in Paris; passing the last requirements to take the State Exam; another legal internship; Christian summer camp in Tuscany; been at a service w/ Benny Hinn (controversial, I know); time w/my family in France
2000	spending the spring semester in Oslo, Norway – my best six months of university; visits to Trondheim, Bergen, the Lofoten Islands; parties; International Baptist Church and Christian Union; my first and only Rave (techno party); many international friends, especially my wonderful friend Karen; my best friend getting married; starting to prepare for the State Exam (for the next 15 months)
2001	city of Antwerp; studying, studying, studying; taking three weeks off to attend Karen’s wedding in Appleton WI; meeting my awesome friend Jess; camping in France; international legal conference in the Netherlands (human rights and int’l criminal law)
2002	my law degree; getting accepted as a PhD-candidate; start work as junior research fellow; another Christian festival; kid’s camp
2003	God leading me very clearly; teaching in Hungary; kid’s camp; King’s kids; visit from Jess; Christmas w/ Jess and Tim and my family; American Protestant Church Bonn; International Human Rights Academy in Ghent (Belgium w/ 44 people from all continents); huge Christian music festival in the Netherlands
2004	my godchild is born; falling in love w/ my beloved; our first vacation in France; four weeks in the US (Houston; Baton Rouge and New Orleans; Minnesota and Wisconsin) to attend Jess’ wedding
2005	another vacation w/ my beloved in France; so much fun together; friends have their babies; making many wonderful blog aquaintances; starting the last two years of law education (practical); spending a weekend w/ my sister in Heidelberg

More soccer

2006-07-06T17:42:00.000Z

Now the soccer World Cup is almost over. Tomorrow Germany and Portugal will play against each other for 3rd place. Germany lost against Italy 0:2 on Tuesday. During the game it was absolutely quiet on the streets. Almost everyone must have been glued in front of the TV or one of the public screens. We thought they'd made it to the final, because regular playing time and the additional time of 30 minutes were almost over. The next is penalty scoring - and as one newspaper titled: that is a German discipline ;). But unfortunately the Italians scored two goals in about the two last minutes... Oh well, but our team did an awesome job! The final on Sunday will be Italy vs. France.

My sister and I went to see a game in Cologne: Czech Republic vs. Ghana. There were so many Czech fans, but most of the Germans rooted for Ghana. And they won 2:0! It was a great experience to be at such a big game. On the picture you can see me standing in front of the stadium in Cologne holding my ticket and sporting my German team shirt.

It's all about ...

2006-06-13T14:50:00.000Z

SOCCER! That's definately the truht if you are living in Germany right now. As many of you probably know Germany is hosting the 2006 FIFA World Cup right now. The opening game was last Friday. And everybody is going crazy :).
Games are at 3, 6 and 9 pm (our time) and there are screens everywhere. Every pub, many cafés, some restaurants all have screens outside. The weather is quite hot, so everybody's out watching the games. Many huge screens too. People sport jerseys of "their" team, cars sport national flags, everyone talks soccer, watches soccer, dreams soccer (probably ...)
My beloved and I watched the opening game outside with several hundred people. Germany beat Costa Rica 4-2. Yeah!
And I am quite exited myself, because I do have tickets for a game. My sister and I will be at the stadion in Cologne this Saturday watching Ghana play the Czech Republic!

Harmful day dreaming

2006-05-20T08:17:00.000Z

I am sitting on the front porch, the sun is shining, it is spring. The air is sweet with the fragrance of honeysuckle and roses. The rocking chair slightly creaks. But not loud enough to wake my four week old baby daughter, the newest addition to our family. On the lawn three tousle-haired boys play noisely, jumping around and enjoying themselves. Once in a while one of them comes up to hug me and carefully kiss his little sister. Dinner is in the oven and just now my beloved enters through the garden door, swings the youngest boy up on his shoulder and walks towards me smiling ...

This is my dream. My beloved and I, a happy family with several children. I am at home to care for them. Reality is different. My beloved is there, of couse, and makes life so much fun and special. And I do enjoy my legal work, although I do not look forward to the bar exam because of all the work it will be until next June...

And here I go again, likening my life to the life I dream of. Day dreams and plans for the future are a normal part of our lives. They are not bad in themselves. But when they start making me discontent with the life I have or keep my from concentrating on the tasks at hand, then they are harmful. It is much easier to dream of days to come instead of diligently working on the next file or studying criminal procedures. But this is not how I should live my life. God put me into the here-and-now. Here I have a purpose and now there are things to be done – by me and in the position in life I have now. Here are other people to take care of – to listen to – to lend a helping hand – or to just be a friend. Now God wants to teach me, lessons that will help me later in life. It would be such a mistake to miss these lessons and these opportunities because of a dream.

Branches of the vine

2006-05-08T15:38:00.000Z

Yesterday I taught children’s church again (we are on a rotating schedule). When I wanted to prepare the lesson, I realized that we had changed the schedule and I had the wrong book. I just knew that I had to teach on John 15:1-7. So I prepared the lesson myself. What might at first have looked to me like some extra-work, turned out to be a blessing. Normally every activity we do during the lesson is already laid out in the curriculum we use. Actually that makes it easy – but it also means that I don’t have to prepare in depths if I am too lazy or just too busy (?). I just have to get the crafts material.
I love preparing lessons myself, but most of the times I take the easy way and just go with the curriculum’s suggestions – which are good. But preparing the lesson myself is first beneficial for me – I really think about what I want to teach my little class – and second for the children. My heart is then more in the lesson than otherwise I think.

Yesterday’s lesson was on the vine and the branches. God is the gardener, Jesus is the vine and we are the branches of the vine – destined to bring fruit. Such a familiar truth – and so good to ponder again! A gardener who owns an orchard wants his fruit trees to bring fruit. I asked the children in my class what a fruit farmer would do with a tree that did not bring fruit. Of course we had several suggestions – build a tree house, enjoy its beauty... – but they all saw the obvious: cut it down and use it for firewood. This is exactly what Jesus told the disciples: every branch that does not bear fruit will be cut down and thrown in the fire. Beware!

We are expected to be fruitful – to bear fruit, godly fruit. With God’s help, for we cannot do it on our on. I should constantly check my life in God’s light to see if I bear fruit. Many different kinds of fruit there are: love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, self-control, prayer, reading God’s word, obedience, diligence, perseverance, love for work (be it at home or in a paid job), ...
Isn’t it wonderful that God is a loving gardener who helps us to grow and bear fruit? If we bear fruit, he will prune us – which does not necessarily sound easy on us – so that we can bear more fruit. If – and only if – we are connected to Jesus, the vine.

Still there...

2006-04-19T08:53:00.000Z

Just wanted to let you know I'm still there and plan to update my blog on a regular basis again soon. A big thank you to all of you who are still passing by here!
I'm currently working for three months with a public prosecutor and that is just a lot of work...

