And so it begins

Our journey begins.  With hilarity, some desperation and definitely without fanfare or polish!  We are just a crazy American family, getting our land legs in Germany. 

We landed in Frankfurt around midnight Pacific time, 9 am Germany time.  The flight was pretty easy and we went through customs with ease.  Our bags were the very first ones at baggage claim, due to the fact that they barely made it on the plane because we barely made it on the plane after our delayed flight out of MFR. 

Off to the rental car, which Levi got a great deal on.  It was claimed that a volvo SUV size car could hold five luggages.  Woohoo!  Sounds awesome, but I was skeptical and wondered if we should just rent a van…?  Levi, being the trusting soul he is, did not entertain the idea and so we solidly planned on this great priced volvo carrying us and our fifty pound each rolling luggage plus five carry-on’s to our destination in Schwabish Hall.  As it turns out, there must have been some fine print detail that stated it could carry five large luggages…minus the three children in the back seat.    I may have muttered some things under my breath as I stood watching Levi sweating in the parking garage, it being far too hot for the Germany I remember, him fully hoping and planning on fitting the next two suitcases in when three allowed the car back to barely close upon full force shutting the door.  (insert unrestrained laugher) I love him for so many reasons, but one being…he just does not get flustered.  Sweating profusely, he calmly walked to the car rental agent and asked for a van.  God smiled down on us and we got it for no extra cost, even though the rental should have been twice as much.  I think maybe they were just all done with us and tried to shove us out as quickly and painlessly as possible, to which we were in complete agreement.  Needless to say, we smashed our stuff in, got the GPS loaded and were content with some peaceful silence on the way to our destination while Eli, Wyatt and Ben slept in the back seat. 

The drive got prettier the closer we got to Schwabish Hall.  We passed fields and mountains and trees that reminded me of home.  It is comforting to be in a town with so much country around it. I was here two years ago and remembered which street to turn down to get to a parking garage, as we had to walk the rest of the short ways to our destination.  We unloaded luggages, tired kids and bags and got a tour of our apartment.  It is an amazing place for its beauty and historical significance.  And it is more space than I expected or could have hoped for!

As God would have it, I am able to walk through the very same doors that I walked through two years ago when I came to visit Stephanie with Ryan for treatment.  Our house here has four stories, and the apartment we are renting is on the second level.  The bottom level used to be a horse carriage barn and the very top level is the place I stayed at two years ago.  The gift of familiarity is profound.  Leaving home and all that I know has felt akin to walking off a cliff…in so many ways.  The peace from the Lord is with me, yes, but visiting Germany briefly is so different than bringing your kids to treatment in Germany and knowing you will live there three months, holding down the fort mostly alone.  God has allowed time and again His kind confirmation upon our shoulders as time and again He opened doors that only He could.  His stamp is solidly upon this journey and that knowledge brings peace to my soul, even in the midst of fear.

Before leaving the house, I got on my knees and confessed my fears…over watching the boys go through excruciating treatment day after day- over the little things like finding groceries in German language and knowing what to do in split second decision making without Levi’s help when he is stateside.  I somehow worried that as I went, that God would not be here…It sounds so silly but like I said, it felt like walking off a cliff.  There was so much unknown and so much I couldn’t emotionally fully process.  I prayed out loud that God would remind me that He is a God of the universe, and of course He would go with me! 

It is early morning here and I sit and look at the four walls around me…I have wondered more than once who lived here years past and what their stories looked like.  I love history because it is full of real lives, journeys and life that was lived.  I wondered at the families and the ups and downs that life took them through.  I wondered who had lived within these four walls that loved my Jesus and what their trials looked like.  I thought about the era of knighthood, Kings, Queens and peasants.  Yes, this building is that old, built in the 1300’s.  I thought about the reformation age and protestants.  I thought about who in this house walked just steps away to the massive cathedral that lights up the town square, ringing bells and welcoming the community to gather.  Who lived here during World War II, watching soldiers drive through cobbled streets and seeing Jewish neighbors disappear?  There is a historical Jewish prayer house just two doors down…what must the eyes have seen that resided within these four walls?  It helps put our story into perspective.  It helps this mommy heart to remember that God truly is faithful throughout generations of history, through times of joy and sorrow.  As we walk this road, it is mingled with trial and yet…yes, joy.  It is a strange mixture of intense gratefulness that healing is ahead for my boys, yet guilt at what they will have to go through to get there. 

As our family sat at the very top of stone steps leading to the cathedral, our landlord told us of the protestant chapel.  In the reformation era, many catholic cathedrals were getting emptied and laid barren in an effort to seek Christ aside from catholic rule.  The cathedral in Schwabish Hall is one of the more historically accurate ones, helped in part years later because a man by the name of Dietrich Boenhoffer who pastored here.  Levi and I were both taken aback, because we know of this mans’ story and his writings. 

Dietrich Boenhoffer taught that it was okay to leave the art…that it wasn’t about the building, it was about the heart. At the age of 21 he had graduated from the University of Berlin and by 1937 he had written The Cost of Discipleship.  He was calling for genuine faith and a walk with Christ. He was a vocal anti-nazist in 1933 as Hitlers rise to power was taking place.  Though he pastored other places, Schwabish Hall was a place he resided in as well.    He went on to teach pastors in an underground seminary as the war heated up.  April of 1943 Bonhoeffer was arrested, accused of involvement in a plot to overthrow and assassinate Hiltler.  He lived in various concentration camps and then transferred to an extermination camp.  One month before Germany surrendered, Boenhoffer was hanged and went to be with Jesus.  He wrote from prison, “To be a Christian does not mean to be religious in a particular way, to make something of oneself (a sinner, a penitent, or a saint) on the basis of some method or other, but to be a man – not a type of man, but the man that Christ creates in us.  It is not the religious act that makes the Christian, but the participation in the sufferings of God in the secular life.”

As life would have it, Dietrich’s niece resided in the very apartment we are living in for the next three months.  What rich spiritual heritage we are surrounded by…in a place that has seen such trial and suffering.  In a place where the war that raged on was waged in the heavenlies as well.  The spiritual oppression in this place must have been profound…but so was the light that was held out by those who carried the light of Life in their hearts.  A light that cannot be extinguished.  It is that very light that we carry through our journey of faith.  I feel God’s hand so mightily and clearly upon us.  Life does not have to be easy to be blessed, He has taught me this.  And often, it is in the hard that we grow the most…through the parched desert that we are most grateful for water that only He could provide.  God is teaching me to see Germany through the eyes of his faithfulness that never leaves. How blessed we are to serve this God of love and mercy.  How much it makes me want to do this well for my children, my husband and to the glory of my God. 

Treatment will start soon and we have only just begun, but God has already been ahead and behind us!  And as Boenhoffer so eloquently wrote, may our prayer be that in all things- whether good or bad – that our goal wouldn’t be to make ourselves something based on man’s image, but that we would be made into the man Christ creates in us. 

Psalms 12:5-6

“But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.  I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me.”

This is a traditional iconic view of Schwabish Hall.  

This is looking out our door and to the left; 

following the cobblestone straight ahead

 leads to a foot bridge and the parking garage.

The front doors that we will call home for the next twelve weeks.

These army vehicles from WWII were parked for a short while to advertise

a peace festival, celebrating the times after the war.

Beautiful l doors- in love with the architecture.