Autumn's on

It's a cold wet Sunday afternoon following a bright, brilliant and warm Saturday.  The general fickleness of SW Germany's weather is accentuated by Fall's progression towards Winter's grip.  If this sounds pessimistic it's just that last winter was a pretty dark one - the darkest, meteorologically speaking, in 43 years.  But we love autumn for the most part.  The colors are out in central European force.  For a New Englander this sight is welcome but rather muted compared to the blazing glory of a Northeastern sugar bush.

The last gasp of summer for our family based here in Germany is the annual Senior Class trip to Rome.  Rome is south (although at the latitude of our home state RI - Kandern, Germany = Quebec), Rome is Mediterranean.  We all had our last swims of the season just over a week ago.

I get to accompany the trip each year as I teach only Seniors and the school requests I go along for a measure of consistency year to year.  Diane was a able to come along as well.  This year had 75 students and 17 adults on two buses that did most of their traveling by night.  It wasn't all sunshine, in fact, this was quite a problematic year for weather and our usual routines got a bit scrambled but the students had a great time.  The morning the trip boarded the bus for Germany via Venice, Diane boarded a plane from Rome, eventually (and after a nail-biter of a wait for her passport and visa to be expressed to Italy), to Cameroon to explore some TeachBeyond initiatives there.  Below are some shots from the trip.

Yummy sandwich shop in Florence.

Fascinating fresco from side chapel in Santa Novello, Florence.

Students entertaining each other while waiting in line for a museum.

John, somewhat better dressed, trying to strike a David pose.

Gellato - what else!

Diane and a student we've known since Kindergarten (hers).

Carl and friends

Roaming the Roman Forum

A windy ride on the boat to Venice

The wine is purely table decoration.

Now we're all back literally and, after a few foggy days, even the students are back to an educational frame of mind as we quickly wind our way to the end of quarter 1 at the close of the month. 

Summer's end

August 24, 2013

Together with family in July

 We did get to spend some great time with our kids and grandkids early in the summer.  As you may have seen in our last post we then returned to Germany for English Camps.  These camps are so great wherever they are held.  North American and national staff members meet with their campers and wonderful community is achieved while lives are changed - and some English gets taught as well.

 One of the cool things at this year's camp was that two of our (any previous staff that has served with us check it out) former campers served as Group Leaders for our camp this year!

Above the whole Camp, below our three English class groups

   After camps were over and we took care of many a post camp detail we did get away for a time to
Austria (four hours by car) and rented a small vacation apartment for a week.  Our goal was to rest after an exhausting even weeks.  Hiking and reading were pretty much the agenda.

First day's hike

High meadow

Morning bun service!

Second big hike

My health continues to be great - the hiking and my repeated medical evaluations underscore this.  We're both back into our work with both feet as Diane continues to direct language initiatives for TeachBeyond worldwide and I prep for another year's teaching.

God is good!

Camp almost done

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It is the last full day of our English Camp here in Kandern.  Our staff of 16 has hosted our 32 campers for a week now and tomorrow the campers depart leaving another day for up to pack up, clean up and debrief.  Most of us (code phrase for all of us) are pretty tired.  Check out the schedule below and multiply it by 7 straight days with minor variations and imagine yourself doing it.

7:30                Staff Devotions

8:00                Campers Up

8:15                Breakfast (it’s noisy!)

8:45                Clean Up (all the kids have chores)

9:15-45          Quiet Time

10-12:00        Morning English Class

12-12:30        Free Time

12:30              Lunch (it’s noisy!)

1 – 2:00          Clean Up/Free

2-3:00                        Afternoon English Class

3:00                Snack

3:15-5:00       Activity (we’ve had a record heat spell here!)

5-6:00                        Free

6:00                Supper (it’s noisy!)

6:30-8:00       Free

  (7-7:45)       Staff Mtg.

8-9:30                        Etwas Mehr  (this is the evening praise and Bible teaching time)

9:30                Snack

9:45- 10:15   Room Time (where small group leaders host their groups)

10:15              To Rooms

10:45              Lights Out

11:00              Quiet!