Have you followed the Paralympics in Torino, Italy? If you have not or if you are interested in more, heard over to my friend Clare's blog. She works for the Paralympic Committee and was in Torino the whole time. Amazing pictures too!

A glimpse of another German tradition

2006-03-03T14:44:00.001Z

I thought I’d share another German tradition with you : Karneval. First I have to make a “regional” clarification. Karneval is not celebrated everywhere in Germany. There is a version of it in southern Germany called Fasnacht. But here where I live in the Rheinland (the area south of Düsseldorf down the Rhine to Bonn) things get quite crazy.

Karneval is our 5^th season of the year. Officially it starts at 11. November at 11.11 am. But the high season is in February starting the Thursday of the week before the start of Lent and finishing on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. It is a time for parties, celebrations, comedy and parades. People dress up in all kinds of costumes for it. And just to clarify: it is mainly a tradition for adults. When I took friends from the US to the parade in Cologne two years ago, they were so astonished that it was all grown-ups. Children dress up as princess or fairies or cowboys... grown-ups too, but also as muskateers, mad cows, chickens, cats, monks, soccer fields (seriously!!), cheerleaders, witches, ... Whatever comes into your mind, the costume probably exists.

On that Thursday – called “Weiberfastnacht” (women’s karneval), most people here do not work or just half a day. Then everything closes and people start partying – in homes, in pubs, at work. There are songs that are only or mainly played in Karneval. Most of them are in the dialect of Cologne (Kölsch). Many of them are actually really nice, featuring lyrics about Cologne, typical things for our area, ... And there is lots of alcohol consumed.

Friday and Saturday there are parties at night or “Sitzungen”. Those are like a mixture of party, concert and theatre. People go there all dressed-up, special Karneval-comedians perform and bands play. I’ve never been, but it looks rather like fun if you like this. Rosenmontag – Rose Monday – is THE day for parades. Both Bonn and Cologne (and other cities) have big parades through town. Many vehicles in the parade sport puppets or pictures making fun of politics, sports etc. Unlike in New Orleans where they throw beads, here they throw candy. So many people collect enough candy for several weeks or even months. On Tuesday Karneval in Cologne ends with the burning of the Nubbel. The nubbel is a straw puppet. At the entrance of most pubs during Karneval you will find a nubbel hanging. On Tuesday night all the sins during Karneval (unfortunately quite many...) are put on the nubbel which then gets burned in a big bonfire. People stand around and mourn. I have never been to such a burning, but that is what happens there as far as I know. There is also a special Karneval greeting: Alaaf! Do not ever say "Helau" in Bonn or Cologne, for that is what they say in Düsseldorf...

I know it is a peculiar tradition. With a lot of bad sides (many people getting extremely drunk, being unfaithful, etc.). But there are also good sides to it. And it can be fun if you celebrate with the right people. I don’t celebrate it much, just a little bit on Thursday and I sometimes go to the Parade. But it has a long tradition here. Karneval goes all the way back to the Romans and Germanic tribes. But many special features of the Karneval here derive from the French occupation of this area under Napoleon. Here is an excerpt from a friend’s email: “Karnival is organised by 'Elferräte', councils of Eleven. Events start 11 minutes after the hour. But Eleven - E L F - also ridiculed the French conquerors of the Rhineland after the French Revolution, modifying slightly the well known slogan into 'Egalité, Liberté, Fraternité', from which a Major General Baron von Czettritz derived the first Carnival motto in 1827: 'Like brothers, like caps'. This is also origin of the colourful historical uniforms of the carnival organisations, a satire on the conduct of the occupation troops. The jesters take over with military splendour. The characteristic traditions of the organised Carnival developed in the early 19^th century on the west bank of the Rhine during the French occupation: speeches from inside a turned up barrel, 'Büttenreden', as a humorous disguise of political _expression and the blue-white-red carnival uniforms mock the occupation forces. Throwing sweets imitates rulers throwing coins to the masses.”

If you want to read a bit more about Karneval here and see a picture or two, head over to my friend Clare’s blog and read her impressions.

Prayer request for Emily and her family

2006-02-18T14:41:00.000Z

I have a prayer request that I want to share with all of you. It is for my blogfriend Crystal and her family, especially their nine-year-old daughter Emily. Emily had a biopsy done because she had some strange lumps on her neck. She was now diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
Please go to Crystal's blog and read her husband Scott's post about the last developments and how they are doing.
Please keep all of them in your prayers!

UPDATE: Crystal wrote a new post where she also specified some of their prayer requests. Please pray for them!

So I ask that you pray for God's perfect will. I ask that when we get
Emily's test results back it will be good news and that her cancer hasn't
spread. I ask that you pray for God to have His hands on her during surgery and
to guide Emily's doctor and that he is able to get all of the cancer out of her
that he can. Please pray that the surgery goes really well and her recovery does
too. Please pray for peace of mind for Emily I know that she is nervous to be
having surgery again. These are the things I can think of right now.

Real man wanted

2006-02-07T17:31:00.000Z

Miss O'Hara has a great post wondering why there seem to be hardly any good men. Here are some quotes for you:

"Females in our culture are just as responsible for the hook-up, prosti-tot, irresponsible me-first, sex-focused culture as men are - if not more so. I don't care WHAT you think: women are the keepers of morals in any society. As the females go, so goes the whole nation. When women demand to be treated well, the society will be conducive to marriage and fidelity. However, when women lose their morals and abandon virtue in order to turn to narcissism and sexual libertinism, the same will happen to the culture at large. We can thank the feminists for much of this."

"No good woman wants a permanent boy who kow-tows to Mother and expects his wife to be Mom, too. No good woman wants a husband who cows before her, who can't tell her to sit down and let him handle things, who will let her run things. That's the way it is. A real man won't do any of that - and he'll be tender, loving and protective besides. Crushing a boy's masculinity won't get him anywhere good, unless you're hoping he lands a starring role as the feather-boa wearing flamboyant in 'Rent'.
Start raising men again, not permanent children."

I can only cheer her on. Go over and read the whole thing.

God-ordained order and authority

2006-02-07T17:18:00.000Z

Recently before I fell asleep I found myself musing over the order God ordained for marriage and one thought led to another. (I usually have interesting ideas about posts right before I sleep and am not able to remember them fully the next day when I’m in front of the computer...) God is a God of order. Everything in our world has its time and place. Everything is or should be functioning in a specified way or order. Just look at the universe and how it works together – and how wrong it would go if it did not work together. There is peace and beauty in order. Beauty can be found in chaos too sometimes. But more so in order, things functioning properly, nature going its (ordained) way, things rightly balanced or performed in their ordained way.

But sometimes it seems difficult to see the peace and the beauty. Especially if one stumbles over the order, the ordained way. This seems to be the case especially with the God-ordained order in marriage.

