Berlin-Life
Two weeks on the couch
We spent our first two weeks sleeping on Anna's couch.
All things told it was a lovely time, except that I had a cold and felt self conscious all night blowing my nose, that I was keeping my mother up. There were five of us in the flat all together plus the occasional extra guest or two and so the sense of community was as strong as it was at the Stanton House and so I didn't realize at all that I would miss being constantly surrounded by people until after we left Anna's busy home.
Because we both had colds (mom and I) we didn't actually do very much during those two weeks. We caught up on The Office via the web and played Google-Games a lot and I spent some time reviving old friendships. Bre-Laura day has been officially and finally resurrected for Wednesdays. We have purchased krummel-tee to make the day as fully effective as possible.
Moving In
We helped Randolf, from our new church, move the day before we moved. He lives in a flat in Lichtenberg on the 4th story and doesn't have any furniture to speak of but he has plenty of books which he packed into, what seemed like, hundreds of semi-heavy boxes. By the time Thursday was over and Friday-Moving-Day was upon us, Mom and I were completely exhausted with sore muscles.
Luckily the men who delivered our furniture from a Stadt-Mission flee-market, carried it all upstairs. I don't think we would have survived otherwise.
Ravi came and helped us carry everything else up and Steve, one of our neighbors, who has black fingernails, and is a goth--- and one of the sweetest boys I've met, pitched in and helped as well. We picked up our boxes, mirror and rubber boots from Andreas' basement in the afternoon.
We hollered from our big living room windows over to Anna in her bedroom (which is directly across the way) and invited her over for dinner with the four of us. We sat on the blanket Mom crochetted on the floor, upstairs and had pizza, chocolate and Coke. Mom's blanket was the main topic of conversation. It was a good first meal in our new flat.
After two fast baths in our brand new corner-tub Mom and I whisked off to Quasimodo with Andreas to hear Funk-Delicious play. Andreas and I saw this band play about 6 years ago in Quasimodo--- they have not changed and as before we were fully bewildered and funkified by the anti-erotic lead singer and his two-toned sweat soaked metallic shirt. All things told a successful moving day.
The next day we received even more furniture from the Heymann's, our new friends in our new church. Stefan Termien came over that morning and helped us carry it all upstairs. We took a break together, had a glass of water and leaned on the window-ceil and looked out the window at the Chestnut tree behind the house and at the chimneys on the roof-tops and talked about photography and God.
Afterwards we sat in our kitchen on our newly acquired chairs and had chicken-wings and pizza for lunch. All things told a successful final moving day.
Life in Rigaerstr.
I have seen Margrit in the court yard down stairs every single day since moving in. It is lovely to see her and chat so naturally. We also regularly see other various people from our church. I have put my perfume in the mailbox, to imitate Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's and I can smell it when I come into the house from the street. It makes me feel at home.
From our street we can get to Potsdamer Platz within 30 minutes with our bikes, Alexanderplatz in 10-15, Kreutzberg in 20, Prenzlauerberg in 20 and of course Simon-Dachstr. in 5... There is a Pakistani restaurant on the corner where the owners are extremely friendly and the prices are extremely cheap and although we prefer Extra we have been doing our grocery shopping mostly at the Lidl at the other end of Rigaerstrasse. It only takes about ten minutes by bike to get to Volkspark Friedrichshain to sprawl with all the other Berliners on the sparse dirty grass and enjoy the sunshine.
We have a membership to the video store down the street but have decided to only get DVDs once a month at most.
Every Thursday and Friday we go to Potsdamer Platz. On Thursdays we pray and on Fridays we pray and preach. Mom and I both agree that Friday is the best day of our week.
Paul is in the building here every Tuesday and Wednesday and we pray with him one of those days.
Our small group meets in the cafe on Tuesday nights--- so after dinner we dig in our cupboards for a snack and then trip down the stairs to join in the lively, though somewhat random, conversations to follow.
We have been eating vegetables, rice, noodles, potatoes and bread almost exclusively. I haven't found myself missing meat yet but I am sure the time will come when I will wish for a good juicy steak! I am surprised to find myself finding it lonely to eat with just the two of us. I realize I have become Stanton-House institutionalized and wish for communal meals always and for the rest of my life. I hope that one day people will feel that they can stop in for dinner whenever they want and enjoy vegetables with us.
I have only showered once since moving in because the bathtub is so divine. I am sure this is a colossal waste of time that could be usefully spent. As soon as the novelty of it all wears off I fully intend to use my time wisely.
Mom and I share a great enjoyment in looking down on the street and watching the cars and the people coming and going. We are experimenting with different cushion//butt-cheek combinations on the window-seal to find the most comfortable way to perch there and street-gaze.
This flat is so big we feel like we have endless amounts of space. The fact is it is much smaller than our house at home and I find myself wondering how on earth we ever managed to have so much STUFF.