Yeah, we’re tired but on the other hand:

We’ve achieved community – if you’ve ever been involved in this sort of thing you know what I mean.

We’ve learned why the (thankfully few) difficult campers are that way and can better understand and reach out to them and they have made great progress.

The gospel has been proclaimed and kids who already have a relationship of faith have been challenged to grow in their reflection of God (see 2 Corinthians 3:18)

We have a final night to bless and be blessed.

We’re tired – but it’s a “good tired”.  There’s just nothing else like English Camp!

Photo Scavenger Hunt shots:

 Making the no stopping sign at the no stopping sign

 Spelling BLUE for the Blue Team

The Director owning a round of "Honey I Love you"

English Camp 4 2013 Team wonderful!

Back again!

July 25, 2013

It’s been way too long between blog posts.  One of the strange advantages og my season with cancer was long hours of contemplative space and no shortage of subjects upon which to contemplate.  Well, there are always such topics but often little space.  There is little space now as well but I feel the desire to relate the story of this year’s English Camp at the Palmgarten dorm of BFA.  It’s been a few years since Diane and I have fully dived directly into EC but it’s great to be back. 

We are co-leading a team of 16 staff and get to work with 32 German and French speaking campers.  Our staff is, overall, quite young. Our son Carl and his classmate Daniel are directing Activities.  Two of our three English teachers are college students.  Most of our group leaders are in their twenties.  Four of them are former English Campers we had at camp or worked with before.

It’s taken a few days to get my head back into EC Director mode.  I’m Bible Speaker as well so it’s a challenge but the rhythms are starting to kick in again.

Our theme this year is Mirror Image – theme verse:  And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate [a “reflect”] the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:18. 

Well, the kids just got in from afternoon English classes for their snack before the afternoon activities so back to wearing the Director’s hat.

Checking up and in.

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January 21, 2013

Well it has been a long break taken from this work of reflection related to my acquaintance with lymphoma over the past year.  A few weeks ago was the anniversary of the accurate diagnosis of THRLBCL.  I’m beginning to have difficulty remembering the exact words and order the initials stand for – whether that’s middle age, chemo brain remnants or just inattention due to returned health I don’t know.

The anniversary had a sad overtone for us in that it fell on the day of my brother-in-law’s funeral.  Norm was the best of men who had fought his battle with cancer for over two years.  He passed over confident of his future in God’s good grace and Norm’s now won that battle in a different way than I but we feel the cost to his dear family and to us.  Norm, you are missed, you will be remembered and we will meet again.

Today was my six-month check-up (8 months out from the transplant) with the Freiburg doc.  All is good.  He said that I was truly a “cancer survivor”.  I told him that I’ve had this strange experience over the past six months of feeling as if I were growing younger.  This is, I presume, the effect of returning to the strength I had before ever being attacked by lymphoma – and we really don’t know when that started – and the recovery of my body from the assault of high dose chemo and a stem cell transplant. 

In a stairwell at the clinic today, I passed a nurse I recognized as a regular from my long stay last spring.  I greeted her effusively but there was no recognition there.  What was I thinking – why would she recognize me bouncing down the stairs back in “fighting trim” and covered in scalp and facial hair.  I wonder if she has more that a few moments like these.  I got a good chuckle out of it.

But right now I’m under the weather with my first cold in over a year – not feeling younger right now.

We have had a great fall and early winter.  I’m back to teaching full time.  Diane continues to oversee both existing and expanding opportunities in Language Services for TeachBeyond (she’ll be attending leadership meetings in Miami in a few days and is right now with our kids and grandkids back home on her way).  Our daughter Hannah is engaged to a godly young man and has but three semesters left to graduate with her Nursing degree.  I had the privilege of speaking to a college age group of about 100 in Constance, Germany a few weeks ago (reflecting on the past year).  We continue to rejoice in what God has called us to as we spend our time walking and living by faith.