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands i everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her [...]. In this same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife, loves himself. [...] However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband” (Ephesians 5:22-25, 28, 33)

Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of every woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.” (1. Cor. 11:3)

Often I have heard that other people are appalled by the idea of a wife’s submission to her husband or by the idea that a husband could have headship – authority over his wife. Well, it is a idea that one needs to get accustomed to, especially if one did not grow up in a believing family or is not a Christian. And very often, people read certain ideas into these verses which are not part of them. Many have never really read and thought about them at all. They get dismissed as Paul’s “anti-women notions”. And, therefore, people miss out on the beauty and peace which lies in this ordained order. I do not say that everything is perfect in a marriage which tries to follow God’s order. Or that this order cannot be perverted by sinful men and women. This is true. Our sinful nature can corrupt anything in our lives. But in the order itself lies beauty and peace. If couples live by this order, each part’s emotional and physical needs will be filled. There will be respect and love. So many women object that this order is only hard on wives. I always think it is really hard on the husband. Just imagine to love someone or be loved by someone as Christ loved the church ... What a mind-boggling love! And this order does not mean that the wife’s concerns, desires and wishes will not be taken into consideration in a decision-making process. On the contrary. But there is someone who will take the final decision. There will be an end to discussion and someone responsible for decisions.

God ordained a clear line of authority: God – Christ – husband – wife. Christ was also under authority. Do we ever consider this as a bad thing? Do we ever see Christ as God’s “doormat”, someone God could trample on? I wonder why authority is so often considered as a negative thing, surely to be abused? More often actually, Christ’s submission to God the Father is admired, praised. We try to be Christ-like. We also try (to like the idea) to submit to God. But we do not always like to submit to an authority which was put over us. But this seems to me to be what God intended. That everyone submits to the authority over him or her. And that everyone who has authority takes over the responsibility which comes with authority and the care for those who are under his authority. I do see peace and beauty in this. Sometimes my wilful self might want to rebel against it. But still....

Lost innocence

2006-02-03T15:40:00.000Z

When I think back and remember how I looked at the world as a child it stuns me how different my world view was. Not simply because I was young or didn’t know anything about politics, insurances and crime. I always thought as a child that everybody loved everybody, parents never quarreled and every other child was as happy as me. Of course – as you all know – even children understand that this is not true. And a lot faster than many parents or I personally would wish. My childhood was happy, but I have always strongly felt the hurt of other people, injustice and anger of others. My stomach literally knots when I listen to angry voices or feel an undercurrent strong disharmony.

Maybe you wonder why I am writing this. This train of thought started when I talked to a wonderful friend of mine. We both love to read and already during our teenage years read a lot of books for teenagers and adults that included social and personal problems like e.g. teen pregnancies, drugs, murder, illness etc. We always were touched by the story. But at the same time I remember thinking that things like this will most certaily never happen to anyone I know – at least not to closer friends. Well, not all of it has happened to close friends. But quite some things have. I know or once knew mothers who had their child at age 15, women who had several abortions, heroin addicts, ... Friends suffering from cancer before they turned 25 and not all of them survived. Aquaintances who died in car wrecks. And I recently lost a once very close friend to murder.

I am convinced that many and probably most of you can share similar stories. I do not write this to complain or ask for pity or whatever. This is how life is in our broken world, so desperately in need of salvation. These are just some thoughts going through my head while mourning a friend. Pain can make us numb. And pain sometimes hides – and then suddenly decides to come to the front and surprise us in the middle of our work or at dinner or when we go shopping. Some things are just hard to understand or just deal with when they happen in real life.

The old Jewish cemetary

2006-01-28T13:39:00.000Z

This is a picture I took at the old Jewish cemetary in the center of Prague.

Beautiful Prague

2006-01-27T15:22:00.000Z

I spent last week Monday through Friday in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republik. We went in a whole group - 20 collegues from the legal traineeship I am currently doing as part of the German legal education. I haven’t been anywhere with such a big group of same-aged people in a long time! It felt a lot like school trips – just a lot better.
We flew into Prague on Monday, moved into our hotel rooms and then had a guided tour through the city. Most of us had never been before, even though it is just a one hour flight and supposed to be one of Europe’s most beautiful cities. We walked along the river (Moldau in German), over the famous Charlesbridge and through the “old” part of town. Almost everything in the inner city is old, but the center is called the “old town”. We watched the astronomical clock with its twelve apostles moving every full hour, some churches and passed by the Jewish quarter. Then we had the first dumplings of the week J. The Czech cuisine is strong on meat, kraut and dumplings (bread dumplings, potatoe dumplings, bacon dumplings...). Over the five days we had, I saw a lot of Prague. We had a short legal program spread out through our stay (Parliament, German embassy, law firm), but mainly we could just do what we wanted. So small groups visited different places. I saw the castle with the cathedral. It is beautiful. I loved the inside. I think it is true, that these extremely high church ceilings from the Middle Ages draw your thoughts upwards. They always make me think about the majesty of our God. We also visited a church with frescoes dating back to the 12th century. And of course, Franz Kafka – the famous Czech writer – is everywhere in Prague. Another highlight was a visit to the Jewish quarter right in the middle of the old town. It consists of a handful of synagogues and the old Jewish cemetary which was in use until the 18th century. There are about 12.000 gravestones, but the guess is that approximately 100.000 people are buried there. The Jewish population was forced to bury their dead in layers, cause they did not have permission to expand the cemetary. The ground constantly moves though, so “newer” gravestones sink down and older ones caome up. That is why the cemetary looks so particular. One synagogue is now a memorial for the almost 78.000 Czech Jewish victims of the holocaust. The walls of this synagogue are covered with the names and dates of these victims – all over. This was the most moving experience in Prague.
And of course we had a lot of fun. We toured a brewery (dark strong beer), met in cafes and for dinner with all 21, hung out in a hotel room with everybody and went out to dance. I really enjoyed this time and I think it was very good for us as a group who was not really aquainted before. If you ever have the chance, Prague is well worth a visit!

Off to Prague!

2006-01-15T17:47:00.000Z

I just wanted to let all of you know that I'll leave for Prague tomorrow until Friday. So probably no posting until Friday. I'm really excited, cause I've never been to Prague and it is supposed to be extremely pretty. I'll share stories and pics when I'm back. I also got a post brewing about keeping our tongue in check, but you have to wait for that one too... :)
Have a blessed week everyone!

Creation declares the glory of the Lord

2006-01-07T20:53:00.000Z

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handywork.
Day unto day uttereth speech; and night unto night showeth knowledge.
There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.
Their line is gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world.
Psalm 19:1-4

I took this picture almost a year ago in Austria on the anual youth group snow retreat. When I'm in the mountains and I look around, I always feel my soul lift in praise to the Creator, our awesome and majestic God!

