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But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God. – Acts 20:24

It doesn't seem like it was more than two years ago that I was writing to you about my marathon to France. At that time, I had never run a marathon. I had never been to France. I wasn't sure how I would ever make it across the ocean. 

Yet God was faithful. The marathon and journey to Toulouse, France was more challenging and took longer than I expected, but I made it. When God redirected my steps, I ended up in Berlin, Germany at the start of 2014. 

It seemed fitting, as I prepared to wrap up my time with ReachGlobal, to run another marathon – a race that reflected what I have experienced and how I have changed over these past two years. 

On Dec. 21, I ran a marathon in Portsmouth, England, along the harbor of the English Channel. During the course of the race, I had ample time to reflect on some of the lessons I've learned on this journey. 

We're in This Together

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Leading up to this second marathon, many people asked me who I was running with. I would explain that, although I didn't have a running partner, that I would still be running together with everyone else in the race. 

Sure there is a clock, and someone finishes first and last, but what matters the most is that we are all running the same course. 

I taped "We're in this together" to the back of my shirt because I wanted the runners I passed to know that they weren't alone, that we all help each other finish the race. 

It was my goal to smile and try to encourage everyone I saw on the course. Some times were harder to smile than others, but in the process, I actually received a great deal of joy, as I got a few smiles in return, some "thank you"s and saw others continue to plod along despite their pain. 

I struggled feeling like I was alone in trying to get myself to Europe and then to carry on once I got here. The support from others who were struggling and persevering on the same course helped me to keep going.  As I have been strengthened by the grace of God, I have been able to encourage and strengthen others on the course.

Expect the Unexpected

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I thought I had signed up for a simple out-and-back course along the harbor – flat, pretty views, nice-on-the-knees dirt trails, sandy beaches. 

The real course involved rock climbing and obstacles like those shown on the photo on the right. There were high winds, rain and muddy paths where I almost twisted my ankle and fell. There were standstills where we had to stop and wait, as we went single file over slippery boulders. The course turned around before the halfway point and took a different route back. 

This wasn't so different than my journey these past two years. It wasn't quite what I thought I had signed up for. It required patience for the many obstacles. There were close calls when I thought I might fall. I had to pray that God wouldn't let my feet slip. And I started the second half on a different path – in Berlin instead of in Toulouse. 

Still I can say that the obstacles have increased my dependence on God and my trust in his faithfulness. While not pleasant at the time, they have made the course memorable and have brought the confidence that God can bring me through anything, no matter how difficult.  

A Great Cloud of Witnesses

This marathon, I wrote names on my sleeves of some of the people in my great cloud of witnesses. I am incredibly thankful for everyone who has been cheering me on from near and far. I have needed your faith to let go of my burdens, avoid sin pitfalls and to run with perseverance the race marked out for me. 
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. – Hebrews 12:1

People that believe in you are priceless. So many of you have been those people in my life. The people who prayed with me. The people who offered me a listening ear, who visited, who sent cards,  who offered support in so many ways. 

Thank you

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Thank you for the part you have played on my journey. I can say that this second marathon was better than the first, not because it was faster or easier, but because it was completed with joy. 

It would be pretty impossible for any of you to give me wings to fly, but God has used you to help me fly to the finish line. 

It is with joy that I am completing this course and starting the next one. Do I know what this upcoming marathon will hold? Not completely, but here are a couple of my next steps:

1. I am returning to Berlin in January and planning to pursue freelance writing, translating and music opportunities. This will involve a change of visa.
2. I am playing another concert and touring Italy with my orchestra before Easter. Even if I don't get my new visa, I will still be in Europe through April.  
3. I have applied for a low-residency master's program in expressive therapies (using multiple art forms in counseling/therapy). If accepted, I can pursue the three-year program online and in my community from anywhere in the world. I have been taking my psychology prerequisites and continue to be intrigued by everything I am learning. 

