Marathon Training: a good way to run off the chocolate calories!

So Dan and I have taken up running. We tried doing the P 90 X but we were feeling like we wanted a little more fresh air and we needed a bigger goal. That's when Dan and I decided to train for the marathon in Kassel which is about 20 minutes out of Fritzlar on May 10th. I think it is great that Dan has opened his mind a little on running as I heard him often say, " I could never run without a ball to run after." But with his Garmin "computer" watch strapped to his wrist, he is challenging himself to go a little faster and little harder every time he goes out to run. I think he is surprised at what his body can do and that motivates him enough to satisfy his curiosity of how he could do if he really trained for a marathon. I think Dan has now caught a bit of the running fever after having talked to his marathon running cousin Ken. He has also realized he has a lot of work to as Ken runs a whole marathon at the same pace as Dan does 5K and is spent! Accountability and companionship is always good while training so Dan has found a running partner, Sebi, to train with which is great because Dan and I have different styles of running.

You see, I am more of a jogger. I am training for the half marathon with my friend Birte. She has never run a half marathon and is a little nervous and doubtful that she can do it. I remember how good it felt to finish the half and I know she will feel great too and I keep reminding her of that. The full marathon still scares me after I saw a woman pee her pants after she passed the finish line at the Vancouver International Marathon in 2003. Maybe next year...

Teaching in Many Languages!

For the past 3 weeks I have been teaching 4-5 days a week again and I am loving it even though it throws many challenges my way. I wanted to find a job when I got here but when the opportunity came up for me to help out a family here I felt like it was right and it was the kind of job I was looking for, even though this one is not paid monetarily (Althugh, sometimes I get chocolate!). So here's the story. There is a women here from Brazil named Hilaide along with her two kids, Bruna (15) and Mattheus (12). Her husband is back in Brazil working and looking after their house. Her kids don't know any German or I should say didn't know any German as they are now able to speak a little and understand some too. The school here in Fritzlar would not accept them because of this and so if they are not going to school, they would have to go back to Brazil. A way around that was for them to get help with their German and for them to continue learning other subjects in their grade level.

This is where I come in. I have been teaching them mostly math (because I love math) as well as a little English and more importantly German. Once they have a better handle on the German language, they can attend school here. I guess I should mention that all of their work books are in Portuguese and that they do not understand English well at all. So, I find myself speaking German, Spanish, English, Portuguese and even a little French during each of my lessons. We laugh, grab our head in frustration and use Portuguese-German then German-English dictionaries often. The kids are awesome and we are having a lot of fun learning together but they need to get into the school system soon or they still might have to go back to Brazil. That would be very hard on Hilaide and I am hoping I can help enough that that will not have to happen.

A Little Canadian Halloween in Bergen, Germany

Dan and I had the opportunity to show these Germans a little bit of what it is like on Halloween in Canada.
Dan and I thought our youth leading days we over when we came to Germany but we were reminded that God's ways are not our ways and that He ultimately has a plan for us as we were asked to run a youth group in Bergen. The church in Bergen lost their pastor and was in need of some leadership for their teen (11-14 year olds) and youth(15-21 year olds)groups. Bergen is 2 and a half hours away and we will be driving there every second Friday and stay the weekend. We will lead the youth group on Friday, the teen group on Saturday and then go to church with them on Sunday. It makes for a busy weekend but we know how rewarding this ministry can be, even if not here on earth. We just can't get enough of these youth!! I guess they keep us feeling young. I will write more about the group later. Now onto the Halloween part.

So for our first Friday we did a theme of Luther vs. Halloween as the Germans celebrate Reformation on Halloween Day. Dan and I represented Halloween, dressing up as ugly dead people and Sarina and Judith (two other students from the Bible school that are leading with us) dressed up as Martin Luther's wife. We had told the kids to dress up as well but when we got there not one of them was dressed up! Like I said in the last post, Halloween is pretty much non-existent in Germany. That also made finding costumes very hard. I had to do the best I could with what we had for clothes (anything black) and I bought a pair of striped stockings. We tried to find face paint but again we were out of luck. So we used pastels and what makeup I had to look as dreadful as we did. I think we did okay and the youth thought we were crazy. What else is new?