A belated New Year’s Seven Sevens Meme

2006-01-07T20:26:00.000Z

Annie tagged me a while ago and it took me a week to do the meme... But I had to think about some of these sevens... And often I figure out plans etc. for the new year after it started anyway. So, here we go: a slightly random and not fully completed meme (just couldn’t come up with enough at some questions)

7 things I want to do in 2006
finish my PhD (I am really fed up with it right now...)
study for my bar exam which will be in 2007
spend quality time with my beloved, my family and my friends
finish my bible in one year from 2005 ... finished everything except some prophets
do more sports
work on my time management and be more diligent
blog more regularly again ;)

7 things I want to do less in 2006
worrying
talk negatively about situations/people (does not happen that often, but still too often imo)
spend too much money on public transportation cause I’m too lazy to ride my bike
spend too much money on cafeteria food cause I’m too tired to make breakfast in the morning
...

7 ways I’m going to be a better wife/mother/friend in 2006
first I need to become a wife and mother ;) – not necessarily in 2006, but sometime in the future
call my friends on a more regular basis
call my friends, even if they never call me... ;)
do things because I know that they make them happy even though I might not enjoy them that much
cook more dinners for my friends
listen and not talk (sometimes I feel like I’m an excessive talker)
have lunch and coffee with a lot of wonderful ladies from my church with whom I don’t get together on a regular basis (if you don’t count service)

7 scripture passages I want to memorize in 2006
Psalm 1
Psalm 19
Psalm 27
Romans 8:1-17
Romans 8:18-27
Romans 8 28-39
and some passage from the gospel of John

7 books I’ve never read that I’m going to read in 2006
probably a whole lot cause I love to read; but I don’t have any definite plans sofar. Here are some authors I want to read:
C.S. Lewis (only read the Narnia Chronicles and Screwtape Letters)
Jonathan Edwards
Thomas Mann, The Buddenbrooks
Helmut Kohl (our former chancellor (1982-1998) published an autobiography about his time as chancellor from 1982-1992; my beloved got it as a gift for Christmas)
books on scrapbooking and altered books ;)
...

7 movies I’ve never seen and I’m going to watch in 2006
The lion, the witch and the wardrobe
The Lord of the Rings III
Harry Potter and the goblet of fire
the Johnny Cash movie
Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei (German movie)
Der Schuh des Manitou (German comedy, not sure if it’s my thing, but my beloved insists I have to watch it)
...

7 people I want to join in
I know we're already a week into 2006 and I don't know who has done this meme already... But anyway I'll tag
Erin
jettybetty
Carol
John and
Laura
Loni
and whoever else is willing to do this meme - just leave a note in the comment box!

What scrapbooking article are you?

2006-01-04T08:26:00.000Z

You are GLUE!

You are the adhesive that keeps things together.
You go through life helping others. You stick
to people and try to keep people together. You
like it best when you are surrounded by people
and able to help them. But Glue Beware - in
your efforts to keep everyone together and with
you, you sometimes overlook yourself and find
it hard to keep yourself together. Don't
neglect personal time in your overwhelming need
to socialize and help others.

What scrapbooking item are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I really love to scrapbook. Still I consider being glue a little weird... What item are you?

An adorable little girl...

2005-12-31T14:21:00.000Z

Let me introduce you: this is my little goddaughter Paula. She turns two in January. Here she is sitting in her grandparents' living room, playing with the new toy I gave her for Christmas. Isn't she just adorable? She is very curious, very lively, loves to play and to cuddle. And she doesn't smile - she grins!
She reminds me of myself when I was little. Maybe because we are both blond and have a space between our front teeth? I always joke that she comes after me ;).

Some more Christmas memories

2005-12-31T13:42:00.000Z

I really enjoyed this year’s Christmas. It actually started on the 22nd this time. My beloved and I both celebrate Christmas Eve and Day at home with our parents, so we don’t see each other as they live about to hours apart. Therefore we had our own little Christmas evening at my place. We cooked some good food (we both love cooking) – duck in a sauce of oranges – watched a movie, exchanged Christmas presents and just enjoyed each other’s company. He left early on Friday and I had some friends from church over for soup and breadpudding, fellowship and worship. Then I left for my parents’ place to put up the tree. Do you like it? The picture is a bit blurry, but I hope you get an idea. Christmas Eve we went to church in the village where my parents live. This is where I got confirmed and on one of their camps I took the decision for Christ. There is always a Christmas play done by the youth. You have to be really early cause the church is packed, people are standing in the back. Most of them never enter church on any other day of the year... Afterwards we had gifts and food and just talked. Christmas day as quite relaxed. I took my mom to the service in my church in Bonn. It was wonderful seeing everybody and celebrating the coming of Christ to us. On the second Christmas day my beloved came for dinner. And we had snow! So it took him twice the time it normally takes to drive from Paderborn to my parents... Dinner was fun. My sister’s boyfriend was also over. We stayed for a little while after Christmas. On Tuesday we visited my best friends who are also the parents of my little goddaughter. She turns two in January. And of course she knew right away that that bag I had must hold a present for her J. And of course it did. We had so much fun together. She is just too cute and funny. She especially loved my hat. In the afternoon we met again for some tobboganing. That was fun!
And on Thursday we met with some friends back in Bonn for tapas and “Feuerzangenbowle”. That is a German winter tradition: you warm redwine and orange juice with some spices (cloves, cinnemon, etc.) and put orange pieces into it. Then you place a certain metal fork/bar over it, put a sugar cone on the fork, drench it in rum (54 %) and then light it. The rum starts burning, so the cone melts and drops into the warm wine. Well made, it tastes quite good. Otherwise, believe me, it doesn’t. This one was good though. Hope you enjoyed some more pictures of a German Christmas.

My favorite German Christmas poem

2005-12-25T18:49:00.000Z

A little gift for all of you. This is my favorite German Christmas poem by Joseph von Eichendorff:

Markt und Straßen stehn verlassen,

Still erleuchtet jedes Haus,

Sinnend geh ich durch die Gassen,

alles sieht so festlich aus.

In den Fenstern haben Frauen

Buntes Spielzeug fromm geschmückt,

Tausend Kindlein stehn und schauen,

Sind so wundervoll beglückt.

Und ich wandre durch die Gassen

Bis hinaus ins freie Feld,

Hehres Glänzen, heilges Schauern!

Wie so weit und still die Welt!

Sterne hoch die Kreise schlingen,

Aus des Schnees Einsamkeit

Steigts wie wunderbares Singen -

O du gnadenreiche Zeit!

A glimpse of German Christmas

2005-12-25T18:23:00.000Z

I know I have not written for a really long time. I was really busy and just got internet connection at home the beginning of December. But also, I just wanted to take time during Advent to prepare for Christmas. I just thought I'll share some thoughts and some small impressions of German Christmas.