Thank you for helping me complete this marathon with joy, and I look forward to journeying with you, as I embark on the next course and continue to proclaim the gospel of the grace of God. 

 
"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." – Hebrews 11:1

In 1964, a man who is best-known as having a dream of an desegregated United States traveled to a divided Berlin. He gave a sermon in West Berlin and then crossed the border to East Berlin to deliver a very similar message. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered this message a year after his "I Have a Dream" speech, three years after the Berlin Wall was constructed.

"May I say that it is indeed an honor to be in this city, which stands as a symbol of the divisions of men on the face of the earth. For here on either side of the wall are God’s children, and no man-made barrier can obliterate that fact. Whether it be East or West, men and women search for meaning, hope for fulfillment, yearn for faith in something beyond themselves, and cry desperately for love and community to support them in this pilgrim journey."

King believed that faith could destroy the barriers that separate us. He believed in the God who "destroyed the dividing wall of hostility" and "made the two one" in Jesus Christ  (Ephesians 2:14-15). 

There is one phrase that is nearly identical between King's "I Have a Dream" speech and his sermon in East Berlin, and it is a call to faith, to unity and a hope of freedom.

"With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of the nations into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to suffer together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day."

King would never see the fulfillment of these words in Berlin. Four years later, King would be assassinated. Twenty-five years later, the Peaceful Revolution began in Leipzig. Twenty-five years later, the Wall would fall.

Hate may build walls, but faith tears them down. Yet it is hard to believe in what we cannot see. 

Nobody would have foreseen that a movement of nonviolence would bring about the Civil Rights movement in the United States, that a people created equally by God would also have equal rights. Nobody would have foreseen that peaceful protest and prayer would take the Berlin Wall down. 

"Wherever reconciliation is taking place, wherever men are 'breaking down the dividing walls of hostility' which separate them from their brothers, there Christ continues to perform his ministry of reconciliation and to fulfill his promise that 'Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.'"

Nov. 9 marks the 25th anniversary of the Berlin Wall falling, yet we still live in a world of walls. We still live divided. We still live in a world scarred by injustice. 

Will we have the faith to stand? Will we stand together believing that we really can be free? Will we believe in the power of the God who made dry bones take flesh, who broke the chains of slavery, who crucified and resurrected His son to save us?  Will we believe that He can reconcile us? That He can make us one in Christ here in Berlin and across the world? 


Read Luther's East Berlin sermon.
 
Europe is in my heritage, and it has been a part of my story ever since I had my first Swedish penpal in elementary school. Over the past few months, many of my worlds have collided, as I reunited and renewed friendships with those who accompanied me on other segments on my journey. Here are a few examples:

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My French friend Julie came to visit me for a few days in August. It was the first time since transitioning to Germany that I saw someone in-person that I had met during my time in Toulouse.

Her visit encouraged me greatly, and it was amazing to exchange stories of how God has been working in our lives.  It was also fun to be French in Berlin.  La vie est belle ! 

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I saw my German friend Corinna while she was doing a continuing education program in Berlin. We actually met at language school in France, and now we can converse in three languages (English, German and French). 

I learned more about the humanitarian work that she does and also got to edit the text for the Legends of Nature website  she was working on. Now I need to travel to the other side of Germany to visit her!

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I first met Johanna more than a decade ago when she was a German exchange student at Minot High School. Through the wonders of technology, we have still had contact with each other over the years. I took my first cross-country German bus trip to go visit her and meet her husband and two-year-old daughter. 

We reversed roles from our high school days. Now she was the one correcting my grammar and pronunciation and letting me be a part of her family. 

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I met my German friend Melanie on my spiritual retreat last fall in France. I learned this fall that she had never been to her country's capital and, being that I was living here, it seemed like the perfect time to come to Berlin. 

We had a wonderful time reconnecting and also having many culinary adventures across the city. Somehow we always seem to be going through similar situations, making it easy to relate to and pray for each other.

 
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This recliner looks so comfortable. Lounging in it on a sunny day – could it get much better? 

