Opportunities to Share

There is a great deal to think about after spending nine days in Turkey for the Eurasia Regional Conference.

Already, we are part of an international community in Büsingen. The people we live, work, and worship with come from all over Europe and places as distant as the U.S. and parts of Africa. At the conference, pastors, leaders, and lay people from all across Eurasia - from the Northern Europe and the UK clear to Southeast Asia - came together for the first time in four years. Our international community was magnified to amazing proportions. So many cultures, languages, and experiences of being Nazarenes gathered in a single room, worshiping the Lord we have in common in spite of our many other differences!

Reports from the fields across the region all agreed that the challenges are great, but that God is building his church. Economic instability, poverty, anti-Christian hostility, or widespread secularism - none of these serious challenges can stop the Lord from doing his work. Christians are being faithful in the face of persecution, obediently generous despite financial difficulty, and people across the region respond to the Spirit's call in societies where religious faith is derided and treated with suspicion. Whatever the difficulties, obstacles, challenges, and reasons why it is impossible or ill-advised, if God is working and his people are faithful then who or what can stand in the way?

Even while Christians were gathering, the Spirit did not limit His presence and work to the worship services and workshops alone. Outside the conference itself, I enjoyed the opportunity to meet two Muslim men - one a hotel guest, the other an employee - and trade perspectives and experiences of our different faiths. In a place where hundreds of years ago Christians and Muslims would have been killing each other, we sat down, and talked, and - most importantly - listened to each other. It was my hope that both men perceived something different about this Christian than they might have expected. Somewhere farther along in their journey, I pray they will remember having experienced and heard the Lord speaking to them through our conversation and the peaceful way it was carried on.

Following the end of the conference, Gina and I paid a brief visit to the city of Istanbul. A man selling wares at one of the markets spoke briefly with us, attempting to explain why Gina and I ought to convert to Islam. He was plainly spoken and quite direct in his approach, yet we could both sense the genuineness of his concern and compassion for our spiritual well-being from his point of view. In the other two instances, I took the opportunity to speak as well as listen, sharing a Christian perspective. There was no such opportunity here as I discerned the conversation might unintentionally degenerate into an argument, or a spirited debate at the very least. We listened, thanked him for his kindness in speaking with us, and left his store.

Now that we have returned, the pastor of a new church plant in Bulgaria will do a directed study in church history with me over the next ten weeks. I will also have the opportunity to preach at our local church at the beginning of November. Just before Thanksgiving, Gina and I will go to Geneva, Switzerland where I will take the GRE test at the university.

We're grateful the opportunities we've had not only to serve our local church, EuNC, and the Eurasia region on a daily basis. But we always want to be prepared for every opportunity outside the Christian community to share Christ, whether through the words we speak, the way we listen, or the way we live. Whether or not those we encounter are prepared to receive Christ, it is our hope and prayer to lead others a little closer to Him. This is true wherever we find ourselves, whether volunteering in Germany, attending a conference in Turkey, or back home in the United States.

Rising above

There are times in everyone's lives when it seems like your day or your week is a carefully stacked Jenga game, and that someone has pulled out one of the critical blocks that keeps your precariously balanced tower upright. One thing goes wrong, and then the whole thing collapses.

We've had that kind of week. It's not that anything terrible has happened, it's just that countless details in work and daily life seem to have gotten overwhelmingly complicated, or not be working as they should. Deadlines are missed as miscommunications arise; bills that you paid months ago by phone are not credited to your account, and new invoices show up at your doorstep with additional penalties and late fees and demands that you pay them within the next five days; computers (not one, but two) crash beyond repair; carefully crafted schedules are disrupted by numerous unexpected interruptions; projects stretch on longer than expected.

It's not so bad when just one or two things cause some minor stress. But when everything happens at once, it's like being in a tornado. And you warily wonder when the next lightning bolt will strike, the next thing will go wrong.

We notice this happens a lot when we're approaching something important: In this case, a ministry conference that we leave for on Monday.

It is important to us to be fully present in next week's ministry opportunities, tuned in to where God wants us to be and what he wants to say to us and through us, ready for those divine appointments that we couldn't plan, no matter how carefully and intricately we schedule our time. We really wanted to give ourselves the buffer of a quiet weekend to prepare our hearts and minds.

Right now, as work piles up and deadlines loom, it seems especially difficult to shift our focus toward God, rejecting distractions and obstacles that would prevent us from giving him our full attention.

We would value your intercession for us now and over the next few weeks, so that we can rise above what seeks to disquiet and distract us from what God has in mind for us.

Thank you for your partnership in our calling!

Does this mean I've adapted?

When you relocate to a very different place, whether it's across the country or out of your home country entirely, you grapple long and often with that thing we call "culture shock."

I prefer to call it "culture stress," because it's not that you are in a constant state of shock; it's more an on-again-off-again state of stress.

