Berry,Tickle, Winner, Willard, McKnight

What do all these names have in common?

Ding-Ding-Ding! Yooooou guessed it! They're all authors. And, they've all made themselves across my path recently. We'll get to them later. In the meantime, I'd like to entertain you with a poem I just wrote:

Please pray. I'm running a 10k.

[That was it. The whole poem.] Yup. I am. The one-and-only Amanda Munroe has begun training for the first-ever official run-that-you-get-a-t-shirt-for in her whole life, the Esslingen Citylauf. July 4. I think I'll paint my body the colors of the American flag, too, just to show off. (Just kidding). That's one month between me and 10 kilometers and baby, I'm going to do it.

You may be asking why 10k seems so astonishing. Let me give you an example: I once told my parents that a friend had asked me to join the rowing team at school. My dad chortled. "You want to become an athlete? Good luck. You're a Munroe. You're uncle can't even walk and chew gum at the same time."

...Ahem. Yes, I am a Munroe and yes, I am going to run a 10k race. (Then again, no one is asking me to chew gum while I'm doing it).

This is the first time I have ever really "trained" for something physically. (I used to train for Forensics, but memorizing lines is different from getting your body to endure pounding the ground for over an hour). I think I'm on a "sacred rhythms" kick, and running is part of it.

I like the new challenge of pushing my body farther. Usually when I run, I give myself a time limit: 30 minutes and then I'm back home, just four more blocks and then I'm done. In these cases I end up looking at my watch a lot, and I feel I can hardly make it the last block or five minutes. Now that I'm training for something in the future, I don't look at my watch as often (because I know I have longer to go) and I find the route feeling shorter and easier every time. It's more fun. The first time I ran for an hour instead of 30 minutes (not all that long ago) I was amazed at how far I could go -- and I wasn't hurt or exhausted. I had been underestimating myself!

I've just begun reading Scot McKnight's new book, Fasting (part of Thomas Nelson's new "The Ancient Practices Series", edited by our good friend Phyllis Tickle). I haven't finished it yet, but so far I am really enjoying it. McKnight's big point is that our perspective on fasting has been skewed from its original biblical expression. Fasting is not a tool to make our needs met more expediently by God. Rather, in McKnight's words, it is a whole-body expression; "the natural, inevitable response of a person to a grievous sacred moment in life".

McKnight stresses throughout the book that fasting is a whole-person bodily expression of our spirituality that combats the (Western) concept that our bodies and souls are separate entities at war with each other. They're not, and in fasting, body and soul go hand-in-hand. Currently, I'm on the chapter that expresses fasting as "body discipline". McKnight says, "this kind of discipline...brings to expression an overall yearning to be more holy, to be more loving, and to be more responsive to God, self, others, and the entire world." Running for me (if this isn't sacrilegious) is likewise a discipline. This is what I'm getting at when I say that I'm running because I'm on a "sacred rhythms kick" -- this idea of having a more holy, loving, responsive life is really attractive to me, but I'm aware that this idea requires giving up the immediate-gratification, live-for-pleasure physical lifestyle that I live. My desire is to live more moderately, more rhythmically; less abruptly.

I am enjoying training for this race because, for the first time since I've begun running, my eyes are on a goal farther away. I don't run just to feel better (or because I want to look better). I run because I'm working toward something. I have to run tomorrow, whether I feel like it or not, because my body needs to be ready when the day comes to run the whole race. I have to rest on Sunday or else I'll pull something. Though I've just begun, my hope is that as my body and my brain learn how to train physically and mentally, I'll also learn about "training" spiritually.

When I run, my whole physical self is engaged, from the arch of my foot to the bob of my pony tail. But my spiritual self is engaged, too. Given the full hour to myself, I get to think, a lot.

I think about where God is, where I've been, where I'm going, who I've been with, and what I've read. That's how we ended up with this title. I listed all of the authors here because the books I've read by them lately all them seem to stress the idea of living with the whole body (both the human body and the body of Christ). Berry, Tickle, Winner, Willard and McKnight are saying that we can't ignore one part of the body as we seek to please another. They're saying we should live more intentionally.


