Paris 2024

Last week a dream came true. Back in 2001, when I was an RA in college, I chose the Olympics as our hall theme and made everyone watch the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City with me. Grandly I announced, “Maybe in 2004 I’ll be in Europe and can go to the Athens Olympics.” Ha! Fast-forward 20 years and throw in a little savings, a free apartment to stay at, a friend willing to be adventurous with you, and the Lord’s personal kindness, and you get three days at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Eek! 

Affordable tickets included a water polo match, a volleyball game, and entry to some Track & Field events. Specifically, we saw women’s pole vaulting, hurdles, men’s discus, 200m semi-finals, triple jump, men’s final steeplechase, and 400m final races (yay Quincy Hall). The atmosphere, especially in the Athletics stadium and at the volleyball arena, were absolutely enjoyable. When we entered the warm-up area for volleyball, you could immediately tell which teams were on which court by the mass of flags fluttering around the cage and the cheers that erupted for every spike. At each event we attended, people clapped for every point and performance, hooting extra loudly if it was their country’s team, but I loved the sportsmanship I got to see and the many, many conversations with the people around us. Whether from Ireland, France, Australia, Turkey, the Netherlands, a fellow American, or an occasional Austrian, one of my favorite things about this experience was the international flavor that permeated Paris. As we walked around the city, we saw people from every corner of the world, proudly draped in their flags with colorful stripes on their cheeks. This TCK felt right at home. 

It was fun to see both super-natural human feats that I could never achieve (hello, Katie Moon of the pole vault) as well as human flaws I could definitely have accomplished (I’m talking of you, scoring debacle in the Turkey-Italy volleyball match). There was the usual volatile bustle of mass transportation in a big city that irked at times, and then there was the kindness of strangers who sold ice-cold bottles of water for a Euro and let you take it for even less when you didn’t quite have the change.

I know full well the Olympics are deeply, deeply flawed in many ways, but I can’t help but glimpse a bit of gospel in the coming together of the nations, the unified task each team faces, and the fight for something bigger than ourselves. How we react to success or failure is extremely telling, and the motivation of why we do anything we do is an opportunity for truth-telling (a nod to you, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone). I’m beyond grateful for my own dream-come-true to witness this.

Custer Travel Curse

The Custer Travel Curse isn’t really a thing, but it lives in family lore, so much so that even friends know about it. And boy did it strike hard this month.

It was July 20. The girl in front of me nervously shifted her weight from foot to foot every twenty seconds, her eyes glued to the phone in her hand. First-time flier? I wondered internally as I watched her shuffle her bags up to the ticket counter. I glanced at my own phone again. Colorado Springs to Minneapolis: On Time. I don’t know what possessed me to hit refresh at the very moment the nervous girl turned around from the counter to shout back at her friend, “Liv, it’s canceled!” Surely that’s a different flight than mine, I told myself before looking back at the device in my hands. Colorado Springs to Minneapolis: Canceled. And thus began a 72-hour saga.

By now the Global IT Tech Outage of July 19 was pretty common news, but I had thought, even believed, that I was safe a whole day later. I’d checked and rechecked my email and flightaware a thousand times before leaving the house and even during the drive. Yet here I was. And honestly, I realized I didn’t have it so bad. It wasn’t like this was my flight back to Europe, nor did I have any major commitments over the weekend. Everyone I was supposed to meet up with would graciously understand and reschedule, and Colorado Springs held family. What a gift to have another day with them, I thought.

I left the airport a short while later with a rebooking for 48 hours later, July 22, out of Denver. Perfect. All I had to do was enjoy a lovely Sunday with the family, which included visiting nieces from Hawaii as well as a whole bunch of WorldVenture friends, so I did. 

July 22 rolled around bright and early, and this time the airline was more on top of it. I opened up my email. Denver to Minneapolis: Canceled. Fighting the urge to groan loudly, I bounded up the stairs to borrow a US phone, so that Dad and I could spend the entire drive to the Denver airport listening to the hold music. Since I never got a hold of anyone, I sought out an airline agent instead and surprisingly only waited in line for an hour, making friends in the process. The couple in line behind me were real estate agents from upstate New York who’d been trying to get home since July 19. “Oh well,” the wife smiled, “it’s part of the price we pay for convenience.”

