Today I went with a very sweet, very lovely girl named Sara (who is leaving this week to move to a town near Zürich to work with people struggling with addiction) to do some service with a team from Vineyard Bern. She was on a bike and so Matthias let me borrow his and we rode a good half hour to a warehouse the Vineyard Bern rents for their ministry to newcomers and foreigners to the country. (I can't WAIT until I can afford a bike/gear to start commuting this way - I LOVED this ride despite the incorrect size of the bike making my back/bum sore). The team from Vineyard Bern serves foreigners by providing breakfast, offering bags of groceries, donated clothes and shoes and teaching German classes every Tuesday morning. I served coffee for two hours and learned a bit of German, too. The words for coffee (cafe), tea (tee) and sugar (Zucker) are similar, and the stuff I couldn't understand I communicated by charades. It is a wonderful stretch in thinking for someone (such as myself) so strongly gifted in verbal communication to learn how to "talk" non-verba
lly. I'm also feeling rising in me a desire to learn more languages, seeing as it's not as hard as I thought it would be pick up SOME German. For example, the sign on the left basically embodies what we did today; I THINK, since I now know that "Liebe Gott" is "Love God", this would be the Greatest Command in High German: it looks (to me) like this sign says: Love God from your heart, with all your thoughts and with all your virtues (so mind and soul), and serve your next ones like yourself (love your neighbor as yourself, though the "next ones" is a really interesting way to think about "neighbor" - like, those that have yet to come on the earth are our neighbors too. And THAT is, if you can't find a better reason, a sobering reason to care about the planet). Pretty good, ja?The fellowship was amazing, too. After the clothes were picked (Sara noticed that I was looking at one particular item and she gave it to me!), the breakfast was eaten (lots of sweets and cakes and Zucker!), the groceries were distributed and the German was learned, the Vineyard Bern crew had lunch (spaghetti with a really good bean/corn sauce). I met the lady who made it: Suzanna. She has two adorable little boys about the age of the Stürmer boys; her husband is not a believer and to hear her talk about how much peace she has about the whole thing really inspired me to trust God more. Another older lady (60's, maybe), Monica, actually divorced her husband for that reason (I don't know the whole story). They were so kind as to have their conversation in English so I could participate. At one point, Monica (pronounced Mo (like "no") EE - KAH) was attempting to talk about home groups and she asked, "Do you have House Christ in Seattle?" Suzanna and I burst out laughing - I thought she meant something like do we have Jesus visitations or something. Suzanna says, "Ah, nothing like a German word with an English translation, eh?" (The German word for "homegroup" is "hausekreiste" or something like that). Anyway, it was awesome. I'm learning just how well one has to know the English language to understand what others who do not speak it so well are trying to communicate...I'm learning that even I don't speak English as well as you'd think someone from America would! (Gosh I really want to learn other languages...especially (I can't believe I'm saying this because I'd not ever had the desire before) Hebrew). And, I want to be involved in service more. Not because that's "the good Christian thing to do" but because I just loved being there, attempting to communicate, and really feeling the Spirit of God move among these people.
After we finished lunch and cleaned up, Sara offered to take me to the
Vineyard Bern offices so I might help out there, if they needed any help (that wouldn't require speaking or reading or writing). We got there, and I realized that the way Sara, Matthias and others have been introducing me makes me a representative of my church: "This Megan from Vineyard Seattle." No pressure! Anyway, I was put to the task of putting together 60 welcome packets and shortly after beginning this, met a woman whose first language is German but moved to England young enough to speak English with a British accent. We had a very interesting conversation about traveling since she's lived/traveled all over the world and speaks at least 6 languages. Something very healing about this conversation was that during it, I realized the necessity of travel in an ever-globalizing world. Here I thought I was "wasting my time and resources" doing something "just for me", but traveling really increases one's understanding and compassion for the world in ways that, as Christ followers, is absolutely essential to the heart of love. I finally released myself from the burden of guilt of "what if this selfish trip wasn't God's will for my life and I could have spent these two months and money "helping others" somehow." I think...just maybe...that is exactly what I'm doing...A few other things solidified for me while helping out as best I could behind the language barrier today, so all in all, I think Christ really is becoming my house, and I'm starting to believe (though I still don't understand such an extraordinary claim) that I am a house for Christ as well.
(Now, I am going to go watch a movie in German - it was either that or watch a really bad movie in English!)
.JPG)
No comments:
Post a Comment