Nostalgia: 2010

I'm easily sentimental, and after watching Toy Story 3 last night, I'm in a very reflective mood. The verse in my devotions this morning was from Psalm 118:24. "This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it." The highlights were also in the book like that. So I thought: What better day to look back on my last year than this day? And to rejoice!

God chose to lavish another 365 days on me in 2010, and it has been good.

The month of February was dark at BFA as we underwent an emotional time and had to deal with several wounded students on campus. But God brought healing, and in May we saw 17 students baptized. Victory!

In June, he blessed the Custer family with the birth of Olivia Marie, the happiest little niece on the block, and we found out that another niece was due to arrive in January (any day now). It's such a strange and wonderful feeling to see your family grow and multiply.

This summer saw me back in the states trying to raise the necessary support in order to be back at BFA by the Fall. It held moments of rest, complete panic, worry and fret, joys, humbling conversations, scary presentations, encouragement, frustrations, and in the end, the overwhelming truth that God provides and works all things out in his own timing! What a privilege it is to be on this journey with him.

August found me in the classroom. In some ways, 10 years of study and trying out all kinds of jobs and positions seemed to culminate as I "arrived." Now I can laugh at that and say "hardly!", but it still is a blessing to be teaching full time in my very own classroom.

This last week has to go into the Highlight List as well. I'm actually writing this from a hotel in Turkey where I'm at a conference with many other veterans of the faith from all over Europe. It's the physical rest and the spiritual feeding that I've been craving for the last couple of months all in a very historical setting that of course invigorates me like nothing else. :-)

Over all, the one thing that really stands out to me this year has been the RELATIONSHIPS: new people, old people, founding relationships, restoring relationships, deepening relationships. It's been at the center, and I've been so blessed by the people God has placed around me - on multiple continents. I rejoice!

Hope

Hearing the prodigal’s flailing roam

piecing by footstep the fragile path home

Opening weary arms with tender long

pierced to wash away yesterday’s wrong

Proving forgiveness is etched with pain

inviting the scar with promise for gain

Embracing security, enough to suffice

eternity safe through love’s sacrifice

(It's more of an Easter poem than a Christmas one, but the two do go together, don't they?)

Thoughts during Finals

This is cool. I'm sitting in Finals and blogging. It probably helps that I don't have to take them. (Only grade them all afterwards. ... Think I'd rather take them.)

Anyway, that's not what I wanted to blog about. As I'm sitting at the back of the classroom looking out over 15 heads, my heart is squeezed, and I'm surprised at how much I've come to love them. SB when she runs up to me every day with a "Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi" until I answer; even now, she's bouncing in her seat as she writes the final essay. DP's quiet intelligence as she shyly sits at the back of the room - until a little game of Jeopardy brings out quite the personality! BR, a Swiss boy scout and all around outdoorsman, who wishes all of class was spent on World War II. KB whose favorite activity is Journal writing and who can wax eloquently with the best of them. LA's enthusiasm for learning; sometimes when she's waving her hand in the air, I think her eyeballs are going to pop out because she's willing me so badly to call on her. LS, the class clown, who now also has crutches to add to his daily tricks and who seems to be best friends with all the girls a grade above him. HK, my beautiful 7th grade Korean, who is going to grow up to be the world's best brain surgeon, though she doesn't know it yet. And that's not even half the kids I love so much!

Class Update

The majority of my day and week is spent in the classroom, and I'd love to give you a glimpse of each class. (Not that we did all of this in one day, of course!)

Here are some 6th graders creating clay tablets with Cuneiform. We had been studying Hammurabi's Code, so they created various laws for our classroom, e.g. "If a student arrives late to class, he must do 20 push-ups." Pretty funny. It's wonderful that Kandern is a pottery town, and the clay only cost a couple of Euros, plus we have free access to a kiln. Hopefully the tablets will all be fired this week and displayed in the Middle School soon.The 7th graders just finished a unit on U.S. History. At the end, we had a "dress-up-as-a-U.S.-history-character" day. Among others, we had a Native American, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., a WW 2 pilot, a flapper, and a survivor of Pearl Harbor.
The 8th graders are in the middle of wrapping up a World Religions unit. Here's a picture of them doing research. Tomorrow (Nov 29) will be the exciting day because their videos are all due. :-)Finally, my Beginner's German class is lucky because they get to have Kaffee und Kuchen (coffee and cake) every other Friday. We invite a German speaker guest, and they all have to interview the guest in order to deserve the cake and coffee part. It's been a fun application of what they're learning, plus I get to bake! :-)Lots of fun to be had in the Middle School when we are able to take a break from the books.

