Caught between two festivals

When I walked out of the airport, lugging my suitcase and backpack into the hot, humid and hazy morning of Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, there were cows everywhere.

We had inadvertently planned our training right smack in the middle of two massive holidays for both Muslims and Hindus. It was the Muslim festival of Eid, in which every family must sacrifice either a cow or a goat to atone for their sins throughout the year. The ritual slaughter is followed by a big feast when they eat the meat. It's a lot like Christmas for Christians, in that they will travel across the country to be with their families and all the businesses close.

At the same time, due to the lunar calendar, it was also the Hindu festival of Lights, or Diwali.

According to Wikipedia: "Diwali involves the lighting of small clay lamps filled with oil to signify the triumph of good over evil.^[11] These lamps are kept on during the night and one's house is cleaned, both done in order to make the goddess Lakshmi feel welcome.^[12] Firecrackers are burst because it is believed that it drives away evil spirits.^[13][14][15] During Diwali, all the celebrants wear new clothes and share sweets and snacks with family members and friends."

I didn't see any firecrackers or lamps or candles but there were strings of lights draped over some streets.

All of this festivity meant that the wide, two-lane roads crisscrossing the city were packed with traffic: cars, charter buses with people crowded inside and also on top, rickshaws, dump trucks, bicyclists, tuk tuks (three-wheeled taxis that are smaller than a small car), motorcycles and mopeds. There is no adequate way to describe a Dhaka traffic jam, except to say that it's everyone honking at once and zero respect for lanes, with every vehicle crammed into every tiny space between every other vehicle, constant and dangerous cutting in lines, etc.

We got caught in a couple of these traffic jams. In one of them, we were coming back after having been on the road already for from 2:30 p.m. to 6 p.m., because we had gone out of Dhaka to the countryside to see some development projects related to helping poor women start their own businesses, as well as compost their cow feces and plant sustainable crops. When we reached the city it was dark. We couldn't turn down several streets we needed to be on because there was a massive cow market there and they had closed the roads. The cow market was so that the Muslims could buy cows for their ritual slaughter. Also, the roads were full of people leaving the city to go to their families in the country.

Unable to turn left or right, we remained trapped in the stream of cars inching forward moment by moment, or often simply sitting at a standstill, with bicyclists and motorcycles weaving through. The road had a median in the center, and at every opening in the median, traffic police had blockaded it so that no one could make a u-turn into the opposite lanes. So we were stuck for about an hour. Finally, our driver pushed his way through one of the blockades and we pulled into the crazy sea of cars going in the opposite direction, in an attempt to get back to where we had first started and try to go another way.

I was so thankful that during what became a two-hour jam, I did not have to go to the bathroom. We finally made it back to the district center about 8:30 where we had dinner and collapsed into bed at 9:30.

On another day, we were driving to the south of the country where the training would be held. At one point we were sitting for 90 minutes to 2 hours to get on a ferry. We passed about an hour of that time attempting to gnaw through sticks of sugar cane, which were hard as rocks. The locals chewed right through it, but Dorli and I struggled and struggled to get to the sweet, sticky, drippy pulp. After about an hour of fighting with it, we finally got there, and along the way provided a lot of amusement to each other and our co-travelers.

A month-long adventure

Gina, here. It’s been a long time since I wrote anything and that’s because I’ve been traveling for a month. As I sift through the journal entries and the photos and the memories, I feel overwhelmed about trying to capture my experiences in words and pictures. It isn’t adequate or possible to express the richness of what I saw, smelled, heard, tasted and felt for the past four weeks.

I will post a general overview post to quickly summarize what I did where and when. Then I’m going to just blog some specific stories, conversations or impressions from my trips — things that stick out in my mind, things that will probably stay with me.

So, here’s a quick rundown on what I’ve been doing for the past month.

