belated birthday

a few weeks ago i read an article about this book, and wrote about it on my blog, saying i would like to read it. today, moerssl came home with a belated birthday present for me. belated, because he had to order it... :-D yup, the book! so, i will be writting about it soon.

fairy tales

growing up the way i did, and going to the college i did enabled me to fully enjoy the humor in "bedtime stories for adults." if you have a similar humor, and can apreciate the extremes of political correctness... look up that title by itunes "theater of the mind." you won't be sorry.

(kate and meg- this one's for yall!)

from friesland

so, here i am, back from a week at "see".. ok, so its more of canals.. i made it without getting see sick, but somehow my room here seems to be swaying gently... here are a few more photos:


the crew


duck bridge

mow the grass

too much food



cooking for ten

rrrichtiggggg

wooden shoes

daily fruit

on deck

our cabin

andy



home port

we played alot of checkers and chess

the yacht

in town

rest place for christiania

checking the map


my beach on the eiselmeer

schleuze/ gate

paying the bridge toll


beates birthday

the captain

eiselmeer

frank ordered "something"- it turned out to be frog legs! the more adventurous ones tried them.. they really weren't bad.

spontaneous

saturday morning at 9 a call on my cell phone woke me up. "hey, we'll be in bremen in an hour, what do you say you join us for a week sailing in holland?" here are some photos, more to come next week:

holy crisis, batman!

ok, so maybe it's a bit cliche to write about mother teresa on the aniversary of her death.. but i have been reading alot about her lately and meaning to post. the link on the title is to a cnn article about her faith struggle. quite worthwhile. i found it rather encouraging to read about the "dark night of the soul" which she experienced. ok, so i am a winter christian and seem to lean towards that kinda thing.. to read that she struggled for so long over such central aspects of the faith, and yet never gave up. i'd like to read the book (Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light) with her letters to the confessor.

so what does this have to do with batman? well.. not much, i guess. ;-) but batman had a bat-cave where he could hide out. and that's good, because ever super-hero, saint, or plain missionary needs time apart... thus i announce that i am going to hide out in my bat-cave starting september 22.

crying girl

this week i have a guest at the hope house. she is a girl melly and i know through the internet. she is still pretty young, and is the victim of some pretty horrendous things. she needed to get out of the situation where she lives, have a few women to talk to, and a chance to make hard decisions. honestly, this isn't the kind of counselling i am used to (she isn't a drug addict or punk..). i have done some of it... mostly in africa.. but we are relying on Gods help to help this girl. please consider her in your prayers.

hectic week

man.. this has been a week where i barely came to rest- literally.

it started off simply enough monday with a prayer meeting at the house.. where i led the praise and worship. it ended up going on till after midnight sometime.


tuesday i started back to cafe chance, still on crutches but a bit more mobile. and i was getting tired of sitting on the sofa all day and night. it went well, and they were all glad to see me back.

wednesday and thursday are a blurr of activity. i never had a waking minute alone. i was woken by a woman ringing the doorbell, who just needed to talk. while she was still there, melly from the freaks showed up to learn how to bake (no, it wasn't planned) and the three of us went into the kitchen. the church here has realized long ago that i can bake (thanks mom and gram) and we had a fun afternoon. durring this heiko showed up, and the woman left. then the phone rang, and it was an old friend of mine i was in africa with. she had some major issues, and i held telephone- counselling with her for almost three hours. she's in a serious place right now, with a mariage failing, etc. about the time i hung up, people were showing up for bible study, and i let them in and then met kruemel who was picking me up for my bible study. we met one of my junkies, ralf, on the street, and i asked him along. at first he said no, but then he came after us and joined. the street group then never really got around to this weeks topic (thats normal) because he started asking alot of good questions. when we got home, matze and i were just making some sandwhiches and the other bible study came down. that expanded into another prayer meeting spontaneously in the kitchen.


thursday harry came by for counseling in the morning, and ten minutes after he left, jo came by. after he left, heiko came. when i returned from the womens bible study, heiko was still there, and harry had joined him. this didnt exactly thrill me, because i hadn't let harry into my room, and heiko knew i didnt want other guest when i am not home. there had been an emergency, though, and harry had had to leave home for the night. after they left, our current guest came home. he was high, and we spent along time talking. i had to make the decision whether or not to kick him out. by the time we were to that point in the discussion, though, it was 2am. i decided he could stay, since he agreed that it had been a mistake. we then listened to part of john on cd. then he went to shower and came back sober. we ended up reading in the bible, praying, and having communion.



two hours later the construction across the street started again, and i was woken up. melly came by shortly after to bake for her birthday (well, she made noodle salad, and i baked..). it took us about 6 hours. thats alot of stuff. i was too drained to go to cafe chance, so i called in. i had a really bad migraine and tried to just go to bed. i couldnt sleep all night, even after getting up and having a hot bath. at almost seven this morning i fell asleep. i am rather zonked now, but after another hot bath and an imitrex, feeling better.



and this is a week i had "off."