Art Surprise!

It was already something I was looking forward to - getting to see the Sistine Chapel - and I was even willing to endure the 90+ degree heat to do it, but when I was handed the entrance ticket, my heart jumped into my throat. The image decorating the backside of the ticket wasn’t the Michelangelo scene of Creation, as I would’ve most suspected. Rather, it was two figures whom I instantly recognized as Plato and Aristotle from the School of Athens painting by Rafael. I’ve used this painting every year in teaching History 8 to introduce Renaissance style, and I knew it was in the Vatican, but I was sure it required a special ticket, and we had barely secured these at the last minute.

I pointed it out to my brother and family, but we had no certainty whether this was a clue that we’d see the Rafael on our tour. So, with a smidge of hope, we joined the long line of ants shuffling from room to room, following the signs toward the Sistine Chapel. It took close to an hour, but finally my hope seemed to be approaching reality when we entered the first of three “rooms of Rafael.” Fiona smiled and I clapped my hands with glee while my nieces all asked “What’s so special?!”

Even while I pointed out arches and blue sky and facial features and characters and the self-portrait, I marveled myself at the vibrancy of the colors and the knowledge of muscles and the foresight Rafael must have had before the first brush stroke. He's staring out at is, daring us to criticize, and I have to wonder if he knew this would be the room and this the wall that would most draw the eye. Megan was quick to name the Greek god statues, and Olivia knew extra facts about them. The younger girls distracting themselves, creating stories about the lone woman (Hypatia). I’m no artist and have only stuck my baby toe into art appreciation, but I was exceedingly aware of what an unexpected gift this moment was.

just a tad giddy

Jarring Normal Obedience

Kristen and I rounded the corner, where the vineyards abruptly stopped and we found ourselves back in the quaint town of Holzen, the transition a bit jarring but also completely normal in our Black Forest valley.

“So, after 14 years here, do you ever get comfortable with all these good-byes?” she asked earnestly.

I couldn’t help but sad-smile. It’s been a question ringing through these hills for nearly 70 years because, as much as every school experiences loss when students graduate and teachers retire and people move, nothing can quite compare to the upheaval at a TCK school every summer. What keeps me going is definitely not comfort. It’s also not the truth that new people will be coming to replace the ones who left. While I always find a new friend or two, I rarely look forward to the arrival of new staff with the anticipation and hopeful excitement that I probably ought to. 

A phrase rings in the back of my mind, something my mom once said. “What keeps us on the field day after hard day, year after struggling year, is obedience.” Until God calls me to the next location - and someday he will as I have evidence of every year in other people’s stories - I am here, walking loops through these Black Forest valleys. That calling will mean glorious hellos in August and heart-wrenching good-byes in June. 

Honestly, there are no guarantees I can give to Kristen as she faces her first trip through this routine upheaval, other than normalcy. That doesn’t mean the obedience is less jarring, especially this summer as I face some significant losses, some who’ve been here over half of BFA’s lifetime and some who know me deeply. 14 years in, and some summers are just hard. But there’s a faithfulness in the regularity that I cling to. That God would be so good to allow the cynical me, who wasn’t ready for new people last August, to experience depth of relationship with others who have the same calling.

some of the hard good-byes of 2023

2022-23 is Wrapped

 Here are some highlights:

First day of School

Studying Ecclesiastes with my Monday Life Group

So many Hikes :-)

Middle School Fall Party

Tuesday Small Group

Visiting Christmas Markets

Family visits over Christmas

Middle School Play

High School Play

History 8 Castle Hike

Jim and Lori visit for Spring Break

The 8th grade Amsterdam Trip (4 years in the planning) finally happened!

Jimmy and Kristin visit

Henry joined the world

The 8th graders are promoted (the boys, too, but I can't show them all)

More Family comes and more hikes!

Name that Chaos

We tell a common non-joke around here, the gist of which is that Transition is a bad word, only to be whispered in hushed hues. Once a year, however, at least in the Middle School, we pull it out and put it on the table in the middle of the room for all students to poke and play with. Our annual Transition Workshop has become one of my favorite evenings; it never goes the same way twice. Even though we talk about the transition to high school coming up and the international moves they have all experienced, different students will bring different experiences and emotions to the workshop.

And we focus a lot on emotions by assigning names to those vague thoughts on the edge of our brains (“I don’t know what to expect in America next year” = fear; “Everyone else is ready for high school but me” = jealousy; “I can’t wait to try out for volleyball” = hope). One of the best gifts we feel we can give our students is the recognition that they are not alone in their transition.

To that end, this year, I started out by laying pieces of paper on the ground to symbolize the transition bridge. As I walked from “Involved” → “Leaving” → “Chaos” → “Entering” → “Re-Involved,” I asked some brave people to share times they had walked this bridge. One left Jordan to move to Germany, one gained a new baby sister, one switched schools in the middle of the year, one lost a beloved pet. I was so proud of them for sharing. 