The Church
It is a wonderful thing to have church just down stairs. It is also a wonderful thing to have keys to it!
We purchased new bikes and were embarrassed to put them together in the courtyard where everyone could see us and of course, being true to their German selves, offer endless well-meant, bossy advice. So we pushed them into the church and put them together in there. I think all churches should attempt to be so useful.
We like everything about the church.
Of course, there are things that could be done better--- improvements to be made--- that goes without saying. But that doesn't stop us from liking everything about it. Not withstanding the fact that we all eat together after every church service. I think all churches should attempt to be so delicious.
The people in the church have made us feel welcome, at home and loved instantly. I feel as though I have known them for years. Even the little children know our names, much to my surprise, and all things told we are both very comfortable just being with people from the church.
This weekend we went into Brandenburg for a weekend away with everyone.
We had a brilliant time and I enjoyed eating communal meals.
Mom and I had our first swim of the year in the lake there, late one night. The sky was purple and the water looked purple too and everything was still. The next day we went again with a group of ladies and we all went swimming in our underwear and I felt gloriously at home. Anna and I swam out as far as we could go, until the people on the shore looked like little stick figures and everything out in the lake was still.
We had a powerful blessing service on the last night and watched the Holy Spirit touch people.
We didn't go forward for prayer ourselves but as we have grown to love these people we were extremely blessed to see them being touched, blessed and changed. Praise to the Lord was in our hearts.
The future
We want to start opening the cafe on a regular basis but that is not possible until a man named Esteban moves out and stops dirtying the kitchen. This is a long story which I don't care to explain... but patience is required on our part.
It doesn't matter-- perhaps we will never be able to open the cafe regularly and never open a cafe down stairs. We will, in that case, open our house and offer prayer here.
In the mean time we are going to start preaching on Monday nights with a lovely Nigerian man named Pascal who I met. I am supposed to translate for him, from English into German--- I wish he could find a German to do it, but I am ready and willing in the mean time.
We are also going to start doing semi-harp and bowl prayer and worship times in our upper-room on Thursday nights. We have a few interested parties already and hope that the Lord will draw in more people who want to just spend time with the Holy Spirit and enjoy His excellent presence.
We will continue prayer walking around Friedrichshain and joining the Berliner Intercessors whenever they meet.
We want to see miracles, healings, and lives transformed. We will not rest until we do.
We spent our first two weeks sleeping on Anna's couch.
All things told it was a lovely time, except that I had a cold and felt self conscious all night blowing my nose, that I was keeping my mother up. There were five of us in the flat all together plus the occasional extra guest or two and so the sense of community was as strong as it was at the Stanton House and so I didn't realize at all that I would miss being constantly surrounded by people until after we left Anna's busy home.
Because we both had colds (mom and I) we didn't actually do very much during those two weeks. We caught up on The Office via the web and played Google-Games a lot and I spent some time reviving old friendships. Bre-Laura day has been officially and finally resurrected for Wednesdays. We have purchased krummel-tee to make the day as fully effective as possible.
Moving In
We helped Randolf, from our new church, move the day before we moved. He lives in a flat in Lichtenberg on the 4th story and doesn't have any furniture to speak of but he has plenty of books which he packed into, what seemed like, hundreds of semi-heavy boxes. By the time Thursday was over and Friday-Moving-Day was upon us, Mom and I were completely exhausted with sore muscles.
Luckily the men who delivered our furniture from a Stadt-Mission flee-market, carried it all upstairs. I don't think we would have survived otherwise.
Ravi came and helped us carry everything else up and Steve, one of our neighbors, who has black fingernails, and is a goth--- and one of the sweetest boys I've met, pitched in and helped as well. We picked up our boxes, mirror and rubber boots from Andreas' basement in the afternoon.
We hollered from our big living room windows over to Anna in her bedroom (which is directly across the way) and invited her over for dinner with the four of us. We sat on the blanket Mom crochetted on the floor, upstairs and had pizza, chocolate and Coke. Mom's blanket was the main topic of conversation. It was a good first meal in our new flat.
After two fast baths in our brand new corner-tub Mom and I whisked off to Quasimodo with Andreas to hear Funk-Delicious play. Andreas and I saw this band play about 6 years ago in Quasimodo--- they have not changed and as before we were fully bewildered and funkified by the anti-erotic lead singer and his two-toned sweat soaked metallic shirt. All things told a successful moving day.
The next day we received even more furniture from the Heymann's, our new friends in our new church. Stefan Termien came over that morning and helped us carry it all upstairs. We took a break together, had a glass of water and leaned on the window-ceil and looked out the window at the Chestnut tree behind the house and at the chimneys on the roof-tops and talked about photography and God.
