Walking and Parks and Stuff

Friday started with a tour of the area of Berlin where the church and KIBA are located. With our walking shoes on, water bottles filled and babies in strollers, we headed out to discover what Pankow had to offer. During the whole trip Evie has been in a great mood* and this morning was no exception. She was shaking with excitement at the prospect of a morning walk.

Of course, walks are always more fun when your big brother is around to entertain you.

Our tour started right outside our apartment building.

See those flower boxes on the balcony? That's our apartment. The bay to the left is where I'm sitting right now typing this entry. Because of all of the previous destruction in East Berlin, much of it has been rebuilt and it is beautiful.

Alright, I'll admit that the next place on our tour was not this building. In fact, most of the group didn't even stop to look at this building so I can't tell you what it is. BUT it says "Berlin-Pankow" on it so I thought it would be good to show.

Moving right along on our tour...This actually was the first real stop. The Rathaus is the city hall. There happened to be a wedding the day we walked by and we learned that all weddings must take place in the Rathaus, regardless of whether or not there is an additional religious ceremony.

During the time that East Berlin was under communist rule, the sign directly above the door was covered up. When the building was recovered, the sign, reading Gott mit uns, or "God with us," was revealed.

Our next stop was the state church. Officially, the state religion is Lutheran. Despite the size of the building, it is common to see only 20 or 30 people in church on a Sunday morning. This is because many people believe that paying church tax - an automatic 10% deduction for Berliners registered with the state as Christians - is their means of salvation. Lucky for them, there's better news. Now we just need the opportunity to share it!

Small markets and shops are abundant in Pankow. This is the Obstmann fruit stand. Well, it used to be a stand, now it's a store. And it's right down the street from where previous KIBAs were held. The Turkish man who owns the store provided low cost fruit during the week of KIBA as a way to support the work that was going on. God is so creative in the way He provides, isn't He?

As we walked on to other various stops {the school where the church meets - pictures of that later - the church office, etc.} we passed the Milchmann, which is presumably an ice cream shop judging by the enormous ice cream cone out front. The boys just couldn't resist giving it a big hug {we wouldn't let them take a lick}.

The last stop of our tour was a park where we would meet Manu and her daughter Heidi for some play time. It was so neat to see the kids begin playing despite not being able to understand each other's language.

By this point, Evie was glad to have an opportunity to get out of the stroller and play a little bit.

So was Mercy.

The area around the park was wooded, which Jack really enjoyed exploring.

After a short break back at the apartment, and an interesting trip to the grocery store, we walked across the street to Burgerpark where we met some of the members of the church and joined them for a birthday party.

The park has a small petting zoo so Heidi took the boys over to look at the goats.

When we finished eating, Evie was happy to have some freedom to walk around. And happy to have the hand of her big brother to hold.

While walking around, she caught sight of the large fountain in the park...

and then there was no stopping her. She had her eyes glued on that fountain and she was determined to get to it.

Apparently all the effort was worth it because the fountain drew a crowd.

Sam attempted to go in, but the water was too cold for him to go through with it.

Jack dipped his feet, but that was as far as he got.

After a long day, full of parks and walking and meeting and greeting, we headed home for bedtime and preparations for the next day.

*Thank you, thank you, thank you to those of you praying specifically for easy adjustment for the babies! Your prayers have been answered.

Delayed

Flight to Chicago? Great! We arrived at the airport in plenty of time to catch our flight. And the highlight of the morning was the family line at the security checkpoint that let us breeze past hundreds of people waiting. I did feel a little bit bad for all the people that still had an hour wait ahead of them. But not bad enough to join them.

We were all smiles...

and super excited (Jack) to be up in the air. As we were taking off Jack decided he needed something to hold on to. He started with both hands gripping the arm rest but eventually settled for my arm.

Our flight to Berlin? Not quite as good. We waited at O'Hare for four-and-a-half hours as our plane was delayed nearly two hours.

Everyone was excited when the plane finally arrived,

but the damage was done and our schedule was thrown off. So our once "perfect" plan for getting plenty of rest and adjusting easily to the time zone difference was thwarted. 

Once aboard the flight bound for Berlin we scoped out the in-flight entertainment, unpacked our essentials and settled in for a long night. Evie eventually fell asleep and had a couple good two-hour stretches. Jack, who regularly claims he wants to stay up all night, was sound asleep for the last few hours of our air time. Between movies, Sean managed to  doze. Me? I was wishing we'd bought a seat for the baby. Let me just say that having a one-year-old on your lap for 9+ hours is a bit much. BUT, the Lord provided stamina (believe me, there were a couple moments of crying out to Him for relief), and we all deplaned still very much excited for the next step. 