October 11-19/Bangladesh
We (co-trainer Dorli and I) flew from Zurich to Bangladesh where we spent several days on the front and back ends of a week visiting compassionate ministry projects, such as small enterprise projects (impoverished people starting up small businesses), and development projects (composting, tree planting, crop planting). For three days in the middle we went to the southwest part of the country and held a storytelling training with a group of about 27 people who represent various ministries, including JF, compassionate ministries, child development, pastors and churches, SANBC training and education, etc.

October 19-27/Nepal
We flew from Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, to Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. There are Nazarene district offices in both cities. In Nepal we rested for one day, then flew to the eastern plains to spend three days conducting the storytelling training all over again to another group of about 25 people, again representing various areas of ministry. We again visited various compassionate ministry projects. Then we flew back to Kathmandu and spent the last day sightseeing in the city with the district superintendent.

October 27-31/Sri Lanka
This was our shortest and most pressed part of the trip. We arrived late on Sunday night (about 1 a.m.) and had to start the training in the district center in the capital city of Colombo at 8:30 the next morning. We spent the whole three days inside the training center with a group of about 25 trainees, again representing numerous ministries and areas of the church. My co-trainer, Dorli, left on Tuesday night, and I wrapped up the training alone on Wednesday.

I had part of Thursday when the training was over to go into Colombo with a staff person who took me shopping and to see a few sights, and then that evening I flew on overnight flights back to Zurich, arriving in mid morning on November 1.

I was home for less than 4 days and then I took off again for Lebanon with our new video volunteer Zarah.

November 5-11/Lebanon
We spent 5 days in the city of Beirut visiting three Nazarene churches, as well as the Nazarene school which serves kindergarten through grade 9. We interviewed numerous Syrian refugees, Nazarene leaders and children and were able to get enough material for probably 4 videos and 4-6 written stories. We worked almost the whole time, but had a few blocks of time to just rest. One night when all the shooting was over, a local leader took us sightseeing in the city and trying Lebanese foods. Although I was ready to go home when the trip was done, it was a bit hard to leave.

So, that is the basic overview. I’ll start posting some stories of specific experiences and links to pictures soon.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who was praying for us on these trips. You were a partner with me in the ministry I was doing. God was really present with us. We were protected, we did not get sick, and although I had a lot of migraines, I was able to continue functioning and doing my work. We accomplished A LOT and we also enjoyed the fellowship with our Nazarene brothers and sisters in many places. I was very impressed by the character, passion, professionalism and general love and grace of the many people that we met and spent time with. I will miss everyone I met and hope that I can see them again this side of heaven in the near future.

Unanticipated Answers to Prayer

Gina has returned from a month of traveling to different locations on the Eurasia region, offering storytelling training, initiating development of new communications teams, and gathering more stories about what God is doing through Nazarenes in these different locations. As she processes all she experienced, I'm sure she will include a number of stories here as well as in "Where Worlds Meet" and "Engage" magazine.

While you're waiting for those exciting stories to be published, I (Andrew) wanted to share with everyone - but especially those of you who have prayed for and supported us financially - how God is granting your prayers and multiplying your giving.

We were absolutely amazed by the extraordinary generosity of Nazarene churches and individuals throughout our travels in the U.S. this past spring and summer. We visited many small, struggling congregations who nevertheless believed in what God was doing and desired to support our part in that work. We know that sacrifices were made, and we are humbled by your belief and support in how we are involved in what God is doing on the Eurasia region. We knew then and we are seeing now how God took what was freely, generously given and is multiplying it in a way we couldn't have anticipated. I am very excited to share that with you here.

We shared with many of you that our goal was to raise enough financial support for the purchase of a vehicle. The car we used for the first couple of years failed its inspection and could not be repaired or replaced. We have since shared the use of an office car with anywhere from 2-5 other people. It hasn't always been easy, but everyone has been able to get where they needed to go (and even to enjoy a day-trip or two when desired). Another goal we had was to be able to raise financial support to enable either or both of us to travel throughout the region in order to expand our ministry opportunities.

