The class of 2009!

Here's a few shots of grad stuff. What a time it was for all involved - grads, families, friends, staff - a whirl of appreciation, celebration, transition, pleasure and pain. I'm comforted in all this by knowing that as much as we all love these seniors, God loves them more!



From "Senior Skip Day"




Above is one of my favorite students (I had about 79 favorites) with her family. Below, same girl (this time underneath another fave) at the all night open house for seniors after grad celebrations.



At one point - somewhere around 3AM - we had over 40 kids in the house eating homemade pizza and just being together for their last night as classmates.



Here's a few particiants in the Spring Party with a Viking theme:
Here's Serge - an unlikely and incredibly civil Viking:
One dorm's Seniors and heir dorm parents at grad reception:

May stuff

We've got some weddings coming up, so, a few weekends ago we drove an hour over to France to buy some tablecloths for gifts (they fly a whole lot better than glasses or blenders and they make some beautiful ones there). It was a gorgeous spring day and we made a nice day of it. While walking through town we spotted this "old-timer".

Here's Hannah and some of her teammates at the last home soccer match this season. They won the Regional championship then and, as I write, the team is playing the semi-finals for Division II championship in the European DODDs league.

Here's a shot of us holding each others' head up as the Junior-Senior Banquet drew to a close. We're Junior Class sponsors and this is the BIG DEAL of the Junior year and a time of personal tribute to the Senior class. Much planning, organization, muscle, creativity, and sweat went into it's execution but it all turned out lovely.
Here's Hannah with fellow Juniors and members of her small group.

More Hannah Photos from Kenya

Hannah at Helping Hands - school for disabled kids

Spring Missions Trips

Hannah and Russ have returned from Kenya and Jordan respectively - tired, in Hannah's case a bit ill, but blessed by the experiences.

KENYA
Hannah's group worked with children in an orphanage and in a school for disabled kids (normally shunned in this culture). Here's a photo of Hannah's team: (If you're facebook friends with her, she's posted a bunch of other pics).


Above - Hannah & Grace
Below - Hannah working on the new bathroom
Goofing off with the kids.

JORDAN
Russ' crew had the privilege of working with Iraqi refugees living in Amman, Jordan. A pre-school group of up to 30 kids met each morning, our boys played soccer each day with teenage boys, our girls helped run an afternoon girls club for teenage girls, the kids helped out in adult English classes, and evening we spent visiting the homes of the refugees. The last day of the trip was a bus trip down to the Dead Sea with the refugee kids our gang had befriended. In addition to helping the ongoing programs (including also a service project of rehabilitating and indoor "playground") our goal was to build positive relationships with these kids and their families so that when emigration (U.S., Canada, or Australia were the leading possibilities) occurs (anywhere from 3-8 or more years after fleeing Iraq) they would seek out believers.
The team, including students, leaders, and the couple working on site.

The stories of the refugees included many losses and challenges - family members and friends killed, lost businesses, relatives still in peril, marginal existence now in Amman, frustrations and red tape, etc. Two things were quite clear as we got to know and spend time with the refugee families. One - no matter where the refugees stood faithwise, hospitality was very much a part of their culture. You could not visit a home and avoid a slice of cake, a glass of fruit juice or soda, a cup of coffee, etc. - even if you shared not a word of common language. There was never a question of cost and for some it must have cost sacrificially. Two - those refugees who were believers may have lost much but they had a true wellspring of joy in their lives. It spoke to me of the trap that a comfortable existence can spring on a believer - the comfort/complacency trap. There are times we must move to the edge of our comfort envelopes and beyond to really know the hope of our calling, the riches of our inheritance, and the power that is at work within us (yeah, as you might sense from this past sentence, Russ got to preach to the refugee congregation from Eph 1).

Here are some shots from the trip - eventually we'll get some more posted on Facebook.

Three of our kids and four of the refugee teens

Esther and a friend.
Above - Mahata section of Amman - one of the poorer parts of town where Iraqi refugees have settled, our home for the week, and one of the tremendous number of mosques that dot the city of over 3 million (my morning wake-up was the 5AM call to prayer).
Below, Mahata street scenes.