---


So I run and I think about books (currently reading Fasting) and I think about people, which means I inevitably think about food. Over the last few weeks, I've been given the gift of having a lot of free meals -- a blessing for someone who lives on a small budget. But as I read, and as I run, I get to thinking about what I've dubbed "Vacation Eating Syndrome" [VES for short]: the eating culture I've experienced at camp, on retreats, or simply visiting friends and family.

I seriously think that half or more of my time at these events is spent thinking about food: where it is going to come from, how we are going to prepare it for so many people (or if I'm with my family on Mackinac Island: The Yankee Rebel or the VI?), what it will be, how good it will it taste, finally eating it, cleaning up, and doing it all again three hours later. Why is it that, especially when we are with big groups, we feel the need to eat so much? More often than not on these retreats, I ate when I wasn't hungry, and ate so much that I was uncomfortable. Quite literally stuffed my face full, and watched others around me do so, too, with little or no thought as to where and how it was produced (was the worker who picked these coffee beans fairly paid? How much gasoline did it take to transport this rump roast, or this pineapple, to my plate?) And at the end we all say together, "Ahh! I'm so full!"

Talking to one of my roommates about my new diagnosis ("VES"), he said his dad sometimes says: "Some people in the world are in pain because they don't have enough to eat. Some people are in because they've had too much."

What are we afraid of? Certainly not going hungry.

I wonder if, when we go shopping for group meals, instead of saying to ourselves, "better to get more than to not have enough", if we could say, "let's try for less and see if we make it." Could we surprise ourselves the same way I did when I ran for an hour instead of a half? Maybe, if there wasn't so much on the table, we wouldn't want to keep eating, the same way that I find the distance shorter and easier the longer I think I have to run for. Maybe, if there wasn't so much there, we'd spend less time racing to fill our own plates, and more time figuring how we can all have enough to eat.


This post is no soapbox for reprimanding fat Americans (or fat Germans, for that matter). I'll be the first to say that food is clearly a blessing that should be communally enjoyed (why else would I live in Europe??). The same roommate likes to say: "Can you believe God blessed us with the pleasure of eating not once but three times a day? Think about how many chances we have to enjoy that in one lifetime!" I have to agree. I just want to say that I'm frustrated with myself, despite the books I've read and the classes I've taken, that I can't seem to stop stuffing my face nearly every meal, just because I want to have the pleasure of tasting for a few minutes longer, without thinking about where it came from, and even though I know the pleasure will come back in a few hours.

This theory isn't limited to the pleasure of eating (though I haven't read it yet, I think the book Amusing Ourselves to Death probably makes this point well). This is why I find Berry, Tickle, Winner, Willard, and McKnight's thoughts so attractive. Books like Real Sex, The Spirit of the Disciplines and Fasting promote re-igniting ancient spiritual disciplines (engaging our whole [physical + spiritual] person) as a method of awakening ourselves to the insatiable greed we've created and perpetuate. And they seem to be able to do this in a 'hip' way - that is to say, none of them has had to move to the deserts of Egypt (or the open plains of Shipshewana, IN) to get "away" from the culture that perpetuates this greed. Rather they are proponents, (and indeed agents) of Christ's redemptive kingdom within culture.


B,T,W,W, and M are not the only ones, of course. There are many others! [Check out rednow.com for blog doing just that]. I listed their names together becuase that's who I've been reading lately, and I found it amusing that they inter-reference each other so much. (In 11th grade I read a book by Dallas Willard. Last December I read a book by Lauren Winner in which she referenced Phyllis Tickle. In January I read a book by Wendell Berry. In February I read another book by Lauren Winner (in which she referenced Wendell Berry) with recommendation by Phyllis Tickle on the dust jacket. Now I'm reading a book by Scot McKnight that's edited by Phyllis Tickle in which he references Dallas Willard. Whose praise is printed on the first page? Lauren Winner's, of course).

We'll see how fasting goes after I finish the book (hopefully after I finish the race, too - not sure if fasting and training go together so well...)

Pray that I'll be able to run the race. But more importantly, pray that learning to run will help me to live more intentionally.

Phyllis Tickle

I received word today that PHYLLIS TICKLE spoke at North Park's spring commencement ceremony. PT! My life model! My favorite speaker and author, the person I want to be most like when I grow up, heck, the person I want to BE when I grow up, the woman whose spiritual autobiography I specially ordered off Amazon because it is out of print and you can't buy it at Schuler's, and, even though it is hard cover and weighs about 600lbs (that could be a slight exaggeration), brought it across the ocean to keep me company, along with another hard cover, The Divine Hours (Pocket Edition), which I take with me just about everywhere.