I’m accustomed to seeing curbside furniture in my neighborhood in 
Friedrichshain, but this piece seemed to be intentionally sitting under the shade of this tree. 

Days passed, and the easy chair remained under the tree’s branches in the park near my residence. Then one day it was gone. 

It could be that a family took it to put in their living room. But if nobody had claimed it, it still wouldn't last. 

This comfy chair wasn't made to be outside. After a few rains, it would mold and rot. Or perhaps, mice would make their homes inside, or birds take the soft filling for their nests. 

There are quite a few people searching after comfort, pleasure and convenience, but at what cost? Does this quest at some point become destructive? 

I don't believe that comfort, pleasure or convenience, in and of themselves, are bad. If given a choice, I favor a pleasurable experience over an unpleasant one. 

But if I only searched after short-term comfort, what long-term losses might I have? 

I remember talking to a friend of mine, who is an atheist. We were talking about my faith, and I was telling her that it wasn’t easy to be a Christian. 

“But if it doesn’t make your life easier, why believe?” she asked me. 

It was a good question and one that caused me to pause and reflect. Even Jesus himself said that our lives as Christians would be laden with difficulties. 

"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world,” He says in John 16:33, as He addresses his disciples. 

Then I realized it is eternal hope that makes faith worth it. That in the end, Jesus overcomes and gives us an everlasting inheritance with Him. 

I believe in something lasting, something that won’t rot or fade away. 

“It is harder, but it is better,” I told her. 

Whoever owned this chair may have thought that taking the recliner outside would be a lot easier and less costly than going to the store and buying a lawn chair. Hauling it outside was less work than taking the time to build a park bench. There was less risk and less labor, and the recliner was much softer than a park 
bench would be. 

At the end of the day or maybe even a century, though, the park bench might still be there, offering a refuge for the weary or those who just want to spend a few moments sitting out of the sun's rays. It may not be as comfortable, but it was designed to last. 

What about you? Have you placed a “recliner” outside? Have you taken the easy way out at times and missed the greater good? Where might you invest in something eternal rather than temporal? 

 
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Do you recognize this machine? It’s an iron lung or basically a breathing machine. Using electricity, it causes the lungs to expand and contract manually. During the polio outbreaks of the ‘40s and ‘50s, rows of the medical devices lined hospitals, keeping patients breathing.

When my brother came to Berlin, we visited the Design Panoptikum Museum. During the tour, our guide asked us how long we thought someone could survive in one of these contraptions. Guesses ranged from a week to six months.

To our shock, one woman lived in her device for 60 years, only dying because the power went out.

What kind of life could you live if you were confined to an iron lung? It would seem pretty abysmal, dependent upon others for even the most basic needs, literally needing to be plugged into a power source at all times. 

Contrary to what society might expect, people living in the lung have made incredible contributions both large and small – writing a book, hosting dinner parties, teaching university classes and even running a suicide hotline.

When we think of platforms, our minds often jump to the names of the powerful – the President, Miss America, the Donald Trumps and Angelina Jolies of the world. Those we see as superior to ourselves in prestige, power, beauty or success.

On the flip side, we are quick to give pity rather than a platform to those we judge as weaker than ourselves.

However, when we give the powerless a voice, it is the often their weaknesses themselves that make us stop and listen.

Imagine the shock of a suicidal teen, who realizes that he is talking to a woman who cannot even breathe on her own – and still sees life as worth living.  Or the university student, who is in danger of dropping out, when she hears a lecture from a paralyzed, confined professor, who rose through the ranks of academia.

The thread of God choosing the weak and humble is consistent throughout the stories of the Bible. Nevertheless, the myth that becoming a believer in Christ means a life of health, wealth and prosperity still exists. 

While it’s true that God does provide for our needs, He’s not an “easy button.” He knows that the “good life” can give us the illusion that we can do it all ourselves and cause us to distance ourselves from Him.

