holland

this weekend the jesus freaks holland were here visiting. it was a crazy time of drinking coffee, seeing the city, praying and being crazy.

easter, no bunny

this easter i missed out on the chocolate bunny. but it didn't really bother me, i don't see what the bunny has to do with the resurection, anyway. and instead of a bunny, i got a visitor from karlsruhe.. andreas finally stopped by- for a whole week! he treated me very well, with invitations in the theater, cafes, restaurants... all in all, it was much better than chocolate.

"aaaber HALLO, jetzt geht's loooooOooooos"

it is hard to say goodbye, and so sometimes i put it off. last week my parents and i were in town and heard the news that erich was in the hospital. he died easter sunday.

erich was one of the people i had more contact with than others. he was always at the cathedral begging, often in a suit. he would scream the title sentence, meaning "ooooooooookay, HELLO, it's time to staaaaart!" then he'd tip his hat or take it in the hand and turn to the next passerby. "good day, lovely fraeulein, do you have a little change? thank you. very nice smile." he was always quite a riot. he could charm the socks off an old lady and make a guy feel like the king himself, even while reeking of hard schnapps. yeah, there were other moments, like when he fell over and lay on the tram lines with a pool of blood around him, but who thinks on those moments after a passing?

after his last stay in the hospital markus and i took him in. he couldn't stand it though, to be seperated from his friends at the dom, and decided that despite it being the sure death of him, he wanted to go back to his old life.

primary colors

this one might be long. basically, i want to talk about the week with my parents here in bremen. and ALOT happened.

they had said that they wanted to come and help me with some of the little projects i have around the house, but i hadn't realized how seriously they meant it. here's the list of all the things my dad did that i can remember (i am sure there was more):
built my hanging shelf system,
a desk,
a coffee table,
a tp shelf in the loo,
put in the guest kitchen,
fixed door on my cabinat,
put up bamboo curtain rod,
cut tops for tea-box end tables,
put up metal "please feel free to smoke outside" sign mom gave me,
fixed an old wooden shelf,
assembled my desk drawers,
cut and layout the moulding in the living/dining room,
made a pull out trash bin holder in the main kitchen,
rehung the main kitchen shelves and added a knife magnet and hooks for mugs,
put up a message strip in the main kitchen,
stabalized/stylized my makeshift closet,
put a metal thingy on the livingroom floor where the door is,
and (in a minute i will go get him to) hung my coffee sacks on the wall.

mom also worked hard.. she
got the dried cat food stains off the walls of our hall,
thoroughly cleaned the kitchen,
dusted all my plants,
vacuumed my room intensly (every inch),
and did it all again after we messed it up.

now, just so no one thinks all they got to do was work, we also went to the hardware store. almost daily. one day twice. yeah, they know us there now. but they really WANTED to do all this. i tried to get them to have fun and go out to hamburg and do things with me, but it didn't work.. they were happiest while doing the jobs i dislike the most.

they arrived thursday and met some of the jesus freaks in typical hope house style.. they just stopped by unanounced. we were able to go together to cafe chance friday, and i think they were positively surprised at what it is like and the people. they didn't talk much to any of the guests, but had great conversations with some of the other volunteers.

saturday my close friends karo and ben came for breakfast. dad made the coffee, and when i went to throw out the grounds, there were none in the used filter- he'd put instant coffee into the perkelator! then went with us to the flea market where we got me two great old wooden boxes and a small metal one. i love old stuff like that.

on sunday we took the tram to the jesus freaks, and it was full of soccer fans. when it was time to get off, it was really full, and i couldn't see them, so as i pushed out, i just called "MOM! DAD! GET OUT!!" and the masses of rowdy fans parted before them like the red sea. i had been praying that they would get to meet hans, my favorite junkie, because i have told so much about him and i know they pray for him. i haven't seen him in a long time, though. and he came to church! it was very cool, he had a long conversation with mom in english- even though he quit school in the fifth grade.

my film project was due this week, and i had been having a lot of trouble with it. it was edited, but i couldn't get it to render and play out to a .mov or to a mini-dv tape. in desperation i ended up at my bosses house monday working on it for several hours, and mom came along. we finally got it working after much prayer and fiddeling. the show aired wednesday on pbs, it's a documentary about a YWAM team from fiji that was here. yeah, i hid a godly message in it. ;-)

showing mom around town was really fun, we went to schnoor which is a very old area with cute narrow streets, and i showed her a secret little way.. and we met a lady that lived in one of the houses. she took our picture and talked to us about the history. then we went to my favorite cafe and had lattes- hers was caramel with chunks and mine was banana split. yeah, i know it sound weird. but they are goooooood. that same night we were able to go out for indian food at a place i discovered when kate was here. the owner remembered me, and we all enjoyed it alot- EVEN DAD. as i was already feeling like the most blessed girl in bremen, karo messaged me and said she had 4 tea boxes for me (i already had 2 and earlier in the week she'd brought a third!) these are big wooden boxes with metal edges.. very cool. i collect them and make them into furniture, but they are hard to find. the coffee table dad made me is two of them on a base with wheels. we stayed up past till almost three in the morning talking and laughing.