PT, who I first met as a freshman at North Park at a quirky dinner with a few BTS professors.


My roommate Sarah was the first who told me, via Facebook. When I asked myself why she might have remembered I like Phyllis Tickle (though I love her, she isn't exactly as well known as say, the person who is speaking at Notre Dame's commencement this year, namely Barack Obama (talk about missed opportunities...)), I recalled that her picture was on my laptop background last semester as I was writing my senior thesis...for life inspiration, of course.

People kept asking me, "Why do you have your grandma on your laptop background?"

and I'd say, "That's not my grandma! That's Phyllis Tickle! Isn't she beautiful?"


Let me tell you about the two occasions in which I've had contact with PT: I was a freshman at North Park, in Scot McKnight's (you can accuse me of name dropping in this paragraph, I don't care) Intro to the Bible class. Scot had invited Dr. Tickle to speak in the yearly Zarley lectures he hosts. She spoke on praying the Divine Hours and absolutely lit up the room. She talked about prayer, which I find eternally perplexing and interesting subject, and to this day, every time I ask people if they remember her speaking at North Park, people say, "She's the one that talked about going to the bathroom to pray if you're at work, right?" (Which is true, because you technically need to pray them between certain hours if you're going to be praying with the rest of the church). ... But she talked about a lot more, too! Like why Christians should have an understanding of physics and biochemistry, and what "worship" means and does to a person...

In any case, I was enthralled with the woman. To begin with, her name is Phyllis Tickle. I mean, how could you come up with a better name? Phyllis is so great: strong, reminiscent of classic Americana, traditional and yet not banal. Like a good wine. Tickle is of course perfect because that's what she does to you - tickles you with her personality and grace and quick wit until you can't help but smile when you listen to her talk, and feel like she loves you even though you don't know her. And she tickles your intellect by provoking new ideas and by daring new insights. And she lives on a farm called Lucy. Lucy! I love the name Lucy!

I was, they'd say in German, begeistert (I feel this is an onomonopea and deserves no translation). I felt like how my dad gets when he talks about Christy Matthewson (his favorite baseball player -- pitcher from the early 20th century). After the lecture, I didn't care about homework, friends, life -- I just wanted to get to know this woman. I had a crazy idea in my head: I knew she had another lecture tomorrow. That meant she was staying in Chicago. I would go up to Scot and ask him if I could have coffee with her. It sounded ridiculous, but then, she felt so approachable, even up there behind the microphone.

I found Scot after the lecture, and before I opened my mouth, he said to me,

"One of our group dropped out. Do you want to come to dinner with us?"

I was flabbergasted. Shocked. Astounded. I couldn't breathe. I didn't know who "our group" was, other than that it included Phyllis Tickle, and that was enough for me. From the center of my being, bursting up with exuberance, came my jubilant, emphatic, astonished, "YES!"

Thirty minutes later, 18-year-old yours truly found herself at an Italian restaurant in Evanston with two Biblical and Theological Studies upperclassmen, two BTS professors, a seminary prof, Scot McKnight, and Phyllist Tickle. Talk about feeling like you know nothing!

I loved every moment of it. I could have spent the rest of my semester at that big round table eating spaghetti and tiramisu and talking about Paul, Jesus, and religious revolutions (the last subject, incidentally, would become the subject of one of Tickle's most recent books, The Great Emergence, which I had the dumb luck to hear her speak about in Grand Rapids last October). I will admit that I wondered, when she went to the bathroom at half-past-seven, if she was praying...


THIS WOMAN spoke at North Park's graduation on Saturday, and was given an honorary doctorate degree by NPU. I am not going to attempt falsehood: I am envious.

I feel that Phyllis Tickle speaking would have made a graduation slightly more memorable than watching someone nearly pass out behind the podium (which did actually occur at my graduation in December).


So I'll be honest with you: This week finds me missing Chicago a bit. I know that the dogwoods are blooming on campus, people have been playing Frisbee on the greenspace, and my roommates are baking for an end-of-the-year celebration at 5128. I know that the classmates I studied with, ate with, worshiped and laughed with are receiving their degrees this weekend, welcoming their parents and friends onto campus, and taking off to conquer the world. It's hard not to be there to celebrate with them.