Happy Thanksgiving

The dorms celebrated last week, and I got my fill of turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, and stuffing. It was wonderful, and I wasn't even required to clean it up this time. The best part was sitting around afterward, drinking wassail, and listening to the dorm guys sing loud ballads ("I will always love you," "Time to Say Good-bye," you get the picture). Dinner and a show! Never a dull moment at BFA.

Hoping you all enjoy time with family and friends today. Eat some pie for me!!!

Remembering Well

I wrote this at midnight last week when I couldn't sleep after visiting a Holocaust exhibit.

November 9, 2010

Today, of all days, I broke a glass. Before fate or fortune could stop it, it had slipped from my fingers and scattered into hundreds of pieces, escaping even into the tiniest crevices of my kitchen walls. Of course I retaliated with the broom and dustbin, but there was that one shard, astoundingly wedged between floor and the cupboards of my new home. The broom wasn’t enough, so I had to use my very fingers to pry it loose. With a violent tug, the sparkling glass came out, but not before it had extracted the tiniest trickle of blood from my index finger, the price of its sacrifice.

Today, of all days, I met you. I believed I was heightening my intellectuality by attending my first German lecture. Proudly was I ready to cast my critical eye over the newest museum display and talk mightily with my fellow colleagues about our superiority of compassion over people of the past. But I had barely made it past the door when you greeted me, standing there in your button-down wool coat, carpet slung over one arm and tote bag firmly clutched in the other. You stood in the middle of the lively crowd, and your thoughts were a hundred miles away. No one was looking at you. Everyone was too busy staring at the guard who had just barely forced himself into the edge of the frame, finger outstretched, tonsils glaring at me from his open throat. Your father was scowling at him, your mother hanging on to his arm fearfully, her own bag pressed against her chest. Kids who should have been in school were congested up almost to your legs, and neighbors hung with their big bosoms over their balcony rails to watch the spectacle. You just stood there in front of the transport truck, obviously unfazed, your smooth facial features emotionless and your lips pursed in a straight line. Yet the injustice of what was happening simmered beneath the surface. You could feel it in the pulse of your fingertips, and your eyes were fiery as you stared off into a distant land where no price was demanded of your blood.

Today, of all days, I walked the same streets you once called home. The glass has been cleaned up along with your carpet and other possessions that were pried from your fingers seventy-two Novembers ago. Then, the people praised themselves for their purity and rational-mindedness; now, we praise ourselves for our empathy and open-heartedness. Yet how does any of it compare to the simplicity of a young girl whose life splintered into thousands of shards in the blink of an eye? Who was asked to pay an ultimate price? And only one forgotten photographer noticed as she boarded that transport truck and slipped into oblivion.

Today, of all days, I will remember your scar as I finger my own.

Finally: an Update!

I know it's been a while. Oops. Life continues to be good though very very very very busy. This week for example, I got asked to babysit last minute Monday night, drove some colleagues to a Holocaust exhibit Tuesday night, attended an Alpha Course session Wednesday night, subbed at my regular dorm Thursday night, went to a fun concert we've been planning since August on Friday night, and moved in with a couple high school kids to babysit Saturday night. All of it was very fun, and I'm glad I did them, but it's a challenge filling in the cracks with lesson planning and grading when all I want to do is use my new Internet to call people. :-)

Actually, I also mention all those evening things because I covet your prayers for some of them:
- babysitting: the family from Monday night has a student of mine you'll meet in my next prayer update if you get those. She could really use your prayers for her academic needs.
- dorm life: November is traditionally the hardest month for the dorm kids. They've been away from home now the longest, and Christmas is "still" a month away. This is when they're the crankiest. Grades tend to slip, and fights can break out in the dorms. Pray for perseverence.
- Alpha course: The 1st night came, and 10 missionaries showed up. 0 Germans. I wasn't overly shocked having grown up watching my parents do evangelism in slightly religiously dead Europe, but it was still a disappointment when so many of us had invited friends and neighbors. We're going to keep doing it in the hopes that one of these Wednesdays an outsider might still show up. You could pray. Thanks!
- Concert: It was a personal encouragement to me to see my favorite group (Casting Crowns), and I praise God for the opportunity to go. :-)

You're all a blessing. Happy November!