Here in Germany, Advent still plays an important role - even though its role has probably changed. Advent is meant to be a time to prepare for the coming of Christ. A transition from darkness to light. This is why Advent starts with just one lit candle and then progresses towards for lit candles and the whole Christmas tree on Christmas. Many people just see Advent as a fun time to enjoy cookies, Glühwein (warm spiced wine), Christmas markets, ice skating, ... Or as a most stressful time - buying presents, planning meals, crowded cities, ... Advent suely can be a wonderful time (enjoying all the things mentioned above), but it is also a time for awaiting and preparing ourselves for Christ. This is not always easy in between all the commotion around us! But this year, fortunately, I had at least some time to sit quietly, with lit candles and some hot tea and to read God's word.
Germans do not put up their Christmas trees the beginning of Advent, but either on the 23rd of December or the morning of Christmas Eve. We always put ours up the late afternoon of the 23rd. I have not missed this tradition once :). Of course everything moves in a set pattern: Mom decides on the position of the lights, Dad puts the ornaments into the highest part of the tree and my mom and I take care of the other ornaments. And then we add the "Lametta" (long silvery stuff hanging from the branches). I try to always avoid that part ;). Maybe I'll post a picture of our tree in a few days. We keep the tree until Epiphany. Of course, as the "children" my sister (25y) and I (29y) are not allowed to see the Christmas tree with its lights burning until Christmas Eve.
The main part of Christmas for Germans is Christmas Eve. People attend church in the late afternoon (even most who never enter a church any other day of the year) and then have either dinner first or the exchange of the gifts. We have gifts first and then a long nice family dinner. On Christmas day, there are again services at church - no matter what day of the week it is (same on the second Christmas day, 26th).

I really love Christmas. It is a wonderful time to be with family and friends. But most important to me is what happend that first Christmas in Bethlehem. God sending His son into the world, a poor little baby. A poor little baby in a manger - the hope and salvation for us!
Christmas is about the heart. It is a time to think about our hearts - how is the condition of our heart. Does our saviour have a place in our heart - THE place in our heart? Has our heart turned hard and stony? Or is soft and loving? It is a time to receive God's wonderful inexpressable gift for us: Jesus Christ. And it is a time to give gifts back to God, gifts to the little baby in the manger. What is the gift? My all. My favorite German Christmas carol sings about us standing in front of the manger, giving ourselves, giving what He has given us first to Jesus, who is our life.
So I'll close with the first verse of this song (in German). Merry Christmas to all of you!

Ich steh an deiner Krippen hier,

oh Jesu, Du mein Leben.

Ich komme, bring und schenke Dir,

was Du mir hast gegeben.

Nimm hin, es ist mein Leib und Sinn,

Herz, Seel und Mut, nimm alles hin

und lass Dir's wohl gefallen.

20 random things about me

2005-11-28T02:15:00.000Z

A while ago my friend Anne tagged me. It took me ages, but here they finally are: 20 totally random things about me.

1. I love snow! It is finally snowing in Bonn and that made my day. I really miss the snowy winters of growing up in Norway.
2. I feel half-Norwegian. I lived there from age 4-7, went to kindergarten and started school. Everytime I come back there it feels like home.
3. I am fluent in German, English and Norwegian and also speak French and Flemish (Dutch). I also had classes in Italian, Spanish and Icelandic. Any more information necessary to tell you I have a passion for lanugages J?
4. I also love to read – almost everything: theology, fiction, crime novels, children’s books, poetry…
5. My favorite German poets are Joseph von Eichendorff and Ludwig Uhland.
6. My favorite English hymn is “All is well with my soul”. There is a version from Newboys (I think it’s them) that is my favorite.
7. The last English book I bought is “ The Six Wives of Henry VIII” by Alison Weir. The last German book I bought in an antique books store. It is a book for young women from 1904 (and it is the 13th edition!!). Translated the title goes something like “The German maiden’s character/virtue and occupation”. It is fun! And quite interesting. Tells you everything from virtues over faith to running a household. And it’s quite pretty in a faded pink velvet cover. Both my beloved and I enjoy antique books.
8. I am a published writer. Edited and contributed to a German legal book about international law. Would prefer to write children’s books… Hm…
9. I used to be extremely afraid of fire. Probably because I saw a house burn when I was in kindergarten. Childern had played with matches and caused the fire. I lit the first candle myself when I was 15 (!).
10. I did ballroom dancing until my early twenties. Still love it, but haven’t done it in almost 8 years.
11. I have one sister. She just graduates in biology!
12. My best friend has two little girls. I have the honor of being the older one’s godmother. She is adorable, has the widest grin I’ve ever seen.
13. A friend was once asked if our church is more liberal or conservative. Her answer was something like “Well, regarding conservative, I have a friend who has discussed headcoverings!” – That’s I… (I don’t cover, but I have discussed it with friends.)
14. I became a Christian when I was 17. But I think the foundation was laid in Norway where I attended a Children’s group run by the Salvation Army.
15. I never wanted to ski. But since I took a class after all (in 1999/2000) I seriously enjoy it.
16. I am not married and have no kids. But an awesome boyfriend :).
17. My most exiting trip was to Colombia in 1997. That country is beautiful. I spent three weeks there, visited Bogotá, Medellin, the Andes, Cartagena and Santa Marta. Slept one night in a hammock at the ocean in a National Park (Tayrona). Was more afraid of thieves than of the guerilla. And was right, cause they ripped a necklace from my throat on a busy market. My own fault though.
18. I love food. All kinds of food. I prefer good and hearty food to fancy food, but I like that too. And I love to cook. It is one of my favorite pastimes. I own quite a collection of cookbooks too. I can even just sit down and read a good cookbook. I imagine how it tastes and plan what to cook next time. Own some American cookbooks too (Texas, Midwest, Quilter’s Christmas Cookbook etc.). If you would like to share one of your favorite recipes with me, just leave it in the comment box or email it to me! I’ll try to cook it, promise!
19. My favorite spot in the US is Door County, Wisconsin. It is beautiful.
20. I really really would love to meet my blog friends!

I will not specifically tag anyone this time. If you want to share random things about you, please do it and leave a note in the comment box (right after your recipe :)).

Let you entertain me!

2005-11-09T14:44:00.000Z

Isn’t there a song by R*obbie Williams where he sings “let me entertain you”? At least it popped into my head when I thought about this post. Another post about youth ministry … ;). Last Friday I had lunch with my friend Erin who is a youth pastor (and she is a really good one) and, as so often when we have lunch or coffee together, we talked about youth ministry. Erin and some of our youth are just back from a conference in Stockholm which must have been awesome. It was truly good for our teens. So this post is not about my church’s youth ministry or big conferences, but more about everyday youth work in general and youth retreats/camps.