CONGRATULATIONS, Class of 2009.

And P.S.: P.T., you're not speaking in Germany any time soon, are you?

Faux Pas

Happy Mother's Day from Esslingen. A lot of people have been walking around with fresh flowers this weekend, presumably for their mothers, which I'm happy about.

I celebrated Mother's Day by being a mother to my roommates ( I am, after all, the oldest by 6 months). I woke up early and made them American Banana Buttermilk Pancakes. From scratch! They were good, if I do say so myself. I tried to call home about 16 times, but my cell phone connection is horrible and kept cutting out. Sorry Mom, sorry Grandma(s)!

A short update on the shoe situation: I told you already that I made a big mistake by wearing sandals on a rainy day in March. A few weeks later, I wore a shirtdress with skinny jeans and (French, mind you) boots ( I really don't like wearing these particular jeans without boots; I feel like they are a little too skinny alone). This was no more than a fortnight after the sandal incident. I am not kidding when I tell you that at least three people said to me that day, "Amanda, it's spring time. Why are you wearing boots?"

Why me?

Why must I always have to explain my footwear?! I saw five other women wearing boots that day! What does Germany have against my fashion sense?!?

This is perhaps a good moment to share with you some of the other faux pas I have made here, either out of language/cultural incomprehension or my own sheer stupidity. In tribute to my old roommate Jen, who liked to phrase her mistakes this way, here is a list of things I "may or may not" have done since my arrival in Germany:

• I may or may not have said "I stink" when I meant to say "I think"

• Having been told that my roommate would show me how to get to a meeting that I didn't know where to find, I may or may not have followed at such a close distance that I walked with him right into the bathroom.

• I may or may not be so bad at figuring out how German doors lock and unlock that I've nearly (or quite fully, in one case), been walked in on in the bathroom. 3 times.

• I may or may not have told the bus driver the wrong stop every time I went to work for the last 2 months because I always forget the name (and how to pronounce it) of the stop I need to go to.

• I may or may not, needing to exchange the pants I had just bought (and was wearing, and thus the only ones on hand, because everything else was packed for a retreat I was about to leave on in an hour) have CHANGED IN THE CAR into the only thing I had readily available, namely, black spandex running pants, brown linen shorts, blue socks and green felt clogs, WALKED INTO H&M, made the exchange, and walked all the way home wearing said outfit. This wouldn't have been so bad, except that...

• My friend Ana, who works in the cafe in the park I walk through, but who is never there, even though I look for her every time, may or may not have, for once in my life, been there, suddenly opened the door of the cafe, laughed, and said, "Amanda! What are you wearing?" (Ana also witnessed the sandal and boot incidents. I am lucky she is still my friend).

• I may or may not, having purchased a SIM card for my cell phone, have forgotten the pass code to turn the phone on. Embarrassed, I gathered all my cell phone info (you know, the 4-trees-worth of paper they give you every time you buy a phone that's supposed to help you live "paperlessly") and hiked back to to the cell phone store.
  

"The pin code?" said the (my luck) same man that had sold me the phone two days ago. "It's on the card I gave you."

"Oh, you mean this one" I say, pulling out the card I had BROUGHT WITH ME, with the words "PIN CODE" spelled out above a 4-digit number.


Can't blame that one on language incomprehension.



...These are only a few of the faux pas I (may or may not) make daily. So is life when you are a foreigner, I think. Swallow your pride, thank God you're alive and exploring, and get on with it, I say.

On the bright side, last week, Kai (one of the men I work with), came up to me and said he'd read my blog, and, in response to my letter would like to apologize on behalf of Germany for its criticism of my footwear.

I looked down.


He was wearing Swedish clogs!

Easter

O land alive with miracles!
O clad in streams
Lift your blue trees into the early sun!

...

Sunrise is an event that calls forth solemn music in the very depths of man's nature, as if one's whole being had to attune itself to the cosmos and praise God for the new day, praise Him in the name of all the creatures that ever were or ever will be.