All flights to Minneapolis were already overbooked for the day, so I left the airport with a ticket in hand for the next morning, July 23, and Dad helped book me into a really nice airport hotel running a Monday deal. After a nice long walk to Walmart and back, I relaxed with a Bill Bryson book and watched some TV before an early bedtime.

July 23 started even earlier than the previous day, probably because my body was starting to show signs of stress. I yanked the phone toward me and blinked to see an email from the airline. My heart sank, but then felt immediate relief: it was NOT canceled, just delayed. Which is a praise because when I went downstairs just before 7:00 to catch the shuttle, parking myself directly next to it, the driver came out, jumped in, and drove away without asking me a single question. Apparently you check in for the shuttle inside the hotel.

I did make it to the airport eventually, and 2 more delays plus 1 gate change later, I found myself suddenly face to face with Kelly, a former BFA colleague! She had also gone through two flight cancellations, an airport change, and a slew of restless nights to be scheduled not just on my flight, but seated in the row behind me. What a small, crazy world. Exactly 72 hours later than when I was initially supposed to arrive in Minneapolis, we landed. Several people on the plane cheered, myself included. Take that, Custer Travel Curse.

Waiting on a jet plane

Is Culture Stress a Thing?

I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced “reverse culture shock,” but the term “reverse culture stress” resonates a bit with this TCK. Returning to one’s passport country sounds like it should be easy and a welcome reprieve from some of those hard differences another culture can bring, but the truth is that it carries its own challenges. Some might be pathetically minor, but it’s crazy how they can still affect my everyday. For instance, what’s up with this shreddable, soft stuff people call toilet paper here? And why does choosing a loaf of bread take me 10 whole minutes?

Some of the changes are indeed wonderful. I’m speaking of you, air conditioning on those three-digit-degree days, and you, Caribou Coffee (where I currently sit). I both love the freedom to run to the store on a Sunday afternoon and at the same time wish the neighbors weren’t mowing the grass. How am I supposed to take my Sunday nap? Give me all the Mexican food, please, but you can keep all that ice away from my drink, thank you very much. I’m grateful I know how to speak up for myself in restaurants and that customer service is such a high priority that I will always get what I ask for, yet I wish they wouldn’t rush me out of there after 45 minutes. I’m here to visit with my friend!

Far trickier culture stresses are the internal ones I wrestle with in my mind: should I be bringing a hostess gift to dinner? What’s the appropriate time frame for showing up to an appointment with someone? 5 minutes early? 10 minutes late? How and when do I offer to pay, and how or when do I allow someone else to pay on my behalf? Are there signals to this dance? How long do I wait before reaching out a second time to someone who hasn’t responded yet to a message? These thoughts feel barely worth mentioning, and yet, because I don’t live here day in and day out, these are the minor stresses I conscientiously think about often. 

Sometimes it just helps to verbalize: belonging to a place that you don’t live in regularly isn’t always comfortable. But I wouldn’t trade being here for the world either. I learned at a workshop once that stress isn't good or bad. It just is. How we respond to it is the more telling part in whether we're keeping healthy or not. So here I am, staring reverse culture stress in the face, and saying "Bring it on! I'm here, and I'm grateful." Just another part of the TCK life.

Love seeing friends again!!

Up to Hochblauen

MG reached across my plate. “Excuse me” she said with a smile. To be fair, the picnic table was rather narrow, and we were 5 bodies crowded onto the bench, so it was all rather tight and snug. Just the way I’d envisioned it. She ladled another spoonful of pasta salad onto her plate, digging deep for the extra cucumbers. “Pass the chips,” NL smiled from the opposite end. “Katrina, by any chance did you perhaps bring napkins, maybe?” MR mused, glancing up and down the full table in search of them. I tossed her the paper towel roll, and she caught it deftly, despite being blinded by the sun as our entire side of the table was. But no one complained about that. It was literally the first sunny day in a week, and I was so grateful it allowed us to keep alive the tradition of driving up the mountain, Hochblauen, for our year’s last Small Group.