Next, I asked them to share any Bible characters who they knew had walked some kind of transition. They blew me away with their knowledge of many stories. Joseph was sold by his brothers into the chaos of slavery but then became “re-involved” when he was promoted to Pharaoh's right-hand man and was reunited with his family. Daniel’s journey was similar in his own exile. Gideon moved from coward to warrior, from fully reliant on God to mostly reliant on himself. Paul, David, Ruth, Abraham, Adam & Eve, both Marys, the list was long. Then one girl nearly popped up out of her chair and shouted “Jesus!” It was the typical Sunday school answer, but her classmates’ eyes got wide as they put the pieces together that Jesus was fully involved in heaven, then left for the chaos of our world, so that we could all now enter into the re-involvement phase. 

The depth of their understanding in that moment was beautiful. Because the truth of the matter is that the entire gospel story is a story of Transition. In the Garden of Eden, we weren’t just involved, we were in perfect communion with our Creator, fully known and fully belonging. But we left. It was our choice, and the chaos that followed is where we continue to live unless we finish crossing the bridge. Jesus’ death on the cross invites us to re-enter the goodness that was once ours. Only on the other side, our joy is even more complete because to be re-involved (not just involved) carries a richness and an experience that our kids could write stories about. Every time we walk a transition, it’s an opportunity to proclaim the gospel again.

As our workshop continued, the kids tie-dyed T-shirts to remind themselves that out of the emotional turmoil there can be beauty, that God wastes nothing, and that they never walk alone. On Saturday, they’ll walk across the stage and say good-bye to their Middle School Years (often called the “chaos years” of education), and I couldn’t be more proud of them.

Tie-dye after the Workshop

Gospel at McDonald's

 It had been a long day, and I hadn't eaten since breakfast, nor had several of the athletes around me. So as my McDonald's table filled with Middle School girls, I kept my prayer short, and we tore into our burgers, happily rehashing the main exciting moments of the all-day volleyball tournament. That's when he showed up.

Surrounded by his wife and three daughters, the man came up the stairs shouting obscenities and swearing in German. I glanced around the seating area, wondering how all the students from my Christian school would react. A couple were staring at him and some at me with big eyes, but for the most people kept eating. I shrugged my shoulders and took another bite, glancing at the man out of the corner of my eye. That's when I saw him make a sweeping gesture toward a large group of our students. "I mean you all! All of you. You're a bunch of little ...."

I jumped up from my booth, trying to swallow my bite quickly while inserting myself between the yelling man and the 7th grader closest to him. "Can I help you?" I asked with a sarcastic overtone. His response was terse and indignant. "Your students here need to learn some manners! I've never been treated with such insolence. Not an ounce of decent human behavior." His wife joined in, and I was able to discover that the short of it was that one of our students had bumped him and hadn't apologized.

I fought a retort forming in my mind about "decent human behavior toward kids" and instead tried to explain that we had just come from a tournament, but I wasn't ever allowed to finish a sentence. "I want an apology!" the man demanded. "Let me apologize on their behalf --" I started. "I don't want your apology!!" he took a step closer, his eyes roaming the room for the offender. I struggled to push down my own anger for the sake of rationality. "Is the person here? Maybe I can talk to him or her --" I began. He almost spit, "she ran down the stairs like a coward. If I see her again ..." and at that point he raised his hand to show he would hit her. That was the straw. "And if you do that, I won't hesitate to call the police," I snarled. Even his wife turned to him at that moment and told him to sit and calm down. He sat, and I had to walk away because I was shaking so badly. 

That's when I saw that one of the High School students coaches, an 11th grader and former student of mine, had taken a stand behind me. Towering over my head, I'm sure, he had seen me getting yelled at and had come as back-up. I could've hugged him in that moment, the tangible reminder that as I had to step in the gap and defend those entrusted to me, that someone had my back and would defend me, too. Like Jesus, I thought. My heart cracked and softened a bit as the gospel broke in. 

Back at the table, of course, seven 8th grade girls wanted to know "what was that about?!?" When we looked back over at the man and his family, my eyes were drawn to his pre-teen daughter, sitting in the corner with her hands over her face, utterly ashamed of her dad's behavior. One of my middle schoolers sitting next to me saw her at the same time. "I feel so bad for her," she whispered to me, and I nodded. How blessed am I that I never had parents who did that to me, but rather who modeled a Christ-like defender and generous forgiver. 

I couldn't eat at that moment anyway, so I took a walk downstairs to the McCafe and purchased three cookies. For his kids. I couldn't shake the feeling that the bump was probably not the cause of the man's explosion all over us, and if he was willing to put on a scene in public, what might his home life look like. It took a while before I could give them to him, but on our way out the door, I was able to offer another apology for my student's behavior, and he accepted the cookies with a grunt and another mini sermon about human decency. 