I look at the rising sun and feel that now upon me falls the responsibility of seeing what all my ancestors have seen, in the Stone Age and even before it, praising God before me. Whether or not they praised Him then, for themselves, they must praise Him now in me. When the sun rises each one of us is summoned by the living and the dead to praise God.

-Thomas Merton

I'm not sure how your Easter was, but I found myself resonating a lot with this passage during my Easter time. I feel as though the church calendar came from Europe for a reason -- our weather has corresponded perfectly to the movement from Lent to Easter: from rainy, gray, and cold to bright, sunny, and warm. Tulips and daffodils are popping up everywhere, lilacs are beginning to bloom and smell, trees are exploding with green and life and Esslingen is alive with activity. Fountains are running again in the parks and squares, outdoor cafes are full and kids are playing in the park. Life proclaims resurrection; trees shout God's glory, and I get to watch.

On Tuesday, I leave with a group of students from EJE for Taize, France. I am VERY excited about this trip. I've been wanting to head to this ecumenical community since I first heard about it, and it will be the first time I have seen France on this trip to Europe. Woo hoo! In May, my schedule really heats up, and from the last weekend in May to the first weekend in July, I will be gone every weekend on some sort of retreat or another, so NOW is probably a good time for me to fill you in on what I've been up to in the last little while...

I'll try weekends, first.

• The following slideshow shows pictures from the 21st of March. Etienne had received a ski package as a gift from friends for his birthday in February, and we went skiing for the entire day in Austria! The weather was absolutley perfect -- not a cloud in the sky the whole day, so warm, but fresh powder all the same. The scenery was amazing. I kept thinking, "it's like I'm in the Sound of Music...like I'm in the Alps, or something.." and then I realized, I WAS!!

As far as the skiing goes...this was two days after Natasha Richardson had her big ski accident, so you can imagine how I was feeling about skiing...Despite my mom's upbringing on the Colorado slopes and Jesse's taking to skiing, the last time I was skiing, I was about 15 years old, it was a Youth Group retreat in Michigan, and I was proud for making it down the blue circle hills.

Skiing in Austria leads one to wonder: Why do people ski? WHO thought it was a good idea to stand on the top of a mountain, smooth down the snow to make it slippery, and then put two sticks on your feet that you have hardly any control over, and go? This is completely illogical to me. Let me just say that the ground and I, well, we got pretty well acquainted.

Etienne was an extraordinarily patient teacher, though, and despite my many (many, many) falls, I did have a good time, and I'd like to ski again...some day.


I also got the chance to meet Etienne's host familiy, the Webers. They're awesome people -- the whole family used to live in Thailand, where they were missionaries! Lydia, Etch's host mom, bakes her own bread, and taught me the word for cake pan : Backform

The next weekend, I noticed THIS in Esslingen:

NO ONE IS SAFE! Not even quaint European towns! If Starbucks made it to Mackinac Island, I guess it can make it anywhere. I wonder what a Skinny Orange Mocha Frappacino tastes like in Germany? I wonder if in Germany, it's called a Skinnyorangemochafrappacino?

• The same weekend, Etienne came to Esslingen to visit. On Friday night, CVJM has a sort of coffee shop/bar where they sell drinks and snacks, play music, and people just hang out. Etienne and I met a crazy CVJM volunteer named Hans-Martin there who told us we could go hiking in "Neuffen". We trusted him, and set out Saturday morning.

The day was rainy, but we hiked anyway, up a BIIIIIG hill (quasi mountain) to an old castle on the top that was first fortified in 1100. That's right, nearly a thousand years ago. Since it was rainy in the morning, there was almost no one on the trails, but by the time we got to the top, the clouds broke and we had an amazing view of the surrounding Scwabische Alb (the name for the quasi-mountains around Schwabia), and the little houses down in the valley. Definitely worth the hike!

Oh, AND I'd like to announce that I, Amanda Munroe, drove back FROM Neuffen TO Esslingen, IN a car WITH a stickshift ON the German Autobahn. Watch out Germany, Amanda is behind the wheel!

• • The weekend before Easter was crazy for me, because somehow Etienne's parents AND my dad managed to come to Germany in the SAME weekend. My weekend went something like this:
  
  Friday: work, work, work. Lunch time (pack, don't eat), work work work, run to train station, take train to Augsburg, EAT GALLETTES AND CREPES with the Dubois and the Webers. (Brought especially from France, of course -- dream come true!
  