Which was off the plane, down the stairs, onto a bus where we were packed together like sardines, and into the small square room known as customs. There were four doors, four agents and about four hundred people. After gathering our luggage, we were warmly greeted by Dave, Manu and Dan. Dave and Manu are members of the church here in Berlin and Dan is another Amerikaner joining us for KIBA. 

It took two large vans to bring us and our luggage to our building. It took two deep breaths to will ourselves to climb the 72 stairs to our apartment.

Once settled and rested, we ventured out to find some air conditioning. It was 90 and humid and our apartment is on the top floor. Electricity is very expensive in Berlin so air conditioning is rare. The boys waited until we were all ready to go.

The streets of Berlin are full even without our nine additional people. See the red brick on the left side of the sidewalk? That's the bike path. Don't get in the way of the bikers.

Our exploring took us to a mall where we wandered as many floors as we could

seeking relief from the heat.

We ended our evening with a birthday dinner for Brian at a Greek restaurant. The waiter brought out olives and bread while we waited.

Evie insisted on trying an olive.

but decided she didn't like it after all.

Despite what Evie thought, the food was delicious!

In addition to a respite from the heat, our exploring served as a way to keep us all awake until 8:00, the absolute earliest recommended bed time for your first day changing time zones. At 7:30 we all crawled into bed in anticipation of a full day ahead.

Anticipation

The past several months have been spent in anticipation of this moment...

...of saying {a tearful} goodbye to our sweet middle children



...of going where God called {Matthew 28:19}

...of planning and packing



...of boarding a plane with our oldest and youngest



...of what God will teach us, how He will mold us {Isaiah 64:8}

...of the faces we'll meet and the children we'll teach {Luke 18:15-17}

...of fellowship with friends old {The Overflowing Cup} and new

...of relaying stories of our joys and mishaps and lessons with so many who are lifting us up in prayer

...of meeting new brothers and sisters in Christ {says Sean}

...of flying on a plane and living with friends {says Jack}



...of hours spent fishing at the cabin {says Wes}



...of warm days spent swimming and digging and building {says Elise}

So we go in great anticipation of what God has in store, not knowing exactly what it will be, but knowing that it will be immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine because of His power at work in us for the glory of God. {Ephesians 3:20-21...loosely}

 

We will update our blog regularly (as will The Overflowing Cup), so check back often. Thank you for praying for our family and for the children and families we will meet and work with in Berlin.

Right of Passage

I have fond memories of baking in the kitchen with my mom when I was young. I remember the homemade noodles she used to make and the bread dough (though I don't really remember the bread...hmm). And I remember the hours we'd spend baking Christmas cookies. Cinnamon fingers and peanut blossoms were an annual tradition, but what I anticipated most was decorating the cut out cookies we'd make; candy canes, gingerbread people, stockings, reindeer. While I don't do as much baking as my mom did, I have spent a fare amount of time in the kitchen carrying on those cookie traditions. Except...the cut out cookies. Because, now that I'm older, it just looks too hard.

 

But...being the spontaneous mom that I am (all of you who knew me when I was a planner {pre-children, of course} would be shocked!), I'll give you three guesses what is now abundant in our house...

 

I decided to jump in with both feet, apron-clad, spatula at the ready. Never mind that we didn't really have enough time to properly chill the dough. And I had absolutely nothing to decorate these beauties once they were done. I mean, the recipe was called "No Fail Sugar Cookies." What could go wrong?

 

With help recruited, and all essential ingredients pulled out (the decorations aren't essential), we began with the dough. At our house, we never {and I mean ne-ver} stir anything without getting some on the counter.

 

Wes and Elise did a great job taking turns spilling stirring the dough.

After mixing the flour and butter/lard, Wesley lost interest so Elise had mixer duty all to herself. In went the rest of the ingredients and we were ready to...



Wait!

 

Yes, apparently chilled dough is easier to work with. These are the details I don't remember as a child. Now I realize it's probably because, like my own children, I lost interest after thirty seconds and left my poor mom to finish all that tedious work by herself, so everything between adding the flour and slathering the finished cookie with frosting was a mystery.