The middle school girls at my table were aghast. "You gave him cookies!?!" I tried to explain, "It's the gospel. We received a grace we didn't deserve and we are called to pass it on." God knows I fail more days than not, but I'm thankful for this teachable moment, both for my own heart and for those in my students.

Middle School Boys team with coaches

Regarding Others

I’ve been listening to a fascinating Audiobook* that aims to encapsulate the entire Middle Ages into one volume. I’m loving how much it connects to what I’ve just finished teaching in History 8 and yet also how much new I’m learning. For instance, the name Pope Innocent III already meant something to me as the pope of two crusades and a major church council, but I had never before heard of his “sun and moon allegory.”

What I learned was this: Pope Innocent III asserted that God had put two great lights into the sky, one to govern the day and give heat, energy, and light to the world, and the other to govern the night with coolness and lesser light. Both are valuable, but of course the moon’s light is purely a reflection of the sun, not generating any light from within itself. He interpreted these two lights to be like the two mighty powers of the day - popes and kings. He as pope was the sun, of course. His authority was over people’s souls, which was of eternal value and thus vastly more significant. The king oversaw people’s bodies and thus held lesser authority, much like the moon.

I should be shocked at the hubris of a supposed man of God, but as a student of history, I’ve long learned to roll my eyes at some of these guys. Whenever my students ask why a person made a particularly poor choice or how a leader could be so cold-hearted, I tend to reply with the cop-out shrug of the shoulders and saying “Human nature.” But really, if I claim to be a Christian - a true “little Christ” - can I use that as an excuse?

My housemate has been memorizing 2 Corinthians 5. Every time she quotes it, even before she gets to the famous v. 17 about being a new creation, I’m already struck by the mirror being held up to my life, showing me how I all too often live for myself rather than for the one to whom I owe everything. My human nature has been fundamentally changed; I'm brand new. I get to be the moon now in a universe where Christ is, always has been, and always will be the sun.

Furthermore, beyond even our own choices in living, the author of 2 Corinthians calls us to view others through a heavenly lens rather than to regard them from a worldly point of view. It forces me to ask about how I teach history. While I do find it despicable that Pope Innocent III tried to put down fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, what if, despite multiple crusades and the publication of this sun-moon allegory, he really trusted Jesus as his Lord and Savior? What if I meet him in heaven? I’m not God, so while I do believe I’ve seen my fair share of human nature and while I do still believe some historical figures were capable of genuine evil, I cannot see their hearts nor do I always know the full story. I need to be careful with my regard.

“So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come” (2 Corinthians 5:16-17a).

finding WW2 markers in Freiburg with two 8th graders

*Powers & Thrones by Dan Jones

Jim & Lori Visit

Jim and Lori were such good sports when I forced them to choose a dwarf and imitate it for my pictures, but in the end, it added to our laughter as we wound our way through the gnome garden of Salzburg. It was only the next day that we found out we had actually stumbled upon a historic piece of history and that the search is still on for the missing gnomes out of an original set of 28. Not only that, but “the Professor” gnome had been featured in the Sound of Music. We giggled at our own ignorance and sang along with Julie Andrews as we traversed the hills on our way into the Lake District, thrilled to be back in “my” country.

As long-time supporters - more than that: as a second family - they have been invested in my work at BFA and beyond for over a decade. In the support-raising days, they let me live with them for the mere cost of mowing the lawn in the summer. I relish the memories of dinner conversations and book recommendations. Likely I owe more of my knowledge and opinions to them than I know, so it was a real pleasure to get to show them around Austria for 12 days over Spring Break, starting with Salzburg.

The dreary weather on the trip to Vienna felt fitting as we visited the country’s most renowned concentration camp, Mauthausen. The air was heavy in the car as we drove away, my country failing to shine quite as brightly as the previous day. I’d been particularly moved in the area with all the national monuments, most notably the Tree of Life, donated by Israel. When Jim had asked me to read it aloud, I struggled to keep a steady voice, yet we were able to debrief in the car, and I was grateful for their presence to once again discuss, reflect, and even pray.

Vienna saw us bouncing between gleeful joy and thought-provoking discussions as we bounced from museum to palace to concert to the Schnitzelwirt and back to another museum. The days were packed and the hours in the car a bit long at times, but it was such a treat to get to show them the best and worst of the country that has my heart. The highlight was celebrating Easter in Kärnten: the reminder that even the worst that history has to offer, the death of the perfect Son of God, can culminate in the beauty of a resurrected life and the saving of souls. To join with believers and worship God in German was a balm to my heart, and I think meant a lot to Jim and Lori, too.