  Saturday: Early awake, drove south through Bavaria, where Etienne and his parents, (Pierre and Rachel), and I visited Schloss Neuschwanstein, the castle that inspiried Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty's castle. Surprisingly, it's no medival feat. The castle was actually built by King Ludwig II, a slightly mentally deranged king who threw himself into debt building fanciful castles, fell in love, got engaged, and then broke up with his cousin, was good friends with the famous composer Richard Wagner, and died young. The castle was dedicated to Wagner and depicts a lot of his works. It was built after the American civil war. I couldn't believe that.
  
  Etch's host family told us where to go for the best view (behind the castle, on a bridge above a waterfall), which was REALLY cool! We finished the day by visiting the quaint town of Fussen (last German town before the border with Austria) and having a very French pic-nic beside a church in a valley, complete with Rachel's home-made dessert. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.
  
  The DuBois family highly enjoyed seeing the remains of a little snow in Bavaria, which they are not used to in Bretagne. They kept remarking, "wow! Look at that snow! Did you see that Amanda?" I'm thinking to myself... Did you just ask me if I saw that mound of dirty, melted snow 6 inches tall? Folks, I come from Michigan. You want to see snow, come visit me in January. I'll give you snow. What I really said was, "Oui! Cool, n'est-ce pas?"
  
  After the pique-nique (French pronounciation makes it sound gastronomically more interesting) we RACED back to Augsburg so I could catch my train, made it with three minutes to spare, and I ended the day at Dieter's dinner table, sharing a meal with the Bullard-Werner family, my dad, and Kenn Knipp.
  
  The next day, Palm Sunday, we visited Essligen on foot and the awesome university town of Tubingen, about an hour away, where we were invited to the most phenomenal performance of the Bach's Matthaeus Passion in the Tubingen Stiftkirche, by Tubingen's outstanding Bach Choir, and featuring none other than our friend Helmut!! As Helmut observed at the end of the evening, there's nothing quite like hearing the gospel this way. It was a moving experience for everyone involved, I think.
  
  
  Check out this slideshow for photos of Neuschwanstein, Tubingen, and our friends the Knapp family as well.
  
  There are also a few pics of the Easter retreat with CVJM, where I spent Easter weekend. My boss Valerian and I were in charge of the the middle-school-aged kids for the entire weekend. We built a life-sized paper-mache grave for the 7 stages of the Cross on Saturday and enjoyed being outside. On Friday afternoon, I taught the kids the American game Red Rover, and before long, we had a group of people watching us. Apparently people in Germany don't know the game Red Rover. I had people asking me about it all weekend! (I also had a MAJOR knee bruise the whole weekend because of it).
  
  The Easter retreat was fantastic, because I really got to know a lot of people in the CVJM community better, and learn an insider's perspective about how they work, so to speak. The weather was impeccably good, and besides working intensely on my German, I also learned how to spin plates and a new trick called a Slack Line, so important I might just devote a whole new post to it.
  
  That's all for now. Enjoy these new pictures!
  
  

  
  

  
  Love,
  Amanda
  
• 
  
• 
  

Job Description

Hello, Fearless Readers,

Welcome to April. The sun shone brightly today in Esslingen and I wore a skirt and tee-shirt. There was a line out the door of the ice cream shop. Life is good.

I've now been in Germany a month, and know it is high time I give you an update on what I'm "really doing", as so many of you have asked.


Let me begin by clarifying why I am in Germany this year:

1. I just graduated from college with a B.A. in Global Studies and French. I know I want to go on to Masters/Doctoral study in some sort of international arena, but I'm not sure precisely which one yet. The three possibilities are International Conflict Transformation/Communications, Linguistics, or Intercultural Ministry.

2. Since I don't know what area of study (or in what country, for that matter), I wish to pursue, I figured it was a good time to take a little break from school and get some real world experience. In addition, any of the above graduate programs require students to know at least two non-English languages, and the earlier in life one attempts to learn languages, the better. I figured it was time for a new one.

3. In my freshman year of college, I had an experience with God that I would call a "call to ministry", and since then, have wanted to explore what working in ministry full-time looks like.