Personally I think that among today’s youth we very often encounter the entertainment mentality. It goes something like this: I am coming to youth group – so you have to entertain me! Young people are deeply immersed in our current entertainment culture. It’s everywhere: there’s fast movies, video clips, MTV, parties, concerts, … you name it. The attention span gets shorter and attention is often only spurred by fast/loud/very colored/… incentives. So the danger is there: if youth group is not hip, it is out. Youths might not come anymore.

But do we want our youth groups to be hip? Do we want to entertain? Do we need to have movie clips, video games, computer graphics? Do we need to have special speakers for retreats and maybe even a band? None of this in itself is bad, so don’t get me wrong. But I worry if it gets too much or if the motivation is to entertain – so that while entertaining them, we might slip in the gospel…

When I was in youth groups or a leader a camps and retreats, it was different. We prepared the bible studies ourselves and of course we tried to make them entertaining – in the sense of involving the youths, having discussions, write their own little play and act, painting, writing songs, … We sang a lot. But we didn’t have a band, we just had one or two guitars and a song folder we assembled our-selves… It was surely not hip and probably some were bored. But a lot of teens really enjoyed it, loved to discuss and be creative. Somehow I cannot imagine that the youths now (though 12-15 years younger than I) have changed that much. Are really only an entertainment-generation. I am convinced we could still have meaningful retreats and camps and youth groups even if the way we had them was more involving and more simple.

Decisive qualities: to do what is right

2005-10-31T00:57:00.000Z

A wonderful girlfriend of mine and I talked about “the one” two evenings ago. Maybe you know how it is when girls get together … Personally I am convinced that I have found him, my friend is single right now. Anyways, while enjoying soup and a sip of wine we started talking about men and how to detect a possible “the one”. She told me that already years ago – when her sister asked her about something her future husband absolutely needed to be like – she told her surprised sister without thinking about it: A man who does not leave me when I give birth to a handicaped baby. So I shared something with her that I had thought about last weekend and shared with my beloved that day.
Last Sunday we watched the movie “To kill a mockingbird” on TV together. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the movie (with Gregory Peck) or the book, so here is some context: In the early 20th century, Atticus Finch, a widower with two young children, takes up the defence of a poor young black man who is prosecuted for supposedly having beaten up and tried to rape a white young woman. And even though Atticus knows very well the consequences his decision will have, he proves in court the black man’s innocence and the guilt of the girl’s father. Nevertheless, the jury finds the man guilty. Atticus has to face misunderstanding and even hatred by some of the town’s white population.
But he did what was right. Even though doing what was right brought negative consequences with it. It would have been easier to just let it go, not care (it was obvious the jury would find him guilty anyway), to take the “easy” decision – the comfortable decision.
Personally I think, that doing right because it is right is not “in fashion” anymore in the eyes of the majority. First check out the consequences, than take the decision – the decision that offers the better results for you. If it requires “bending the truth”, do it. If it requires letting somebody down, do it. If it requires breaking some rules or even laws, do it. As long as there is enough in it for you and the risk not too big, do it. It seems to me that very often this is what modern society tells us. Maybe not openly, but the tendencies are surely there. First myself and then who cares…
This is not what I want. I want a man who does what is right. Not because of what he can gain from doing the right thing, but exactely and “only” because it IS the right thing.

Trials are beneficial to true faith

2005-10-15T14:44:00.000Z

Nobody enjoys trials. Nobody will actually claim to like them. But everybody - yes, everybody - has to face trials. Of course we can try to hide, we can try to run. But I think that at least most of us know the truth that we have to go through them. Which does not make them easier to bear. Jesus told us that there would be trials and tribulations in our lives. Especially if we are His followers. So we try to brave ourselves for what is to come. But rarely we think about the lessons we can learn or the character we can gain. Very understandable. Last week I read in one of my parents' birhtday gifts to me, the complete works by Jonathan Edwards. And he had some very intersting things to share about trials. They really made/make me think. So here they are (from his "A treatise concerning religious affections"):

Such trials [as of the recipients of Peter's letter, see 1. Peter 1] are of threefold benefit to true religion. Hereby the truth of it is manifested, it appears to be indeed true religion. Trials, above all other things, have a tendency to distinguish true religion and false, and to cause the difference between them evidently to appear. Hence they are called by the name of trials [...]. They try the faith and religion of professors, of what sort it is, as apparent gold is tried in the fire, and manifested, whether it be gold or not. And the faith of true Christians, being thus tried and proved to be true, is found to praise, and honour, and glory.
And then, these trials not only manifest the truth of true religion, but they make its genuine beauty and amiableness remarkably to appear. True virtue never appears so lovely, as when it is most oppressed: and the divine excellency of real Christianity is never exhibited with such advantage, as when under the greatest trials. Then it is that true faith appears much more precious than gold; and upon this account, is found to praise, and honour and glory.
Again, another benefit of such trials to true religion, is that they purify and increase it. They not only manifest it to be true, but also tend to refine it, and deliver it from those mixtures of what is false, which incumber and impede it; that nothing may be left but that which is true. They not only show the amiableness of true religion to the best advantage, but they tend to increase its beauty by establishing and confirming it; making it more lively and vigorous, and purifying it from those things that obscured its lustre and glory. As gold that is tried in the fire is purged from its alloy, and all remainders of dross, and comes forth more beautiful; so true faith being tried as gold is tried in the fire, becomes more precious; and thus also is found unto praise, and honour, and glory.

Like the morning mist

2005-10-11T22:22:00.000Z

I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me for I have redeemed you.
Isaiah 44:22 (NIV)

This is my verse for this time of the year. It really stuck out to me when I was reading Isaiah last weekend. Instantly my mind conjured a picture of the autumn morning mists and how they vanish when the sun rays are strong enough. Here we have fall already. Leaves are turning and most mornings, mist lies over the whole city and covers the Rhine and the surrounding mountains. But later in the day it disappears due to the sun coming out. And not a trace of mist is left. Very pretty.

Our sins are not pretty. Every sin wages death, not matter if it appears just stupid to us, or excusible or evil. Sin wages death. We are stained by sin. But for those who believe, this wonderful promise stands: God swept our sins away! Just like the fall storm chases the clouds and the sun makes the morning mists disappear. And not a trace is left. Not a trace of our sin is left.

Busy!

2005-10-06T00:11:00.000Z

Just a quick note to y'all: I started a new job this week, so I am busy. And that PhD is still waiting to be finished as well :). But I'm still checking your blogs, just don't always have the time to comment. And I'll blog something more substantial again soon :).
A propos blogs: please head over to the fabulous life of erin and welcome my friend Erin who just started her blog! She is the high school youth director at my church. I'm sure some of you are interested in what she has to say about that - and life in Germany as an American.