Halloween in Germany

Halloween in Germany

When I woke up Halloween morning, I went through the day totally forgetting it was actually Halloween. There was not one jack-o-lantern out on the porch fronts, not a single person was dressed up and there was not one mini chocolate bar, roll of rockets or taffy kiss to be enjoyed. In Germany, it was Reformation Day. Reformation Day is an important liturgical festival that is celebrated by Lutherans and Christians of many Protestant denominations. It commemorates Dr. Martin Luther's posting of his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517. This act triggered the movement in world history known as the Reformation. Between October 15th and November 11th (St. Martin's Day in Germany), children usually parade at night carrying lanterns. Sometimes the parade ends with a bonfire. Kids often go door to door caroling and receiving treats or money. Even though it is usually children who do this, some of the students at the school thought it would be fun to show us the tradition, so we went out one night, lanterns in hand singing some of the traditional songs for St. Martin's Day. I typed up the lyrics below.

Here are two songs children sing in Germany for St. Martin’s Day, each in German and with an English translation…

Laterne, Laterne
(German)

Laterne, Laterne
Sonne, Mond und Sterne
Brenne auf, mein Licht,
Brenne auf, mein Licht
Aber nur meine liebe Laterne nicht.

Here’s the English translation for Laterne, Laterne…

Lantern, Lantern

Lantern, Lantern,
Sun, moon and stars,
Burn, my light,
Burn, my light,
But not only the light of my dear lantern.

It wasn't all about volleyball...

It wasn't all about volleyball...

So this tournament is not all about volleyball. It was held in a town about 3 hours away and teams from all over Germany came to participate. Most teams were sent by different church groups and so this weekend was about getting together and worshiping God as one church. Saturday night and Sunday morning we had church services where many of the students from the Bible School were involved in some way (music, speaking, theater). I played a small role in a skit about “wearing masks”, basically being someone different depending on where you are or who you are with. It was really cool.

Volleyball tournament

Volleyball tournament

So Dan and I just got back from a weekend volleyball tournament. We each played on different teams, had very different experiences but both had a lot of fun. I played on Fritzlar’s Youth team with 4 boys and another girl, Judith, from the Bible School. Judith and are were a little scared the boys were going to be a little too competitive and that we might not have that much fun but they were great to play with and we ended up having lots of fun…and we even placed 5^th out of 18 teams. Dan’s team was a little different. Almost none of the players had ever really played volleyball so you can imagine their skill level. For all of those who know Dan, you know that he has a natural ability to do well in any sport that involves making contact with a ball and that he can be competitive. Despite his teams lack of volleyball experience they were all able to improve their game by the end of the tournament and they even won their last 5 games, coming out with a trophy for the best in the losers’ bracket (13^th in all). So now that volleyball is done, every Tuesday night is soccer night at the Army Base gym as the boys get ready for the soccer tournament in March. Most of the girls tend to stick this one out as the boys get a little aggressive, so we plan to have a girls night every Tuesday. I am really looking forward to it.

Thanksgiving Weekend in Detmold

Thanksgiving Weekend in Detmold

Dan and I were able to reconnect with Marianne and Dennis, friends that we met in Canada from Germany, over the Thanksgiving weekend. It was nice to be with friends for the holiday when we could not be with family. We saw the sites of Detmold including a very large standalone statue of the Hermannsdenkmal (by Ernst von Bandel, 1838-75), a huge monument commemorating the battle in the Teutoburg Forest in 9 A.D. in which the Cheruscan chieftain Hermann (Arminius) inflicted a crushing defeat on the Roman army. The statue stood 174 feet tall. We also got to see a beautiful castle in the town center. Detmold is somewhere we will be visiting a few more times before we leave.

So Thanksgiving does not mean turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie in Germany but it does still include "lecker" food. We had cannelloni for lunch and a huge array of homemade Germany cakes for dessert accompanied by stories of the olden days told by seniors in the church. What was translated for me truly made me thankful that I got cannelloni for lunch and not rat after not eating for 5 days. That stories were amazing.