4. Through various routes (a middle school visit, high school exchange students, my stay in France, they YL/ejw partnership) I've had the chance to get to know a lot of Germans that I really, really like, and learn a lot about Germany that is appealing to me. Plus, I just plain love languages. In short, I've wanted to learn German and travel in Germany for some time.

5. I've heard so many interesting discussions that have come out of the YL/EJW partnership that have attracted me. Particularly, Americans from YL often remark that the EJW is more socially engaged than YL, as well as more deeply theological. These two applications of ministry are really where I feel myself to be headed, so this felt like a good fit. In addition, the EJW has sent a lot of people to America for internships, etc., but YL has sent few to Germany. I like being a bridge-builder.

6. Relationships. Many of you know that my boyfriend, Etienne (French) is studying in Germany this year. We now live 1.5hours apart, instead of an ocean apart. With my dad's new job as YL director in Western Europe, my parents will also soon be transplanting to Europe. I'm very, very, excited about my parent's move, and want to participate in this new chapter of their life.

I think 6 is good enough for right now.



Here is a bit about what I do here:


I am a "Praktikantin" (which means intern, or that I'm learning a mix of social and pastoral youth work) for two Christian youth organizations:

1. EJE - Translates to Protestant Youth Work in Esslingen -- a smaller branch of the EJW, YL's partner. This is an arm of the church that specializes in youth outreach. They extended my "invitation", if you will.

-EJE pays me a monthly stipend, and I work Tuesdays and Thursdays in a youth center in a socially difficult part of the city called Zollberg. (Pronounced like Sohlberg, North Parkers! I laughed to myself when I found that out!) This center is called t1 (pronounced "tay-eyens"), and I basically do YL contact work there. We have a soccer/basketball court, foosball, pingpong, and pool tables, video games, free internet, sell pop and juice and french fries and pizza and other unhealthy things teenagers like to eat, and we play cool music. On Tuesday afternoons I work "kids club" -- open to kids from 8-12, as well as handicapped kids from a local school, and then Tuesday and Thursday evenings is regular open hours when I hang out with high-school aged kids from around the neighborhood. We have one girl, named Lisa, who I have connected well with, and a LOT of guys, whose names I haven't all got yet, but who are nice, too. (And when they're not nice, they're yelling in German...or Turkish...or Italian...or Arabic...at each other, so I don't understand!). More to come later in a "spotlight" blog on t1.

-I will also be going on a lot of camps/trips with EJE. For example, I'll be heading to Taize, France, on a youth retreat in a few weeks, then to Bremen for something called "Kirchentag" (Church day), and will help to host a visit of Palestinian/Israeli students to Esslingen this summer. I feel so blessed to have so many opportunities to travel and learn! So far, I get along really well with the team at EJE, and am learning a ton.

2.The YMCA in Esslingen (in German, CVJM) - a parachurch organization/community that fosters programs for Christian formation and fun (primariliy for youth, from about age 5-25).

-CVJM offers me housing, and I work Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays in Lutherbau, CVJM's center of command in Esslingen that houses the central offices, weekly meetings of their different groups (kids-teens-adults), various big events and, incidentally, my apartment!

- I find CVJM's method of ministry really cool, because it is almost entirely reliant upon their vast system of volunteers. They have a really dedicated community of of people that make their events happen, that meet together regularly to worship and study the Bible together, but also to have fun and to volunteer. Some of the teenage girls I work with, for instance, lead a girl's group for 8-12 year olds on Wednesday nights -- so people have the chance to minister and to be ministered to within the same community. I think this holistic approach is really neat.

- I'll primarily work with two programs in CVJM, TenSing and Trainee. I also help plan and execute a once-a-month Sunday-night worship service for young people, called One Way, and participate in camps and retreats. Hopefully, none of our retreats will take place here...

-I will try to "spotlight" each of my activities in its own post later, but to give you a brief overview, TenSing is a once-a-week meeting where teens get together to sing (wouldn't you know), and then break up into smaller groups: theater, dance, band, tech, etc. They work together for about a year, and create a show that they then perform. The program started in Norway and is sweeping Europe - will be launched end of April in CVJM Esslingen.

Trainee is an attempt that CVJM is making to have more contact with kids at school, since the trend in Germany is that children spend more time/do more activities at school (like in the US). This is a sort of after school program to help teens think about what direction they want to go in after school (college, work, trade school, etc.), to offer leadership training and homework help and basically get in contact with teens where they are. This will also be launched in late April as a joint effort between EJE and CVJM, and they are hoping I will be able to bring some of my YL knowledge to contribute to their work.



