Teaching in many languages!

For the past 3 weeks I have been teaching 4-5 days a week again and I am loving it even though it throws many challenges my way. I wanted to find a job when I got here but when the opportunity came up for me to help out a family here I felt like it was right and it was the kind of job I was looking for, even though this one is not paid monetarily (Althugh, sometimes I get chocolate!). So here's the story. There is a women here from Brazil named Hilaide along with her two kids, Bruna (15) and Mattheus (12). Her husband is back in Brazil working and looking after their house. Her kids don't know any German or I should say didn't know any German as they are now able to speak a little and understand some too. The school here in Fritzlar would not accept them because of this and so if they are not going to school, they would have to go back to Brazil. A way around that was for them to get help with their German and for them to continue learning other subjects in their grade level.

This is where I come in. I have been teaching them mostly math (because I love math) as well as a little English and more importantly German. Once they have a better handle on the German language, they can attend school here. I guess I should mention that all of their work books are in Portuguese and that they do not understand English well at all. So, I find myself speaking German, Spanish, English, Portuguese and even a little French during each of my lessons. We laugh, grab our head in frustration and use Portuguese-German then German-English dictionaries often. The kids are awesome and we are having a lot of fun learning together but they need to get into the school system soon or they still might have to go back to Brazil. That would be very hard on Hilaide and I am hoping I can help enough that that will not have to happen.

Apologies

I know it has been a while since I posted anything but that is because our internet here has been even worse these past 2 weeks. We keep expecting it to get better with all the techie guys coming to “fix” the problem but it doesn’t seem to be working. So my apologies if you have been checking. I have started writing my posts in a word document so that when I get internet I can post them fast. The next few posts are from the past two weeks that I was unable to upload. Enjoy!

Pictures

Like most of you know, the internet here has been very sporadic and I have been unable to post a lot of pictures. We finally got a good enough signal today that I was able to upload some pictures on Facebook. So go take a look. Sorry for those without it, I have not figured out how to put lots of pictures on the blog without it taking hours for me to upload and then for you to view. It's a work in progress.

Laundry...a 2-3 day process

So doing laundry in Fritzlar isn't as nice as in Edmonton, especially with as little clothes as we brought with us. First of all, our washing machine is about half the size of the one we have at home and to wash one small load takes at least 2 hours! When the clothes are done cleaning, we have to hang them all up to dry because in Germany hardly anyone has dryers so you can forget about having one at a poor Bible school. It is not so much the dryer itself that is so expensive, it is the energy it requires to run the dryer that costs a lot. I like to hang my clothes up in Edmonton too but only during the summer when it takes only a few hours to dry. Here in Germany where it is moist and now getting colder, it takes up to 3 days for our jeans to dry. Anyway, here is a picture of Dan doing some laundry. I thought it was cute.

A little Canadian Halloween in Bergen, Germany

Dan and I had the opportunity to show these Germans a little bit of what it is like on Halloween in Canada.
Dan and I thought our youth leading days we over when we came to Germany but we were reminded that God's ways are not our ways and that He ultimately has a plan for us as we were asked to run a youth group in Bergen. The church in Bergen lost their pastor and was in need of some leadership for their teen (11-14 year olds) and youth(15-21 year olds)groups. Bergen is 2 and a half hours away and we will be driving there every second Friday and stay the weekend. We will lead the youth group on Friday, the teen group on Saturday and then go to church with them on Sunday. It makes for a busy weekend but we know how rewarding this ministry can be, even if not here on earth. We just can't get enough of these youth!! I guess they keep us feeling young. I will write more about the group later. Now onto the Halloween part.

So for our first Friday we did a theme of Luther vs. Halloween as the Germans celebrate Reformation on Halloween Day. Dan and I represented Halloween, dressing up as ugly dead people and Sarina and Judith (two other students from the Bible school that are leading with us) dressed up as Martin Luther's wife. We had told the kids to dress up as well but when we got there not one of them was dressed up! Like I said in the last post, Halloween is pretty much non-existent in Germany. That also made finding costumes very hard. I had to do the best I could with what we had for clothes (anything black) and I bought a pair of striped stockings. We tried to find face paint but again we were out of luck. So we used pastels and what makeup I had to look as dreadful as we did. I think we did okay and the youth thought we were crazy. What else is new?

Halloween in Germany

When I woke up Halloween morning, I went through the day totally forgetting it was actually Halloween. There was not one jack-o-lantern out on the porch fronts, not a single person was dressed up and there was not one mini chocolate bar, roll of rockets or taffy kiss to be enjoyed. In Germany, it was Reformation Day. Reformation Day is an important liturgical festival that is celebrated by Lutherans and Christians of many Protestant denominations. It commemorates Dr. Martin Luther's posting of his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517. This act triggered the movement in world history known as the Reformation. Between October 15th and November 11th (St. Martin's Day in Germany), children usually parade at night carrying lanterns. Sometimes the parade ends with a bonfire. Kids often go door to door caroling and receiving treats or money. Even though it is usually children who do this, some of the students at the school thought it would be fun to show us the tradition, so we went out one night, lanterns in hand singing some of the traditional songs for St. Martin's Day. I took a little video of us so you can hear. I typed up the lyrics below.

Here are two songs children sing in Germany for St. Martin’s Day, each in German and with an English translation…

Laterne, Laterne
(German)

Laterne, Laterne
Sonne, Mond und Sterne
Brenne auf, mein Licht,
Brenne auf, mein Licht
Aber nur meine liebe Laterne nicht.

Here’s the English translation for Laterne, Laterne…

Lantern, Lantern

Lantern, Lantern,
Sun, moon and stars,
Burn, my light,
Burn, my light,
But not only the light of my dear lantern.

Argentinian, Ukrainian and Canadian

So we now have 3 couples all living in a shared living space. With Sergio (25), Melodie (20), Dima (20) and Julia (17) both being newlyweds, it has definitely been something to get used to. Our first 2 weeks were spent only with the Argentineans and we learned that the culture and climate we are used to are much different than here in Germany and also very different from each other. (Michelle, our first morning here, Melodie was already sipping her Matee Tee through a just like you said. I have tried it and really like it.) Even with the differences, being closer in age to them has enabled us to get among quite well. We both enjoy our alone time and a clean house.

This has not been the case with our new Ukrainian roommates. We are finding it a little more difficult to relate and to communicate with them since they know very little English and next to nothing in German. The age gap is only 5-7 years but wow what a difference! I think they both have come fresh from living with their parents or the culture in the Ukraine is just very different. It seems that the common sense and social graces that I am used to are not really present in this couple. So we are struggling with issues such as respecting personal property, proper food etiquette and personal hygiene. It’s time like this you wish you didn’t have such a good sense of smell! All in all, I am sure we will work through it.