Some missionaries have told me that it's sort of like the stages of grief, in that you don't go through the five stages of culture shock in a linear order and then you're done; you go through them once, and may revisit previous stages again, periodically, after you think you've adapted to your new home.

I've also been told that it takes five years of living in another country before you finally begin thinking like people in that country. The same is true when you return home.

So, I suppose it's a bit optimistic to think we've completely settled into the culture here. And I'm not sure if I should be oddly encouraged by an experience I had over the weekend: I became completely enamored with a street I was driving on while going to a friend's house.

It's the first place in Switzerland that has even remotely resembled America to me in any way. In fact, as I cruised this street, everything began to be surreal and I felt disoriented. The narrow, two-lane road was very straight, and lined on both sides with automobile dealerships, complete with the balloons and garish sale ads; there were fast food restaurants -- Burger King and McDonald's -- as well as the big billboards advertising that they were up ahead.

There were one- and two-story office buildings with plain, unattractive designs and corrugated metal rooftops, as well as small, strip shopping centers and big shopping centers, and gas station after gas station after gas station (you don't see them so close together here, usually).

I'm not saying Switzerland doesn't have these things. But I've never before seen them arranged all together, with the architecture so completely ripped off of EveryTown, America.

I began driving with one hand and snapping pictures with the other.

Then I was struck by what I was doing. All my photography in Europe has been of the picturesque half-timber homes and businesses; the Medieval, frescoed villages; the tiny cars and historic farms and castles -- everything that was previously foreign and interesting and photogenic to me.

It was a bit embarrassing, then, to go slack-jawed and camera frantic over fast food restaurants and car dealerships -- stuff that not even two years ago I would not have dreamed of photographing. You'd have thought I stepped straight out of the bush.

Either the architecture that I grew up with is now unusual and foreign to me, or I am a bit homesick. :-)

-- Gina

A New (And Different) Academic Year

My work at EuNC has continually evolved from before I even arrived nearly two years ago. Originally tapped to run the library, I taught a class on campus, then started developing and teaching online courses, co-taught another class on campus, and became heavily involved with mentoring and supporting the campus students.

This week, a new academic year began and the campus is just as quiet now as it was the day after everyone left. They're not coming back, at least not anytime soon. Yet, make no mistake, EuNC continues in a new and expanded form so that students do not need to uproot themselves (or families), deal with hassles over visas or luggage or airfare, and can study for Christian ministry in their own immediate context. God knows what he's doing in Europe, and he knows how the people he calls into ministry over here need to be prepared.

For the next six weeks, each learning center is being carefully evaluated by members of administration located both here on campus and in the various areas of Europe. The primary focus was always on the campus, but that focus has now shifted to the learning centers. They are the new "faces" of EuNC. What's working? What needs improved? How do we solve various problems involved with decentralized education? Such questions are being dealt with over the next six weeks, and while not every detail can be known or anticipated EuNC is moving forward with a clear sense of mission and direction.

Several students have consistently asked me "How are you doing? How are you coping with the change?" Well, so far I'm doing just fine, and I don't anticipate a change for the worse. I knew they were leaving, I was prepared for the fact that they would not come back in the fall, and I quickly made the adjustment to a new routine. I miss the hilarity and the questions and the activity, and I miss the tight-knit friendship that developed between myself and several of them. Yet I'm enjoying the extra time, space and quiet as well, and don't anticipate getting bored with that. I like the fact that I'm getting to know remaining faculty and staff better. I like a lot of things about the change, though I definitely miss the students and very much hope a campus program will re-start sometime in the future.

I remain gladly available for however EuNC may see fit to use me over the next few months. I am developing one last course, Church History II; writing a brief series of Bible studies for "Engage" magazine; and exploring various possibilities and opportunities concerning our future once my work officially comes to an end at EuNC in December (we stay until the end of Gina's contract at the end of January).

Yet, as quickly as things change, who knows? I think and pray about the future regularly (most times, simultaneously). But not with a sense of worry. I've lived in ambiguity enough in the past that I'm learning a certain pattern for how I best make big decisions. It still feels funny not to have the slightest idea what is coming or what it will mean or where we will end up, but I have every confidence that it will be the right thing.

Catching up

Andrew and I are sitting on our couch with several fans blowing and all the windows thrown open. Summer is finally back. We had such a warm, dry spring that it felt like summer as early as March this year. Around mid-June, spring returned and stayed with us up until about a week ago. Throughout July and August I sometimes had to wear a jacket to work, and even used a space heater by my desk to ward off the damp chill!

This week it has finally gotten warm enough to sweat a little at my desk on the second floor of the Eurasia Region Communication Center, and I switched out the heater for the fan.