Instead He declares to us that his “power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9) with His son Jesus Christ as the prime example. 

Jesus, even though He had the status and power of God, “made himself nothing” (Phil. 2:7). He descended from the heavenly throne to earth and died an undeserved, cruel death, so that God’s power would resurrect Him, defeating death and bringing salvation.

While I have no desire to reside in an iron lung (or die on a cross, for that matter), I am challenged to leverage my limitations instead of wallowing in them. Even though it is perfectly acceptable to ask God to take away my shortcomings, I also need to consider how God’s grace and power might be displayed through that in myself which I most despise.

Are you willing to let your weaknesses show? Is there a something you are hiding that you should be standing on instead?


 
Themed birthday parties are popular here in Germany. In honor of making my Berlin orchestral debut, I chose Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake as this year's theme.

It was a fun challenge to make all of my hors d'oeuvres and activities fit Swan Lake. Making the weather cooperate was also difficult, so my birthday had two "acts" – Taco Tuesday and the actual party. 

Since a great number of you live on the other side of the ocean and couldn't make it to the party, here's a short video slideshow to take you to Swan Lake.
 
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Be a barley field.

This was my personal motto as I prepared to leave for Europe a couple summers ago. My 20-somethings women’s group had been studying the book of Ruth, and I was struck by the intuitive biblical welfare system – gleaning.

As Ruth followed the other workers in the field, she picked up the barley stalks they left behind. It couldn’t have been easy work, but it gave this far-from-home widow something.

Something to carry home. Something that she could use to make a meal for her and her mourning mother-in-law Naomi. Something that would give her hope and a future when Boaz took note of her and later redeemed her.

Leaving grain to glean wasn’t extravagant. It didn’t even involve much effort. But it made a difference.

I haven’t seen any barley fields here in Berlin, but I have seen plenty of bottles. Bottles like these ones, lined up in front of trashcans and recycling bins.

And I have seen plenty of people, who are down and out, roaming the streets, picking up the abandoned bottles and putting them in plastic bags.

On most beverages, there is a Pfand or deposit. When you buy a drink at the supermarket, you pay this deposit up front. When you turn the bottle back in, you receive the deposit back. It is a small but practical incentive to recycle.

Leaving bottles to be collected isn’t extravagant. It doesn’t involve much effort. But, I do believe, in the lives of some of the “least-of-these” in Berlin, it is making a difference. 

 
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Germans, especially Berliners, have a bad reputation for reprimanding. I have talked to several people, foreigners especially, who live in fear of scolding. Either they have already been chewed out, or they know someone who has. 

I won't deny that Berliners can have a tough exterior. There have been a few times when I asked a question, got a really negative response and then was helped anyways. But there have been several times where strangers helped me without me even asking them. 

On one of my first grocery store trips, I dropped a five- or ten-cent piece into the grate. I wanted to say, "Don't worry about it," but the only words in my head were in French, Spanish and English. I had no German words. Instead, I watched as the cashier took off the grate in order to give me the lost minuscule coin. 

Another time, I was walking to class and talking to a classmate. All of a sudden, I heard someone yelling behind me. My knee-jerk reaction was that it was a crazy person. Actually, it was an older man following me with the black glove that had fallen out of my pocket. He had probably been trying to get my attention for close to a minute. That's a committed random act of kindness!

Then there was the forthright waiter who had the courage to tell me that saying "Ja" multiple times could be taken to be quite the opposite of what I meant. 

I could go on for a while about the extra effort that people have given to help me. Without their kindness, I would be down a map, a glove and a few cents. I would still be pronouncing zwiebel (onion) wrong and accidentally cursing people or advertising that I am a prostitute when I am trying to agree or tell people that I am free. 

I'm not here to deny the negative experiences that others have had. There is almost always a grain of truth in a stereotype, but I have learned not to jump to judgments until I have a more complete picture. 