This school year, we had studied the book of Luke using gospel journals. It was fun to see the girls mark up their favorite verses and ask some hard questions about others. “Why was Mary allowed to ask the angel obvious questions, but not Zechariah? I wonder what Jesus found funny and sad? Why is Elijah mentioned so often in Luke 9? Would Jesus really pronounce woes on entire cities for a lack of peace?” The discussions had been beautiful and deep, and I myself had been challenged by their questions and observations over and over again. 

As HK, AY, and I bounded up the stairs of the tower on Hochblauen to take some pictures, we marveled at the gorgeous view God had created. The blue and green layers of the Black Forest, the hazy Rhine valley to our west and the outline of the city of Basel to our south. The girls crowded along the railing, gazing out toward the sun, still high in the June sky at 8:30pm. The way they wrapped their arms around each other and laughed out loud warmed my heart. It’s not a given that eight random girls put together for a weekly Bible study would actually like each other, yet that’s the gift I’ve been given. What a lovely Junior year with them!

on top of the Hochblauen Tower

7 Lists for HMA

This summer is an HMA summer (Home Ministry Assignment), which means I’ll be in the states for 7 weeks, mainly to visit with people who help make my ministry possible. Bring on the Friends and Family!! To show my excitement, here are 7 lists of 7 for HMA.

7 States I think I will be in:

1. Minnesota

2. Wisconsin

3. Idaho

4. Oregon

5. Washington

6. Colorado

7. Illinois

7 Foods I plan to eat: (I really just want to put “Mexican” for all of them)

1. Chipotle

2. Chick-Fil-A

3. Nebraska steak

4. PNW cherries

5. Corn on the cob

6. Dairy Queen

7. Amanda’s macaroons 

7 Songs on my Summer Playlist:

1. “Praise!” The Worship Initiative and Davy Flowers

2. “Galway Girl,” Ed Sheeran

3. “Wholehearted,” We are Messengers

4. “Hallelujah Anyway,” Rend Collective

5. “Something to Somebody,” Dermot Kennedy

6. “Life is a Highway,” Rascal Flatts

7. “Crazy People,” Casting Crowns

7 Places I want to visit:

1. Itasca State Park, MN

2. Powell’s Book Store, OR

3. North Shore of Lake Superior, MN

4. Great River Shakespeare Festival, MN

5. St. Croix Falls, WI

6. Ute Valley Park, CO

7. Ramsey County Library, MN

7 Activities it's safe to say I’ll do:

1. Speaking

2. Hiking/Walking

3. Reading

4. Driving

5. Celebrating the 4th of July

6. Kayaking/Swimming

7. Sleeping

7 Books on my To-Read List (yeah right):

1. The Great Alone, Kristin Hannah

2. Abide in Christ, Andrew Murray

3. Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools, Tyler Staton

4. Celebrities for Jesus, Katelyn Beaty

5. Crying in H-Mart, Michelle Zauner

6. The Things we Leave Behind, Clare Furniss

7. Small Prints, Kristi Dahlstrom

7 Nieces/Nephews I plan to Hug:

1. Olivia

2. Megan

3. Emmi

4. Audrey

5. Elli

6. Jacob

7. Eva (Thorsen gets a fistbump)

Bring on those Minnesota lakes

German Father's Day

I stuck out an elbow to block the guy who’d just been shoved by his friends and seemed to be falling toward us. It was more to protect 6-year-old Sem than myself. Behind me I could feel Ellen grasping the strings of my backpack and I put a hand on Sem’s shoulder to guide him a bit to the left, the crowds continually pushing in on us. Is that what Jesus felt like? I wondered.

We emerged out the other side of the sensory bombardment and paused for a head count. All the Michaels are here, too. Whew. We took a deep breath, felt the long-anticipated sun on our skins again, and continued with renewed intentionality on our 12-km hike. 

