new hope..?

some good news for a change!

we found someone to rent matze's room for the next two months: micha. he is 35 and self-employed. he came from munich to see the room- and brought his luggage with him. he said if we will have him, he'd like to just stay.. if not he would spend the few months in a hotel. we liked him, so he stayed. that was two nights ago. he is quite nice (today he left a box of chocolates o of giving the house on the kitchen counter for us to nibble on and new espresso grounds).

and today i found a guy to rent the basement apartment for the two months: malte. he is 23 and a student of spanish and sports. he also seems nice, we talked for about an hour and he is moving in saturday.

now the reason they both are here for two months is that we cancelled the rent on the hope house. but we still havent been able to reach our landlord to see if he will let us out of the contract and on what terms. we were planning to move out on may 1. the main reason was that we couldn't find a long-term house mate. malte is currently looking for a long-term place, and might be interested in moving upstairs in a few months, meaning we could keep the hope house.... it now just depends on what the other house mates think of him (and he of them) and if they want to retract our cancellation. i am all for staying here. at the same time, i have come to a point of (almost) acceptance if we have to give the house up and/or i have to move to the south. please pray along with us on this decision.. and let us know if you hear anything.

(and yes, all the guys names are similar.. moerssl, micha and malte..)

minor prophets: micah

almost forgot to mention micah, my past sunday's sermon topic. i just gave the usual overview of the times, culture, author, and book, and ended with a more in-depth look at my favorite verse- 6:8. "he has shown you, o man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you: to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God." (cate trans) i remember that verse from elementary school.. we used to sing it in sunday school. it's one of those few very vivid memories.. the two ladies sitting in front with their guitarres leading this song. i don't think i knew it was a Bible verse until i already knew it by heart. good times. if you do anything with kids, please teach them some more scripture songs!

and i guess it wouldn't be a sermon from me if it didn't have some wacky unexpected edge in it.. i read aloud from a douglas adam's book. if you know who he is, you are probably hitting yourself in the face right now wondering how i could preach using him... one of his lesser known books is a glossary of city names and their meanings. i have the german translation, so i can't really give an example.. but they are not too be taken seriously. i am guessing the us version would be something like "los angeles.. a city where even angels get lost." (thats from me, not adams) the thing is, those are the kind of word-plays micah used to first get the attention of his audience. if you take a look at chapter 1, the cities he listed off and the things he says over them are very related in meaning. i chose cities for my sermon that people in my audience come from. it was fun, and it got their attention- i think micah had it going on rhetorically.

at the end i gave homework: to memorize micah 6:8, and to spend time this week practicing and realizing the commands given in it.

cure for migraines?

my friend ben knows someone who tried this old herbal remedy and has since had no more migraines. so he got it for me for valentines day. well, actually, for christmas, but it just got here this weekend... so i am trying out this really disgusting tasting harbal paste for the next [until bottle is empty]. if it works, it will be worth the taste- so pray that it does! the taste is so penetrating that no toothbrushing or meals have been able to get rid of the flavor- i even made fish to try and cover it up. no such luck. i guess i am quaranteed healthy smelling breath for awhile. it's called pear-honey or something like that from some old nun, i think, named Hildegard von Bingen.

heart

it was the sadest valentine's day ever.. for once i actually have a boyfriend, but he couldnt make it up to bremen.. i baked him a cake anyway... and the constant stream of guests today were appreciative! it's "red velvet"

10 years jesus freaks bremen

last year the jesus freaks bremen turned ten.. so saturday we threw a belated birthday party. it was a great time of fellowship and a concert from singer-songwriter jansalleine. the hope house was/is full of guests. we laughed alot and stayed up late.. and now i'm beat. g'night.

last chance for hope

so it's good into february, and we still haven't found a replacement for housemate matze. things are looking pretty bad. there is one guy left who has shown an interest in moving in whom moerssl and i also like.. he is coming back saturday to meet hanna. if he doesn't move in, we will be forced to leave the hope house.

i also still haven't heard from steiger about joining the missions organization. i am going to meet with andrea from cafe chance tomorro and ask her about a position in their half-way house opening this summer. i don't know how good my chances are there since i have no official training in this area... and if i move in, it would be a long term commitment (meaning someone else would have to move in too at some point.. and i don't know his thoughts on that).

frankfurt

wow, this past weekend did a load of good. i was able to get away from bremen from thursday to sunday and spend some time in frankfurt. moerssl was driving down anyway to see his girlfriend off for six months in israel, so i was able to ride with him.

i spent thursday night at my friend dani's... she was from jesus freaks kassel and went to the same discipleship training school i did in south africa, so we have known each other for a long time. it was good to catch up and relax a bit. she just had a surgury after a year of false diagnosis.

friday i met up with andreas who came to spend the weekend with me in frankfurt! we went to a hessen dialect theater show and ate the most famous pizza in the city. saturday we saw all the sights.. i was so glad my foot is feeling good enough that we could walk around all afternoon. it was bitter cold and windy, but sunny. apparetly restaurants take reservations in frankfurt, which we hadnt counted on, so we tried three different places before getting in to one for dinner. (props to him though, he was willing to try african food, south american, or indian... but we ended up at a traditional german place eating schnitzel) sunday we went to the jesus freaks, where they had a guest speaker- martin dryer, a friend of mine and the founder of the jesus freaks!

it was good to just be away from responsibility for a weekend, not dealing with looking for housemates or the problems here- not even needing to worry about what to cook or clean.. a real vacation.