I want to get to know this city and its people personally. To affirm that they are more than what people might say about them – negative or positive. I want to love this city the way that I want to be loved – as a fully known individual, with strengths and weaknesses, victories and failures – but valued just the same. 

 
PictureEvette and I with our dyed eggs. I love that the German dying kit even included plastic gloves!
Frohe Ostern! Did you know that the English word "Easter" and the German word Ostern both come from the same Old English word? 

I also found similarities between some of the Easter traditions I grew up with and the ones that Germans uphold. I even found Germans who do egg wars!

This Easter marked four Easters in four languages. In each country, I have tried to find or make Easter eggs. 

In Colombia, the closest thing we found to Easter eggs were Kinder eggs. In France, no egg dye and brown eggs meant for a challenging Easter (you can read last year's Easter post if you want a good laugh).
This year in Germany, I found egg dye and white eggs.  

I also had a host of Lenten and Easter experiences. I remembered Maundy Thursday with my roommate's small group, saw a Jewish Seder meal presentation and sang a Taizé Good Friday service at the Berliner Dom. 

On Easter Sunday, went to a traditional Easter service in German, took in a German Easter brunch in my neighborhood and attended a dinner celebration with some of my teammates.  Keep reading to picture some of my experiences.

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This reminded me a little more of a chemistry experiment than traditional egg-dying. But it worked on both white and brown eggs. Check out these marbled beauties!
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This Jewish man from Jews for Jesus presented the components of a traditional Seder meal.
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Good Friday in the Berliner Dom. This is a Protestant cathedral.
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This is the traditional Lutheran church in my neighborhood in the morning. There weren't many people out, and the sanctuary was far from filled. But it was still wonderful to hear the redemptive Easter message again.
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It was beautiful to sing Taizé in German and Latin in this space. Haunting.
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An elderly man sat by me. We shared a hymnal and sang together. I was touched when he wished me a Happy Easter and said that he was content to have spent the morning with me. It was a beautiful moment of Christian unity.
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Egg wars with my colleagues! Judy, one of our Easter hosts, also did this with her family. At Easter brunch earlier, some Germans were battling it off as well. I'm glad to know that my family is not the only one to have this crazy Easter tradition!
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Look! It's hard-boiled! I'm glad the insides came out solid in this year's egg-dying adventures. I would say that this year's experiments were about 110 percent more successful.
 
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The word symphony has its origins in the words "agreement" and "concord."

It also holds the idea of combining elements and colors in harmony.

When composers write symphonies, they take into account the characteristics of each instrument's voice and how each voice sounds in harmony with others.

After just three months here, I played in my first orchestra concert in the Berlin Philharmonic. This is something that I would never have been able to do on my own. Even if I were the most virtuosic clarinetist in the world, there is little chance that I would have played an entire concert without the aid of anyone else. 

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Did I have an individual part to play? Most certainly. 

But my lines don't amount to much without being in concert with all the other lines written in the score. 

My part was not written in isolation. It was written to be a part of something greater. It was created for both unity and harmony. 

A skilled composer knows how to write stunning, intricate harmonies. A skilled conductor takes what a great composer has written and brings it to life, realizing the intended interplay, silently marking beats with his baton and expressions with his hand, cuing and holding the players together.  

It is hard to listen to a symphony and not be convinced that we are interdependent. What one musician does or doesn't play affects the other musicians. A few missed notes can bring down an entire performance. A beautiful solo is not nearly as captivating without the support and warmth of the sustained lines underneath. 

We must take responsibility for our individual part. We must also maintain a constant awareness of the music around us. We must listen to the interplay. We must be willing to adjust and yield, assuring the melody can still be heard, staying in tune, especially in moments of unison. We must watch the conductor and feel the rhythm internally. 

It is beautifully complicated. But it is worth it. 

When we create something together that we could never create alone, something in us changes. We realize we each have a voice, and we need and even want to hear our voices interact, to be woven together. We listen to each other and create harmony. 

And once we have experienced this beauty, there is no going back. We are forever connected, forever a part of something larger.