Afterwards we sat in our kitchen on our newly acquired chairs and had chicken-wings and pizza for lunch. All things told a successful final moving day.
Life in Rigaerstr.
I have seen Margrit in the court yard down stairs every single day since moving in. It is lovely to see her and chat so naturally. We also regularly see other various people from our church. I have put my perfume in the mailbox, to imitate Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's and I can smell it when I come into the house from the street. It makes me feel at home.
From our street we can get to Potsdamer Platz within 30 minutes with our bikes, Alexanderplatz in 10-15, Kreutzberg in 20, Prenzlauerberg in 20 and of course Simon-Dachstr. in 5... There is a Pakistani restaurant on the corner where the owners are extremely friendly and the prices are extremely cheap and although we prefer Extra we have been doing our grocery shopping mostly at the Lidl at the other end of Rigaerstrasse. It only takes about ten minutes by bike to get to Volkspark Friedrichshain to sprawl with all the other Berliners on the sparse dirty grass and enjoy the sunshine.
We have a membership to the video store down the street but have decided to only get DVDs once a month at most.
Every Thursday and Friday we go to Potsdamer Platz. On Thursdays we pray and on Fridays we pray and preach. Mom and I both agree that Friday is the best day of our week.
Paul is in the building here every Tuesday and Wednesday and we pray with him one of those days.
Our small group meets in the cafe on Tuesday nights--- so after dinner we dig in our cupboards for a snack and then trip down the stairs to join in the lively, though somewhat random, conversations to follow.
We have been eating vegetables, rice, noodles, potatoes and bread almost exclusively. I haven't found myself missing meat yet but I am sure the time will come when I will wish for a good juicy steak! I am surprised to find myself finding it lonely to eat with just the two of us. I realize I have become Stanton-House institutionalized and wish for communal meals always and for the rest of my life. I hope that one day people will feel that they can stop in for dinner whenever they want and enjoy vegetables with us.
I have only showered once since moving in because the bathtub is so divine. I am sure this is a colossal waste of time that could be usefully spent. As soon as the novelty of it all wears off I fully intend to use my time wisely.
Mom and I share a great enjoyment in looking down on the street and watching the cars and the people coming and going. We are experimenting with different cushion//butt-cheek combinations on the window-seal to find the most comfortable way to perch there and street-gaze.
This flat is so big we feel like we have endless amounts of space. The fact is it is much smaller than our house at home and I find myself wondering how on earth we ever managed to have so much STUFF.
The Church
It is a wonderful thing to have church just down stairs. It is also a wonderful thing to have keys to it!
We purchased new bikes and were embarrassed to put them together in the courtyard where everyone could see us and of course, being true to their German selves, offer endless well-meant, bossy advice. So we pushed them into the church and put them together in there. I think all churches should attempt to be so useful.
We like everything about the church.
Of course, there are things that could be done better--- improvements to be made--- that goes without saying. But that doesn't stop us from liking everything about it. Not withstanding the fact that we all eat together after every church service. I think all churches should attempt to be so delicious.
The people in the church have made us feel welcome, at home and loved instantly. I feel as though I have known them for years. Even the little children know our names, much to my surprise, and all things told we are both very comfortable just being with people from the church.
This weekend we went into Brandenburg for a weekend away with everyone.
We had a brilliant time and I enjoyed eating communal meals.
Mom and I had our first swim of the year in the lake there, late one night. The sky was purple and the water looked purple too and everything was still. The next day we went again with a group of ladies and we all went swimming in our underwear and I felt gloriously at home. Anna and I swam out as far as we could go, until the people on the shore looked like little stick figures and everything out in the lake was still.
We had a powerful blessing service on the last night and watched the Holy Spirit touch people.
We didn't go forward for prayer ourselves but as we have grown to love these people we were extremely blessed to see them being touched, blessed and changed. Praise to the Lord was in our hearts.
The future
We want to start opening the cafe on a regular basis but that is not possible until a man named Esteban moves out and stops dirtying the kitchen. This is a long story which I don't care to explain... but patience is required on our part.
It doesn't matter-- perhaps we will never be able to open the cafe regularly and never open a cafe down stairs. We will, in that case, open our house and offer prayer here.
In the mean time we are going to start preaching on Monday nights with a lovely Nigerian man named Pascal who I met. I am supposed to translate for him, from English into German--- I wish he could find a German to do it, but I am ready and willing in the mean time.
We are also going to start doing semi-harp and bowl prayer and worship times in our upper-room on Thursday nights. We have a few interested parties already and hope that the Lord will draw in more people who want to just spend time with the Holy Spirit and enjoy His excellent presence.
We will continue prayer walking around Friedrichshain and joining the Berliner Intercessors whenever they meet.
We want to see miracles, healings, and lives transformed. We will not rest until we do.