Despite this long entry, this is only a surface-level description of what I do! I hope it wasn't too boring to read, but it needed to be said once and for all! Later entries will "spotlight" each of the activities I do, and hopefully introduce you to some of the fantastic people I work with.


For now, though, I need to head to bed, since it is late in Germany, and I have a German course to attend early tomorrow morning!

Miss you, wherever you are in the world.

Be Blessed,

Amanda

GOAT

This is a video of Etienne on a recent expedition we took to a medieval castle.
I think it speaks for itself:

Letter of Surrender

One of the reasons I (mostly) enjoy living in other countries is because the learning curve is so high -- every day is a fresh learning experience. I'd like to share with you one of the newest things I have learned about Germany:

Germans are (apparently) very particular about shoes.

Would you like to know how I know?

When someone (no one in particular, really) is moving from one country (let's call it The United States of America) to another country (just for fun, we'll name it Germany)that person is forced to make serious decisions about how many pairs of shoes one packs. With airline weight limits ever stricter, and shoes being both heavy and bulky, one can clearly understand that a young person moving from one country to another would not bring ALL her shoes with, but would choose those that are the most practical and multi-functional.

And so it was that yours truly arrived in Germany with a few dress shoes; snow boots; sandals; running shoes, and bran new, green felt Dansko clogs. Please don't be alarmed at the green felt description. They're actually quite cool -- a gift from my parents upon my graduation from The Sweden Shop across the street from North Park -- a sort of classy remembrance of my roots.

The reader should know that in Europe, people generally do not wear athletic shoes when they are not playing a sport. Thus, my Danskos function as the European equivalent of the French "chaussures de ville" -- the shoes you wear when you go out, go to work, go into town.

Unfortunatley, clogs, in Germany (ESPECIALLY felt ones), like their cousin Birkenstocks (in my defense, I knew this about Berks before I came), are universally considered house shoes. Slippers. NOT for outdoor use.

I've been wearing the equivalent of slippers for three weeks. Green-felt, attention-grabbing house shoes. The Germans are laughing behind my back as I protest explanations of how good they are - ahem- for one's back in the first place. (See HERE).

And so we come to today. Today, March 24th, I needed to help my boss, Dieter, move. (EJE is changing offices buildings this week). Naturally, I wasn't going to wear my Danskos -- clogs are not so good for moving -- one can't be slipping out of a clog while carrying a box of 165 church hymnals down a flight of stairs.

Unfortunately, I could not wear my running shoes, either, since I did ALL my laundry yesterday, we have no dryer, and all my jeans were wet. So, I was forced to wear black dress pants. (Ladies, support me here: you're not walking out of hte house in black dress pants and bright white and blue, refective-light strip Asics, n'est-ce pas?)


So I was faced with a few choices: 1) Snow boots (I think not) 2) Brown boots (with black pants?) 3) Black dress shoes (slip-ons; a no-go), and 3) My JEEP brand green, beige and black sandals (they're closed-toed, a bit like Keens -- roomates, you know the pair I'm talking about, right?) I pulled what I considered a fairly genius move by pairing black pants with a green and black top and a green scarf in my hair to match the green in the shoes. I even added my boho-chic hemp necklance with green pendant.



I am not kidding when I say that EVERYONE I spent more than 10 minutes with today commented on my shoes. (Er, the fact that I wasn't wearing socks). It's the end of March! Past St. Paddy's! The sun shone today! (Okay it rain/snowed intermittently, too, but it was warm enough). SPRING IS COMING! I needed these shoes in order to have sure footin! I feel I have the right to wear sandals.


Apparently not.


Nor should I wear my house shoes around town as if the shopping mall was my living room.

After a long discussion attempting to defend myself (in German) with my two bosses at the youth center where I work, I finally conceded, and humbly took the directions my friend Joerg gave me to the local place where shoes are cool but relatively inexpensive.



Dear Germany,

I apologize for offending you with my choice of footwear.

I promise to do better next time.

Sincerely yours,

Amanda S. Munroe


(Signed, 24 March 2009, Esslingen, Deutschland)