Creation and creativity

2005-10-02T17:42:00.000Z

The beauty of God's creation amazes me again and again. I love to watch nature: mountains, trees, the sun on some flowers, clouds, turning leaves... It is all so detailed, so wonderful. Last weekend we were at our annual church retreat and talked about recapturing the awe of God in different ways, one was through looking at creation. It is just so true: when I gaze at the wonders of God's creation, my soul is amazed by the creator.
We are created in God's image. So he gave us a desire for creativity too. He is the ultimate creator, but he shared his desire for creating with us. The things I create are far from the beauty and perfection of God's creation, but still they are an expression of myself and precious to me. I really love to be creative. This side of my personality lay quiet for quite some time, but over the last year it has resurfaced. I developed a new interest in scrapbooking - I love being creative that way. And I love photography, I always have. I also started having an interest in altered books (havent done it yet though) and card making (haven't tried it either). And I have always loved to cook :). That is a creative outlet for me too. It is so wonderful that God made us creative too.

My favorite season

2005-09-28T20:37:00.000Z

You scored as Fall. You are FALL. You appreciate all that you have, and are willing to share with others. You are a friend in the truest sense of the word, and can easily focus your attention on those who need you, placing yourself on the back burner. You make sure your responsibilites are met before you allow yourself 'free time'.

What Season Are You?
created with QuizFarm.com

I took this for fun, but autumn and winter (close second in the quiz) are actually my favorite seasons. I love the sun and enjoy spring and summer. But I love it when the leaves turn, the air is crispy, wind blows. Snow falls, candles, books, scrapbooking and tea ... Do I need to say more :)? Maybe my love for these seasons is due to growing up in Norway?

That simple trusting faith

2005-09-23T10:05:00.000Z

First of all: I’m glad you are still checking my blog althought I haven’t posted for quite a while! I tried to be very busy with my PhD and cut down internet use (added 20 pages to my thesis, yeah!).

But even through that work of writing and thinking, I kept reading non-law related books. I love reading and I always need to read something besides my work stuff. One of the books I read was "Prisoner and yet" by Corrie ten Boom. She was a devout Christian who lived in the Netherlands during its occupation by the Nazis. At that time she was already an elder lady living with her father and sister. Although it would have been a lot safer to live a quiet peaceful life, they decided to not turn a blind eye on the horrible things that happened, but to help. Therefore their home became a hiding place for Jews.
But alas, somehow they were found out and imprisoned by the occupying forces. Her dad only servived his imprisonment by 10 days. Corrie and her sister Betsy were transferred to a prison camp in the Netherlands and later to the concentration camp Ravensbrück in Germany. The book tells about her life from the moment they were found out and their time in the concentration camps. It is a very honest and moving book and I highly recommand it to all of you. What struck me most is how her faith sustained her through all the horrible times in the camps. She always kept trusting Jesus that he would help her through and protect her. And her hope in her heavenly home was continually strengthening her. Corrie and her sister became a blessing to many amidst the horrors of the concentration camps. Corrie led secret worship services, prayer meetings and bible studies. She and her sister were always there for the other prisoners, leading quite some to Christ. Even after her sister Betsy died, Corrie held fast to her faith in Jesus. She was released before the war was over and returned to Haarlem where she had lived. Although she thought she would never go back to Germany, God had a different plan and she often went back after the war to teach about forgiveness and reconcilitation.

When I read about her constant faith and trust in Jesus, always coming to him with every need she had, big or small, in prayer and trusting in his loving care in those circumstances, I know that this is what I want. A faith that always turns to the Saviour, with every care. Trusts in him completely. And a firm hope in the heavenly home to sustain.

Help for Katrina victims

2005-09-08T20:19:00.000Z

My friends from Baton Rouge, LA are safe! (And now in Germany for their Master degrees.)

We just talked and agreed that it is so hard being so far away from all the desaster and that we really feel the urge to help. We do not just want to look at all these horrible pictures and then keep on with my nice life.
I just found something though that even we - in Europe - who are farther away can do besides donating money. (Please donate!) A big pink cookie collects knitted baby and toddler wear. So if you can knit, please do so. The adress to send it to can be found here. I am seriously tempted to learn how to knit baby socks! And I have a friend who is awesome at knitting, so I'll make her teach me.
You might think there are more important things to do than to knit baby socks right now. Maybe you are right. But to the mothers who will receive them, they will make a huge difference!

The mother of one the members from my congregation works as a counsellor in a shelter in San Antonio, TX. She asked for bible donations. So if you are interested in donating a bible, please email me (links in the sidebar) and I will get the adress for you.

Help for Katrina victims starts pouring from everywhere. Evacuees from New Orleans and other places now live in shelters all over the US. The Astrodome and Relient Stadium in the US have become the largest shelters in the US ever. Lots of facilities are planned for the more than 24.000 people now living there.
So many people start to help - with donations, with prayers (praying does help!) and practical help. There are barbers from Houston offering free shaves and haircuts in the shelters. This may sound funny, but it is helpful: so many of these people need to start a "new" life and need to apply for jobs. Nice haircut makes a nicer impression... Kids sell lemonade on their street and raise between 47 and 1000 $. Other people offer rides into other States to reunite families. Others provide clothing, food, bibles, toys for children ...
For some first-hand stories that are so moving check out this blog: Voices of Katrina!

Spotlight on Darfur 1 is up!

2005-09-06T22:09:00.000Z

Although we are all shocked by what happened in the Gulf region in the US and suffer with the people there, it is important to remember that people suffer all over the globe.
One of these other areas is the province of Darfur in Sudan. Horrible atrocities have been committed there over a long period of time and there is not really any relief to be seen so far.

Therefore Catez at allthings2all had the great idea to hold regular spotlights on Darfur with posts from a wide variety of bloggers. And I am glad to announce that Spotlight on Darfur 1 is up! The spotlight contains reports and views on the Darfur genocide crisis from 14 diverse bloggers. We do not represent any one group or organisation and all share an intention to keep the spotlight on Darfur.

So please head over and read all the contributions, these are really good posts!

(Picture courtesy to Agent Tim)

More summer blessings...

2005-09-06T00:56:00.000Z

I have some serious posts brewing in my mind and am anxiously awaiting news from friends in Baton Rouge, but this was on the forefront of my mind today.