One of the high points for Russ was sending about two hours with our Jordanian host and the boys on the team at the new national mosque of Jordan - built in honor of the late king. There we were able to observe the afternoon call to prayer as well as the prayer time itself. When that was over a number of locals greeted us warmly and then one of the two imams (teachers/leaders of a mosque) came over to speak with us. Through our host's translations, we were able to ask many questions regarding his role, the mosque, the Koran, etc. He sang to us part of the opening sura (chapter) of the Koran - the Fatiha (In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds. The Beneficent, the Merciful. Master of the Day of Judgment. Thee do we serve and Thee do we beseech for help. Keep us on the right path. The path of those upon whom Thou hast bestowed favors. Not (the path) of those upon whom Thy wrath is brought down, nor of those who go astray.) and then his assistant did the same in his own style (both, of course, in Arabic). I'm sure they thought that they were reaching out to us but it was a fascinating time to get authoritative words from a recognized leader of this faith - wow, as a teacher currently working through a unit on Islam in my Worldviews classes - what a moment!
Above, national mosque built in memory of King Hussein - sorry, no photos allowed inside.
Below - some of our girls and guys doing the Dead Sea beauty treatment. Separate beaches used for guys and girls.


Pray for Jordan, for the refugees, for the real hope to be found.

Dramatic Month

Where's Hannah & Russ?

The photos below tell the tale of some of this past month's activities.

Russ and Hannah both took part in the annual Black Forest Christian Fellowship outreach event the "Candlelight Dinner" - the most sought after ticket in town (I'm not kidding - the shoe store lady was asking me before the fact when tickets become available). Most tickets go to German acquaintances of BFCF attenders, a quality dinner and show is produced and the gospel is clearly celebrated as well. This year's theme was "SING FREEDOM" and centered on Gospel music as it developed out the slave experience in America. The show ran for two consecutive nights with a repeat of the show (minus dinner) on a Sunday afternoon. Great fun and exhausting!

The other drama was the long awaited Middle School production of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs of the Black Forest. This production strayed from the standard Snow White story line in numerous ways, most obviously in the collection of alternative dwarfs (many who were actually taller than the heroine). The dwarf who stole the show (well there were many great performances but this dwarf got huge laughs!) was Weepy, the dwarf who cries about everything played by the new star of the stage - Carl.

Check out the pics!

"Nobody Knows the Trouble I Sees"

Full Chorus (both adult and high school) led by Danny Plett.

Hannah - first left row 2

Weepy giving it all he's got!

In the middle of all this was the annual high school retreat for Hannah as student and Russ as one of the many leaders. No wonder we're a bit tired.

So, there you have it. The next big event is Spring break trips - Jordan for Russ and his team and Kenya for Hannah and her team.

"the Supremacy of Christ"

What is this "worldviews" course I'm teaching all about anyway? What I think I'm meant to do in the course is to walk my seniors through the various filters through which other people see the world.

By and large my kids have grown up in Christian families that have been doing humanitarian work or outreach in the name of Christ. They've often lived in small "bubbles" of like-minded folk and indeed BFA serves as such a sphere of protectedness yet our purpose is to launch our graduates prepared to survive in, thrive in and take on a much wider world of ideas and experiences (not that they haven't had numerous, varied and incredible experiences already - not just the North American collegiate and cultural kinds of experiences). In doing so, it will be best to know how others perceive the world, make decisions and evaluate worth. That's where "Worldviews" comes in.

We examine a host of major worldviews. "Biblical Christian Theism" is our anchor (and in which everything matters because God matters). From there we travel through Deism (distant impersonal watchmaker God who doesn't really matter), Naturalism/Atheism (no God, only matter matters), Nihilism (nothing matters), Existentialism - both atheistic and Christian (only willful action matters), Postmodernism (only I matter), Eastern religions (only the "force" matters Luke), and New Age (what matters is that the force is all about me). We see how worldviews answer the great questions of purpose, existence, truth, morality, history, life and death, etc. We ask how one lives by such sets of presuppositions and what really a "good life" is.

In the process of this I try to examine each worldview with the kids as respectfully as possible with the intent of saying, "Reasonable, normal people - people that you will meet, share a coffee or a class or a room with, be under the teaching of - live by the presuppositions of these worldviews. Let's understand them, engage with them, and know our own worldview practically and well."

In exploring these in this manner, I've learned much. I've seen the "reasonableness" inherent in many other ways of viewing things and have grown in my own faith. Just the other morning I had one of those strange "Is God actually talking to me experiences". In classes we'd been examining Hinduism in great detail and I'd listened to a few gurus online and attempted to get what they were telling. I could see some eerie parallels with Christian faith goals and practices. In my morning devotions God seemed to be saying, if not audibly then firmly and deliberately still, "the Supremacy of Christ", "the Supremacy of Christ", "the Supremacy of Christ"! WOW! what a train of thought and beauty came to mind as Christ spoke out clearly to all the philosophies we've looked at. It was just one of those incredible "spiritual" moments that would blow the doors off of any hollow, counterfeit spirituality experience offered by other traditions and certainly gave lie to the notion that God is either not there or not interested.