After returning to Germany, we learned that we had raised less than half of our projected goal. We decided not to purchase a car for the time being, and dedicated the funds raised to health-related expenses and ministry-related travel on the region. We continued sharing the office vehicle, and while it has sometimes not been easy it has generally worked out well for everyone.

Recently, however, we learned of a used car for sale at a very reasonable price. We followed up on that lead, met the owner, asked a lot of questions, and test-drove the car. We also worked with the regional office, seeking approval to purchase the car with ministry funds, and navigating legal procedures, and so on. It is a slower, more complicated process than in the U.S. - due in part to that strange little fact of living in a German exclave across the Swiss border. Yet, the car is purchased and we hope to drive it home later this week after which we will immediately set to work getting it registered and insured.

At the same time, we have still managed to afford ministry-related travel through the region. I spent the weekend in July teaching EuNC students in Razgrad, Bulgaria. Gina and I spent a few weeks in Manchester, England where Gina continued her work and I met with my NTC professors and made great progress on a research project. Gina, as you know, spent time in South Asia and the Middle East as described above. We have also been able to begin German classes, which is helping us deepen relationships with our friends in the Büsingen/Schaffhausen community. Through that German class, we met a young man, Neuton, an immigrant from Portugal, who needs a lot of encouragement and friendly people around him at this stage in his life.

We believe that God has wonderfully provided in order to ensure that our ministry continues and expands in other parts of the Eurasia region, that our daily needs are met, and even that we are now recovering some independence through re-gaining the use of our own vehicle. On top of that, this car will benefit any missionary individuals or families who come after us.

Through your continuing prayers and generous financial giving, we have seen God exceed our desires and expectations in granting twice as much "bang" with less than half the "buck." We give Him all the praise for continuing to meet our needs, and we want to extend a special "thank-you" to all of you who offer us prayer and financial support. We are greatly encouraged by how we have seen God at work in this way, and we very much wanted to share that encouragement with you as well.

September so far

It's been a rather quiet but interesting month since we returned from Manchester, U.K. It has also been cool, drizzly and definitely not summer anymore. :-(

A few days after we returned to Busingen, Andrew began feeling under the weather. It finally coalesced last week into a bad chest cold. He's been VERY fatigued, coughing a lot, not sleeping well and having a very runny nose. It's costing him time on the big paper he's working on which is due on Oct. 1, but he tries to keep plugging away, even sitting up in bed.

The day after we returned we also started up our German language learning again. The two classes per week have been very helpful in getting us over a grammar hump we had been stuck on since our last German classes in 2011. As someone who needs to be learning to be happy, I have been particularly energized by advancing in small steps in my German knowledge and speaking ability.

I had the chance to practice it on Sunday, when I met a young Swiss woman in Appenzell for coffee. A mutual friend in the U.S. connected us over email and we made a date to meet for the first time in the city of St. Gallen yesterday. I've heard that whatever language you start a friendship in is the language you will both stick with. Most of our German friends speak English with us. So I hoped to start out this new relationship in German. I managed to speak for about 2 hours in German, with my new friend filling in a lot of blanks and patiently responding in both German and English.

I've realized that while I can say most of what I want to say (with poor grammar) and read and write pretty well, I have trouble understanding what people say to me in German. My comprehension is very poor. This makes having a conversation fully in German almost impossible. My new friend took the tactic of saying sentences in German first and then translating them for me in English, so I could get used to hearing German but still understand what she was saying or asking. She has also offered to be my email penpal so I can practice writing with the words and grammar that I know, and she will respond with corrections. I'm pretty excited about this! It also gave me the confidence to try and speak more German with my German-speaking friends. I believe most of them will be just as patient with me.

I hope to improve my hearing comprehension by listening to some German learning CDs that I found in a closet here in my office.