While this may sound like I am complaining, compared to the temperatures ravaging our friends and family back home in the States, we feel grateful we have been spared that kind of weather. People don't use air conditioning here, and often will take a dip in the Rhine as the way to cool off. If we had experienced 100+ degrees without air conditioning, well, we might have just moved our apartment into the river.

The campus has been very quiet since the students left after graduation. We weren't sure what to expect with everyone gone, but we've managed to stay really busy. The work never seems to abate with Engagemagazine.com. I am pleased to welcome a new coworker who is assisting me from her office at the Global Ministry Center in Kansas City, Liz Hollenberg. It's already made such a difference to have her help and ideas and perspective a few hours each week. Liz served in the Asia Pacific Region Communication Center in years past, so brings all that she learned and experienced there to Engage. We work together by phone, instant message and e-mail.

From July through the end of September, we've also benefited from having a Northwest Nazarene University grad, Joelle, here volunteering as a writer for the Eurasia Region. She originally came to take a class at EuNC, and afterward very generously offered to give us six travel days on her Eurail Pass if we would like to send her to any locations to report on what God is doing. I sent out a flurry of e-mails to various leaders, asking if they would like to have a reporter come to them. We received three responses, and so we sent Joelle off to Frankfurt, Antwerp and Haarlem (Netherlands) on a whirlwind tour to interview people, experience ministry and come back to write about it. She'll be heading back to a new job in the States on August 30. I can tell God has great things in store for her.

Another volunteer for the Eurasia Communications team office is set to arrive from the East Coast in mid-September. Laine will give 6 months to communications as a video production guru. Laine is a good friend of my cousin, and I'm super excited to have her join our team for a little while and tell stories through audio-visual media.

Joelle has been a good hiking buddy, and Laine says she's up for climbing some Alps when she gets here, too. So I'm happy that I'm actually getting into the mountains this year.

I'm really grateful to report that in general I've been feeling much better with my health since the spring time. I'm still not sure what all those bouts of sickness were about last year and early this year, but it seems (hopefully) to have passed. Again, I am so thankful to everyone who has supported me in prayer for recovery. I really believe those prayers were effective. I have definitely learned to appreciate my health more, and to enjoy being healthy by getting out and enjoying all the awesome natural beauty where we live.

When we're not working, we enjoy meals with friends, read, take walks through the fields and forests, drop by Schaffhausen for a scoop of ice cream, watch movies at home, and go on the occasional day-trip. Now that it's warm enough, I'm trying to get out for a hike on any weekend with good weather. I know summer will pass rapidly and soon it'll be too cold and wet on the peaks for safe hiking.

Andrew is continuing work developing a history class for EuNC's distance learning centers, which begin classes in the next few days. He is also studying for the GRE, in preparation for sending out applications to PhD programs in a few months. And next Thursday, our church's free English classes to the community resume; I'll be teaching regularly this fall. I am excited for that to get started again!

So, we're as busy as ever and enjoying to the fullest this opportunity to serve the church here in German/Switzerland. :-)

Answers to prayers for Gabi

We received fantastic news about Gabi this week. This is the email I received from a woman who knows the family:

"There is good news from Gabi. I have talked to her mother-in-law this morning. She is awake now and it seems there is no brain damage. She can talk, sometimes she has blackouts but they are growing less. It was much worse in the beginning. She cannot get up yet but her back is not hurt and she is having physiotherapy.

"She is learning to eat again after nearly seven weeks in coma.

"In August she will be moved to a rehab center. Her family hopes that she can go to (the center in the next village)."

Thank you to everyone who has joined us in prayer. I plan to drop off more cake and a note letting the family know that many of you have interceded for Gabi this summer and are sharing in their relief at this news.

Please do continue to pray that she doesn't have any setbacks, that her recovery is complete and rapid.

Dinner in German

I (Gina) was surprised and happy when last week I received an e-mail from Cornelia, a woman in the English classes, inviting me to dinner with her family this coming week. It looks like the date's set for this Thursday.

During that last class before the summer break, I had asked her if we could exchange addresses and maybe meet this summer.

Shortly after that, Andrew and I were swept up in pre-graduation, graduation and post-graduation busyness, then Andrew and I took a week vacation. So I didn't have time to follow-up with her.

I'm excited that she initiated the contact. It seems like people around here can be rather private, even though they're curious and interested in newcomers. I try not to be too pushy in getting to know people.

While I'm excited about this opportunity to visit with a new friend in her home, I'm also nervous. Cornelia's still working on her English, and while she's good, her exposure to English is still pretty limited. And my German is even more limited. I'm nervous about being able to communicate and keep up my end of the conversation for a whole evening. This week I'm going to review my lesson materials from our German class in January and February and hope a lot of it will come rushing back. Maybe between her English and my German, we can meet somewhere in the middle and have a great time, getting to know each other better.

Pray for me!! :-)