It was both Ascension Day and Father’s Day, and a lovely tradition exists that families get out and hike together for the holiday. Sort of like Jesus and his disciples. Of course, it’s Germany, so there’s a bit more alcohol involved than in the first century (hence the somewhat rowdy crowds in villages). However, the joys of live music and random running-into-friends outweigh all the noise. There were roughly 20 stops along the 12 kilometers we had chosen, and one of them included a BBQ pulled pork food truck, so I was rather content with my choice to hike on this holiday. And once we got past the crowded middle of the hike, the path was much more open and breezy. The finale included a vista overlooking Basel and some good old German Kaffee & Kuchen. Yum. Happy Father’s Day!

View of Basel in the distance - we made it!

Messy Communities

“It costs the candle no light of its own to share light with another candle.” I was sitting in a Ugandan church service when the pastor said this, and I was instantly struck by the reality that it must be a universal reality to have to fight this scarcity mindset. Although he was encouraging us to share the good news of Jesus with unbelievers, I’ve been reflecting on how this truth applies to even believer relationships. We can be all too quick to give in to the lie that if a friend spends time or resources or energy on someone else, it means there will be less left over for me.

It was the exact lie my colleague and I were trying to help the sobbing 5th grader in my office face last week, when she spoke the truest words she could at her age: “Friendships are so messy!” Too true. We can all picture that person who saps all our energy, or the one who flakes out on us, or (like my student) the one we wish would pay more attention to us, whose attention spent elsewhere makes us jealous or lonely. 

Last week, social media reminded me that it was the 79th anniversary of the death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who took a stand against the Third Reich and paid the ultimate price for his courage. Ever since I read Eugene Peterson’s book A Long Obedience in the Same Direction in college, I’ve always associated Psalm 133 with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, so I pulled it out again over the weekend.

Psalm 133: A song of ascents. Of David.

1 Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!

2 It is like precious oil on the head, running down on the beard,

on the beard of Aaron,

running down on the collar of his robes?

3 It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion!

For there the LORD has commanded the blessing,

life forevermore.

As Peterson unpacks this psalm in his book, he makes the statement that believers don’t get the luxury of asking “Am I going to be part of a community of a faith?” because there’s no choosing, not really. The psalm calls us brothers and sisters, and you don’t get a choice whether or not your parents give you siblings. The true question is “How am I going to be part of a community of faith?” Because when relationships get messy, when siblings fight and it feels like it’s costing us our own light, will we still choose to believe that the community of faith is a gift from God? That it’s “good and pleasant,” that it’s like “oil poured on the head” and “dew of Hermon falling on Mount Zion.”

Those are funny choice images. Well, the first one. I think most of us can imagine how the dew of a beautiful semi-alpine mountain suddenly appearing on a much lower hill in Jerusalem, in a semi-arid climate no less, would be a really lovely thing, how it would bring refreshment and nourishment to plants and perhaps life and beauty. The oil image, however, doesn’t sound as appealing. Dripping down our heads and staining clothes? We have to refer back to Exodus 29 when Aaron was being installed as high priest and then take note that throughout Scripture, anointing oil was synonymous with God’s presence and His Spirit being with a person. Peterson writes that to picture the other person drenched in oil is remembering again that they are a priest.

This is not an easy task. When the 5th grader lamented the same thing last week, my colleague was the one who pointed out to her that it’s pretty much impossible to do on our own. But that's exactly the beauty of the gospel - Jesus died and rose again and sent his Spirit to live inside of us so that we have a chance. When the Spirit inside of me is the same Spirit inside of you, there should be a bond, a common calling, a shared mission of seeing Jesus glorified together in our community. It’s what connects a German pastor from 80 years ago to a Ugandan pastor in 2024. That’s why giving you encouragement or time or resources or friendship isn’t really as costly as I think it’s going to be. Jesus already paid the price. Bonhoeffer writes, “Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done in both of us.” He goes on to say how much we need each other, to preach truth repeatedly to one another, to gift each other dew and oil.

And how does it all end? According to the psalmist, in blessing and life forevermore. In multiplied light and a community that works for one another’s good. According to 1 Peter 2:9, we’re a royal priesthood to proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness. I’m not sure what challenges you will face in your community this week, but the question isn’t will you choose to be a part of it; the question is how will you live out the reality that you are.

Ugandan pastor is on the left in white