In other news, we have been watching the flooding in Colorado closely through the news. We were still surprised when we got word on Friday that Andrew's parents' home flooded on Thursday night. Their ground-floor apartment is on the side of a hill, and apparently the torrential rains came gushing down the hill and directly into Andrew's sister's bedroom window. The family spent all night trying to divert the water with the help of five firefighters, and then trying to move furniture and dry out the room.

Since then we have learned that the damage to personal belongings was minimal, with the worst simply being the carpet. The landlord has brought over industrial fans and shop-vacs and shampooed the carpet to treat the dirt and smell. We hope they won't have flooding again, as 500-year rains continue to hit Colorado Springs.

We have been battling an invasion of wasps in our flat -- we think we have counted 36 so far. They seem to be coming in through the vent over our stove. We duct-taped every crevice but they continue coming in. I bought a wasp trap at a garden store to put outside and distract them from the buildling but it doesn't work. I then made my own wasp trap with a Fanta bottle and a little leftover soda and immediately caught one in our flat. We continue to use shoes. We called our apartment manager to look at the problem but they seem uncertain of what to do.

This week we are welcoming another new volunteer. A young woman named Zarah is joining our communications team for a year. She has expertise in video production and filming, as well as graphic design. We're excited to get acquainted with her and to work together in the next year.

August

We had only been back from our home assignment for one month when it was time to hit the road again. We took a 4-day vacation in London, and then traveled by train two hours north to Manchester, where Nazarene Theological College is located. Andrew is studying with them on several research projects, in order to demonstrate his ability to work in the British academic system. When he completes his second research project this October, it is our hope that he will then be accepted into NTC's PhD program next year.

So we went to NTC for two weeks so that Andrew could utilize resources in their library, as well as meet with academic advisors for direction on his research project. He says it was an incredibly productive and focused time and helped him hone his direction quite a lot. He also really enjoyed being in an academic environment once again, with all the opportunities to discuss his passions and interests with people who share them.

While he was hard at work on his paper, I took my Engage and Eurasia Region work with me, so I continued my jobs from the NTC campus.

We really enjoyed the opportunity to "live" in yet another culture for a short while. We really like the neighborhood and area around the college, as well as the people we met who live and work there.

We returned home to Büsingen on August 25, and the next day we hit the ground with German classes, which we are taking for two hours per week for six weeks. Our first week went really well and we feel good about our instructor and the one-on-one teaching style. We have only one other young man in our group, from Portugal, and I (Gina) got the chance to talk to him for a while after the first class. He has an evangelical background but hasn't been to church since he moved to Switzerland. He shared about the struggle it has been to make friends and build a life here as an immigrant from an economically crushed country. He is studying German with hope that it will give him more relational opportunities with the Swiss. He has a graphic design background from Portugal, but here the only job he could get was washing windows. I hope we will be able to get to know him more in the coming days.

We would appreciate any prayers for Andrew as he completes this research project, and also for our ability to learn and absorb German so that we can become more fluent. This will increase our sense of being "at home" here and like we belong, as well as to improve our relationships with German-speaking people.

What changed

A few people asked us during our time in the United States if there was anything there that surprised us after being gone for 3 years.

Here's the short list of what we were no longer accustomed to, or what had changed without us, while we have been gone.

1. The vehicles suddenly seem like tanks.

After living on a continent of Smart Cars and driving a car that felt like an oversized woman's shoe, American SUVs and pick-up trucks (which are everywhere in Colorado and Hawaii) felt like spaceships next to us. Seriously, I was scared to be on the road for a while until I got used to them again.

2. Air conditioning from the Arctic.

I've always been a hot blooded person who seems to always be too warm, and who hates being hot, preferring fall and winter over summer. Part of being me is that I've always preferred air conditioning, cranking it down to 65 at night so I could sleep comfortably and not get too hot in bed, and cranking it high in the car to overpower the heat from the sunlight shining through the windows.

Now that I've lived three years without air conditioning in Europe, back in the US my body couldn't tolerate it anymore. Everytime I got in the car with anyone, or walked into a restaurant, movie theater or any public business, I needed a jacket and jeans because it was FREEZING. I got soooo tired of being cold. It was weird because I always preferred those temperatures.