Boy, was class fun that day or what! We went to Ephesians 1 where Paul is praying for the "enlightenment" of the "eyes of the heart" (Eastern religions are a quest for enlightenment and many speak of the "third eye" each of us has) of the believers at Ephesus so that they might know "the hope to which he [Christ] has called [them], the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe." - resurrection power as you read on. Talk about enlightenment, talk about a faith, and a worldview which speaks to every need ("God placed all things under his feet..." v.22) and desire of humanity (finding life, not death - read on to chapter 2), talk about the things that matter! Why do we matter?, why does life matter?, why does the world matter?, because Christ is supreme. Anything, any philosophy, any worldview that denies His supremacy hollows out the things that do matter.

Cross cultural life

Life as a missionary in Germany doesn't come with the extremes of cross cultural adventure associated with living in the jungle or wrestling with the bureaucracies of a former Soviet Socialist Republic. We have grocery stores (three, in fact, but each sells only one brand of paper towel), electricity (220 volt and expensive), clean water (plentiful but very expensive), medical services (if you're comfortable being diagnosed in another language, prescribed some sort tea for the majority of normal diseases and told air conditioning is a clear and present health danger), radio (mostly American pop music), and heating systems (electricity - cost already noted), gas and oil (also very expensive). Gasoline is also available and it, like back in the States, has dropped in price - now it's only $5.71 per gallon down from $9.

Things balance out - most of the groceries are fairly good quality and low cost so we tend to eat well and walk most places. Another way we've tried to balance out this year is by heating primarily with wood. That's relatively cheap (about $160 per cord) compared to the $5.11 we paid per gallon for heating oil back in the fall.

Here's the challenge - find, purchase and arrange for delivery a supply of wood.

The challenge doesn't stem from a lack of wood. We live in the Black Forest. There are many woodcutters about and few of them are the scary Grimms brothers types of guys. They just generally are not schooled in the English language. Conversely, my German is marginally awful and completely inadequate for the local dialect. So here's the challenge - find and communicate an order and delivery of seasoned firewood of the appropriate dimension for the house's woodstove. This should be put on the Amazing Race.

As I said, we've got the woods and the woodcutters so the wood is available. Piles, intricately and tightly stacked abound both out in the open and deep in the forests. They're not, however, posted with an online ordering link, they're just out there. The trick is to connect a woodpile and a woodcutter. The patient, methodical man might stake out a pile and wait but I'm not that patient or possessed of that much time. Instead I listened to the sounds of the town. Walking home from work I would sometimes hear the sound of the enormous chopsaws the woodcutters used to transform their piles of one meter split logs into piles of 30cm long split logs. Being able to hear this is one of the advantages of walking. One day, I followed my ears but by the time I made it downhill to the river and uphill to the next ridiculously steep hill (those that have been to Kandern know what I'm talking about) the woodcutter had quit for the day. I determined to try earlier the next time.

The next time was a day later and I set out - brilliantly enough with an index card with info such as my phone number (you never know, I might find a bilingual woodcutter) and home address. This time I caught him just as he began tearing down the quasi-mountainside in his tractor - 5PM on the nose - and I boldly flagged him down. Well, of course he didn't speak English, so the few choice words and pantomime began. I must say he was and is a very polite and pleasant woodcutter and human being. In short order we negotiated amount, price, tentative delivery times (punctuated by the word for rain "regen" and the appropriate arm flailings to match. We shook hands and he again shot off (they drive tractors way fast!) for dinner and I returned down the hill to the river and back up the other ridiculously steep hill we live on with the gleam of the triumphant ancestral hunter in my eye.

A night or two later the woodcutter appeared at our door and we engaged in some more pantomime, weather prognostication, number recitals and hand shaking. It seemed like the meet was set for around 4PM the next day - just before BFA began its home basketball weekend.

And come the wood did (Yoda wrote that sentence). He delivered to our side lawn by backing his tractor's trailer over the hedges - we think they'll bounce back - and dumping the lot there. Then it became my job to move it all off the lawn and around to the back. Diane enjoyed this cross cultural exchange as I was on the job that afternoon. She particularly found "cute" his using his finger to "write" his phone number ("500" - which means he's been here for a long spell - a 3 digit phone number!) on the front door. All I can say is I'm ready for the cold. By the way, the long cold snap we've had since Christmas broke once the wood was delivered.

All in all I really enjoy the cross cultural adventures and it's nice having a warm living room.