Although my heart hurts every time I watch footage on the Katrina disaster or think about the people down there, I want to share some more daily life blessings. Even or maybe especially in view of tragedies our appreciation for all of God’s blessings in our own lives is strengthened.
Summer blessings this past week:
Going for a walk in the beautiful Ahr valley and enjoying the local wine accompanied by fresh bread from the stone oven with simple spreads (sausage, cheese, lard). Simple things can be so good!
Youth group started again: chili and a great game of capture the flag. I’m excited for things to come.
Drinking cider at an Irish pub’s beer garden (twice last week).
Sitting in the garden (studying!!), smelling the hot summer grass, watching butterflies and a squirrel.
Visiting friends and adoring their new-born baby son, having great food and fellowship.
Celebrating exams.
Coffee outside with a great friend, talking and spontaneously sharing dinner.
Sitting outside with my beloved and my parents, laughing, having good times.
Church kick-off Sunday, so many people, great weather, many interested in our small groups (yeah!).
A lady at church telling me I had a knack with kids and wishing me seven (!) of my own.
A whole Sunday afternoon spent outside, at the Rhine, in the city, enjoying being with my beloved.
I am blessed.

What's that for a solution?

2005-08-31T18:56:00.000Z

Flames are rushing through the house. Smoke is dense everywhere. The house is completely destroyed by fire. The victims this time are a pregnant mother and her two children and another family, the mother pregnant with twins. The rest of the inhabitants of that house are lucky and safe. They are immigrants from Africa, probably half of them illegal.
This is the third time in five months that a Parisian house inhabited by poor African immigrants is destroyed by fire and many people dead. These poor (sometimes illegal) immigrants live in horrible conditions. No running water, no electricity, far too many people living in one house.

The French Secretary of the Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy, sees the reason for these fires in the fact that all these emergency shelters for the poor are overcrowded. Yesterday he came up with a solution: all these shelters should be closed.

Can anyone explain this? What is supposed to happen to the poor who live there? Who need these shelters? If they just crowd into other, maybe abandoned buildings, the risk of fire will surely not decrease... Or are they supposed to live on the streets?
(Source: FAZ)

French Quarter, New Orleans

2005-08-31T17:13:00.000Z

Some more pictures from my trip last year. These are all pictures from the French Quarter in New Orleans.
At the moment this beautiful city is slowly filling up with water. But not just there, in so many other cities and villages, people have lost their homes, lost their belongings, are without power and food. At the moment, Katrina is supposed to have killed about 100 people. Numbers are rising.
Let us keep all these people in our prayers!

Who remembers Darfur

2005-08-31T01:16:00.000Z

Catez at allthings2all is one blogger who really keeps Darfur on people's minds and hearts. She had the great idea of having Spotlights on Darfur regularly, so it will not disappear somewhere in the vast array of news, ideas and internet pages. So head over there and check out the spotlight!

When I prepared writing my post on Darfur, one thought struck me suddenly: who remembers Darfur? Who remembers the countless victims to slaughter, abuse, killings, rapes, arson and hunger? After being the newspaper headlines for a few days, maybe some weeks, Darfur has disappeared from the newswriters' maps. There is so much else going on: early elections here in Germany, flooding in Bavaria, "Katrina", bombs in Gaza, bombs in Bagdad, neglected children starving, economies failing, dictators in North Corea, dictators in Zimbabwe, nuclear weapons in Iran, nuclear weapons in Brazil ...
As the newspaper headlines chase from on hot topic to another or to a supposedly-hot topic, the people in Darfur are easily forgotten. And I can include myself in the group of those who shifted focus away. Not on purpose! But it happened. When I wanted to start reseraching for my post, I thought: "Wait a minute - I haven't read about Darfur in ages! I don't really know what's going on!"

It is so easy to get all caught up in daily life and all its joys and cares. And then to forget those who suffer. The people in Darfur are forced from their villages, their homes burnt, their crops destroyed. Men, women and children are murdered. Many women are raped, carried along by the militia as prizes and suffering sexual and other abuse over months. Children loose whole families, traumatized from violence forever. As of June 2005 2,96 million people have been affected by the crises in Darfur (source: Unicef). Almost half of these are children.
In the face of such misery and horror and such an immense need for help, governments and international Organizations try to help - but, I think, do not really know how to help. What to do? Obviously efforts sofar have not been very successful. But as I look at myself - I wonder what to do as well? What can a government do? What can we do? What can I do?

That is the question we all need to ask ourselves. Seriously and honestly. A first step is the decision to not forget the poeple in Darfur. But we cannot stop there. The question is: what next?

Memories of Louisiana

2005-08-30T17:45:00.000Z

I was in Louisiana last September and had a wonderful time with my friends Tom and Leslie in Baton Rouge. Leslie and I also did several trips to New Orleans. I just hope they are save. "Katrina" did so much damage down there in Louisiana and Mississippi and other places. So here are two pictures of the beauty of Louisiana. The first is at Oak Alley Plantation, the other was taken during a sunset swamp tour. I will still post a few pics of New Orleans, but I don't have the CD here.

Good times after bad days

2005-08-25T18:36:00.000Z

There are days where I feel that almost everything is going the wrong way. Too much reading still to be done for my PhD, my boss promised lots of work after his return from vacation, forms to be filled out (I seriously dislike filling out forms), it’s been raining for days, we’re nervous cause my beloved is expecting the written results from his bar exam (arrived today – they’re real good, yeah!!), unintentionally spending too much money, ...

But a quite nervous or stressed or bad mood can be changed by good times – and it is so easy to have good times! How often I forget that these cares are not what is important to me in my life (well, the results were important to us!). What is important: my beloved, my family, my friends and Jesus. And these give me such good times! Right in the middle of all that’s stressful or sad or crazy. Good times I had the last days:
Worship service last Sunday; vacation’s about over, so most people are back. It was contemporary worship Sunday and we had a wonderful time worshipping our Lord and enjoying each other’s company.
Scrapbooking with two great friends on Sunday evening.
A motivating phone call by a friend when I was really frustrated at work.
Always good times with my beloved!
Sitting in my room with my beloved reading 84, Charing Cross Road and drinking a little bit of Laphroig.
My mom coming over for lunch and good talks.
Dinner with some of my girl friends, laughing so hard.
Talking to a friend in hospital who just had her first child.
Despite of all the cares I first mentioned: life is wonderful!

Unbelievable

2005-08-25T00:06:00.000Z

First some really good news: my friends just had their first child, a healthy baby-boy (though about four weeks early)! That is wonderful and made me so happy.

Maybe that’s why these news hurt even more: the place is a courthouse in Hamburg, Germany. Today started the criminal proceedings against a couple who starved their child to death. And no-one noticed. The couple lived in an apartment building. Their only daughter (another child had been given up for adoption) lead a life worse than most prisoners. She was confined to her room, the door locked, the window darkened so no sunshine could enter. Her bed was a blanket on top of the bedsprings. No pictures, no other furniture, presumably no toys. And no food. She died at the age of seven, her weight: 9 kg. Nobody knows if she ever learned to speak or to walk. Nobody knows for how long this has been going on.
Her parents lived a “normal life”, hanging out in the pub and caring for their well-fed cat...

Can you imagine? It makes me so mad I feel like destroying something (don’t worry, I won’t) and so sad, I just want to cry.