3. Tattoos on every skin surface.

People in Europe have tattoos, too, but in America it seems like many people cover their entire bodies with them now. I guess I hadn't really noticed that before.

4. Ubiquitous iPads and Smartphones.

I was already in Germany before I ever laid eyes on an iPad. Maybe they hadn't come out until after we'd left, but the first one I saw was brought over by an American during a visit to Busingen. I only saw a handful of iPads after that. Then we got to America and they were EVERYWHERE. No matter where we went -- airports, coffee shops, restaurants, church services, people's homes -- all around us were people messing around with iPads. Children were using them, too. I couldn't get used to it.

The same with Smart phones. Of course the iPhone came out several years before we left America but it must have taken the past 3 years for every single American to get one. I don't think in the whole three months we were in America that I met any person who didn't have one.

This was an entirely new development in the three years we've been gone.

All in all, things at home didn't seem to have changed too much without us, but this is the short list of how we had changed or things we hadn't seen until this trip home.

We're back!

Last Monday, Andrew and I said goodbye to his family, and on Tuesday we said goodbye to mine when my parents dropped us off at the Denver airport for our flight back to Switzerland that afternoon. It was really hard to say goodbye after so much wonderful time together over the past few months. I think it was even harder because this time we don't know when we'll come home next, and know it might be as long as two years.

We had several strokes of luck during our return. It started when our carefully pre-weighed luggage turned out to be 1.5 pounds overweight on the airport's scale. At home, with a luggage scale they had weighed in at 48 pounds each. The airline employee was very kind to waive the $200 fee per suitcase -- although we would have just taken something out and left it with my parents rather than take the fee. So we kept everything and saved $400.

We had found a beat up carry-on suitcase in my parents closet at home that turned out to be one we had left there on a past trip. We filled it with all the stuff we hadn't been able to fit with our other luggage, including some of our winter clothes and foods like cake mixes, frosting, and canned green chiles. Andrew used that as a carryon. It was rather fat, though, so when we got to the gate, he showed it to the gate attendant and she offered to check it for free all the way to our destination. So we managed to check another bag without paying the additional bag fee of $125.

When we landed in Chicago, something was wrong at the gate we were assigned to, so we sat on the tarmac for about 30 minutes. Then we got a new gate but it took another 15 minutes to move to that gate and get off the plane. That meant we had 15 minutes to get all the way across O'Hare airport to the offsite international terminal, which included passing through security again. We ran with all our carryon luggage, but were resigned to missing our flight.

As we hoofed it around the corner and could see our gate in the distance, we heard a last boarding call over the loudspeakers and someone calling our names. We yelled to the gate attendants that we were coming and they urged us on. We were the very last ones to board the plane, drenched in sweat and gasping for breath. On the plane we were in the very middle of the middle section, but the plane narrowed toward the back and the middle section narrowed to just three seats instead of four. That put Andrew on the aisle and made it easy for me to get out to stretch my legs or go to the bathroom. There were also bottles of water at every seat.

The flight to Copenhagen was good, and at that airport we had to go to a desk to get new boarding passes for the next flight to Zurich -- a reason for which we won't be flying Scandinavian Airlines again because they don't give boarding passes in advance and you have to risk missing every flight by standing in a long, slow line to pick up your next boarding pass. But this time we made it without having to run.

We landed in Zurich in the afternoon of Wednesday feeling tired but a sense of home as we entered the now familiar Zurich airport. Three of our four suitcases didn't make it and we weren't surprised because of the close connection in Chicago. We got them safe and sound two days later.

We've been home a week now and although it took some adjustment, it was quick and we're back in the groove of things. We are anxious to see all our friends here soon and to enjoy Europe in the summer. The first thing we did on our first beautiful, sunny Saturday was to go hiking in the Alps.

Here's what we saw.

It's good to be back. :-)