 

According to a lady on YouTube, chilling the dough for 45 minutes before rolling it out, chilling it again for 15 minutes before cutting out the cookies and chilling a third time for 15 minutes before baking is the trick to cookies that don't quadruple in size. Um...that's an extra hour and fifteen minutes that we just didn't have. So our cookies, {or cookie, rather - yep practically one big huge one when it was all said and done}, didn't look much like the hearts, stars and butterflies pictured here.

 

I'm not sure my kids will look back and have fond memories of cut out cookies, but at least they'll have memories. And I feel like I've gone through a right of passage that all mothers must go through now that I've made cut out cookies with my kids. Probably just this once...

Travelin' Thru Vlog

Hello, friends. It's been a while since I've posted anything. It was probably last summer when I was telling you fun stories about Costa Rica. Well, in case you didn't know, we're in the last days of preparation for another missions trip. This time the destination is Berlin, Germany and the representation from Minnesota has increased from 1 to 9. Beckie, Jack, and Evie are joining from our family and a few from The Overflowing Cup are coming along as well. It will be a blast. We are hoping to have regular updates for you here while we're in Germany and some follow-up posts after we return.

I've decided to try my hand at a vlog ("video-log" for those of you new to the internets) as well. It's mostly going to be videos of the kids at various stages of life. I've populated it with a few videos to get started. So please check it out and subscribe for updates. (Just like I'm sure you've already done here at the blog.)

We just found out that we are expected to teach a class on line dancing! I can't wait to post a video of that!! Let me know in the comments who you think will be the best line dancer from our team and give me some feedback on the YouTube page.

Travelin' Thru Vlog

See you soon!

A while back...

...this beautiful little girl entered our lives.

After weeks of Braxton Hicks contractions, I wasn't convinced that what I was feeling on May 2nd last year {a mere 14 hours before a scheduled induction} was the real thing so I headed off with the crew to Super Target {our second home} at about 5:00. By the time we were back and finished with dinner the uncertainty had vanished and we were frantically trying to find someone to stay with the older three so we could high tail it to the hospital. Lucky for us our neighbor was home and could wait at our house until my dad arrived to take over.

 

We got to the hospital at about 7:30. Four hours and half a push later, Evie was here. When we were expecting the other three, we knew what we were getting {well, at least what gender}. With Evie, we decided not to find out ahead of time, though I was CONVINCED she was a boy. Imagine my surprise {and frustration at being made to wait a whole ten seconds after her birth} when I was told that God had blessed us with another sweet daughter. Beautiful symmetry.

As I've been told many times, the older we get the faster the years pass. While I never doubted the wisdom in this statement, I have never experienced it more fully than this last year as Evelyn raced to her first birthday. Join me on this trip down memory lane.

 

June :: here's our one-month-old babe with her daddy on Father's day.

July :: another one in daddy's arms at two-months-old.

August :: three-month-old Evie and I parked ourselves under a big umbrella while the big kids played on the beach.

September :: four-month milestone? sitting!

In October :: we dedicated our five-month-old to the Lord who searches her and knows her and created her inmost being.

November :: the 4th member of our troop was six-months-old and enjoying every minute she could outside with her big sibs.

December :: this seven-month-old celebrated her first Christmas

January :: though not quite crawling, eight-month-old Evelyn was up on her hands and knees and ready to take off.

February :: nine months of growth definitely qualified Evie for hair doo-dads; unfortunately for her Mama, she would prefer them in her mouth instead of her hair.

March :: desperate for warmer weather, at ten-months-old Evie got to participate in her first indoor mid-winter beach party complete with the sounds of ocean waves, Beach Boys tunes and a scrumptious picnic.

April :: our eleven-month-old was proficient at playing "so big." and she was...

May :: a full twelve months after she was born, Evie is still the clear favorite among the siblings. she is blessed to have two protective brothers and a nurturing sister who absolutely adore her. her mom and dad think she's pretty awesome too.

Every one-year-old needs a chance to explore the sweet sticky goodness of their first birthday cake. For Evie, this was in the form of a cupcake. Of course shutter-happy-mommy was more concerned about the proper aperture and shutter speed than the cleanliness of the kitchen so by the time she was done, the baby and the floor were ready for a good washing.

I think she liked it...

Evie was so blessed to be able to celebrate her big day with lots of family and friends. And this huge bag that I just couldn't resist putting her in. Evie, on the other hand, was not as amused.

Happy birthday, Miss Evelyn Grace!