unfortunatly i was sick this whole week still with the throat/tonsel thing i got the weekend before they came. it was ok for most of the week, but one night i felt so bad that i was throwing up, and last night the stuff started clearing, causing a deep cough, today i think i had a fever again and slept the afternoon away. but first i spent the morning with karo doing a girls wellness program... yeah, mom got a picture of us looking like ghosts with white masks.. tonight we all went over to karo and ben's for coffee and pastries. ben will drive us to the airport at 4am.

it's been a good nine days. too short really, for a trip to europe. especially since most of it was spent in my house working. i think they need to come again, do more fun stuff, go to hamburg and berlin and the ocean. but it was good to finally be able to show them what i do, introduce them to my people and ministry. and yeah, to get the projects done. the title is primary colors because my room seems so bright now that it is so clean. mom even vacuumed my red sofa and blue carpet. and dad built my desk out of a wonderful yellow wood with metal edges that he found at the hardware store. and i think our personalities are also about as different as the colors..

i wish i had picture, but my camera is still broken. when dd gives me the ones from his camera, i will post a few.

hail in the morning

an uncommon sound shook me from my sleep this morning- a deep, rolling thunder accompanied by the insistent beating of something against the windows. in germany, it rarely does anything a texan could qualify as storm. there is never really any thunder, and if there is it is like comparing a child's bongo to a full blown drum solo at a rock concert.. (everything's bigger in texas) and lightning is one little stream of light, kinda cute.. not the purple electric sky that we used to sit on the porch and watch for hours. and the rain is.. well.. mist. it's barely heavy enough to fall, you barely notice it hitting you, and you have to look into a puddle to see if it is still falling. i tell this in so much detail, i guess, because i really love storms. they are one of the main things i miss from texas (the other being enchiladas).

so this morning, it stormed in a fascinating way. that beating at my window was hail! hail has always fascinated me even more than rain. it looks great falling, it bounces and rolls, and lays in big heaps on the ground, slowly melting. this hail was dallas sized. we never got the huge hail in dallas, the kind you see on the news that puts various categories of balls to shame. we always got the cute ice-machine sized hail, as if texas stadium decided to empty their machines from the top of reunion tower. this hail was like that- only whiter. and i lay on my loft bed, and just watched it fall, till the beautiful rhythm and whistling wind lulled me back to sleep. i have always slept best when there's a storm out.

mom and dad leave today, flying on a jet plane, to come see me. they will be here until easter saturday. but i am sure i will share morre about that during the week. but mom, if you read this in time, pack a few stormy texas nights for me, ok?

not quite dead yet..

in fact, i think i'm getting better.
i spent the past few days barely coherent (if at all) on the sofa. i'll spare the details. today i managed to drink coke and stay awake longer than an hour- even while sitting.. things are looking up.

ambulance at 5 am

i'd been asleep for an hour when the doorbell rang. (jaja, i went to bed late ;-) )
since the front door is glass, i could see the two men in their bulky reflector-lined uniforms.. the ambulance team.

"sorry to wake you, ma'am, but does a matthias live here?" erm.. ja.. "we got a call that he was laying unconscious in the street." (eyes move past two men, to the heavy storm drenched street puddles, to the thick clouds, and back to the men) he.. uhm, he came in a bit ago.... (turning slightly.. to show them in)

i went upsatairs and found a puddle resembling my roommate drenching the armchair. i couldn't get this soggy heap to respond.. out cold. the ambulance men entered, also unable to wake him, they turned to something strong smelling. he woke up with a shock, punching and screaming.

i could give a blow-by-blow of the night, and it would make for an interesting read. there's a bit of everything in it... but i'll just give the skeletal version on the blog.

the next task was to get his wet clothes off and new dry ones on. it is still winter here, so think ice water. he wasn't able to stand alone, though, so both of the guys propped him up. then the questions. he kept hyperventalating and took five minutes to answer each question. basically, they decided he had an alcohol poisening and hypothermia. they wanted to take him to the hospital, but he wouldn't go. he was drifting in and out of consciousness.

finally, they agreed to leave him at the house if i would stay in his room. moerssl and i took care of him for over an hour, while he thrashed and screamed unitelligable words. when he finally drifted off, we rolled him onto his side in the proper manner, so that his head was supported, and placed a bucket under him. i grabbed a sleeping bag and pillow and squnched in by the wall to make sure he didn't roll onto his back. (really drunk people are in danger of throwing up while unconscious and choking to death) and so i stayed the next six hours until he was no longer passed out (but still quite drunk). then moerssl took over and i got to go to bed for a few hours. (i hadn't slept)

so, we all made it through the night.... but it was a stress. this is kinda serious, because it isn't the first issue we have had with matze since he moved in. he was kinda already on "probation" or whatever you want to call it. we feel he is right for the house and the house for him, but it is also apparent that some of his destructive tendencies haven't been curbed yet. please pray for him.. and us as a house. we are meeting monday for our house time, and will be having a rather serious conversation about friday night.