Nov

Our time in Slovakia could hardly have been more different from Prague. We went to work with a little mission in the village of Sus. Our hosts there are missionaries sent out by Swiss Faith Mission, so they speak German (and some English, fortunately!). The people in Sus are all farmers, so the missionaries farm too. I think our time in Sus would have been quite shocking if we hadn’t been to Guetli already. Sus is kind of like Guetli, but more primitive.

Saturday evening we sang at a church in a nearby village. I gave my camera to one of the girls from Sus, so I have lots of photos of that service (for a change). We were a little nervous about that service since it was our first time singing in Slovak, but the people were very kind (and said that they could understand us!).

Saturday was July 4th, and on the way back from our concert, we had a private celebration in our van. Amy Corey brought glow sticks, and we turned up the patriotic music. Strangely, I think it was the best July 4th celebration I’ve ever experienced. I guess being in rural Slovakia helped me see how much I should be thankful for my country.

We had our own service at the mission Sunday morning, and then Sunday afternoon we helped with the mission open house. Normally, they invite all of the village people to come over for a Bible study and have refreshments afterward. Since we were there, we sang, and then someone from the mission preached, and then we had refreshments. It was an exciting day, because lots of the village people came! Unfortunately, we didn’t get to stay to talk to people afterward because we had to be in Bratislava that evening. I think most of them probably didn’t speak English, so we couldn’t have talked much anyway.

Sunday evening we sang at a church in Bratislava, the capitol. We gave a concert after the evening service, and not everyone stayed. At first, I felt a little disappointed, but I remembered that God can work no matter what the size of the audience. We sang “It is Well” that night, and several of the audience members seemed especially moved by that song. Actually, it seemed to be a favorite all summer, in all languages.

Nov

After Kirchberg, we had to drive to Slovakia. It’s a long way to Slovakia, so we spent the night in Prague. It was a terrible trial, and we suffered greatly, I assure you. We especially suffered during the several hours when we went sight-seeing in Prague.

I love sight-seeing in Prague, but I can’t say that I love Prague as a whole. There’s a lot of dirt in Prague, and a lot of scary people. And it took three different keys for me to get into my hostel room. Three keys! I can’t decide whether that makes me feel very safe (No one’s breaking into my room!) or freaked out (Why on earth do we need three different keys??).

But still, it’s Prague. It has lots of shopping and old buildings, which make me happy. I wish I had a good picture of the market where we did most of our shopping, but I was too busy shopping to take pictures. Funny how that works . . .

I do have obligatory pictures of the astronomical clock, the St. Charles bridge, and a church. There’s also a picture of the cafe where we had pizza for supper. It was a nice day.

Nov

We spent several days in Kirchberg, singing there and at other churches in the area. Unfortunately, my computer ate my pictures from those days. Since my pictures are gone, my memories are a little fuzzy, too.

In Kirchberg, we sang across the street from the market, and then went into the market to pass out invitations. There were several vendors who were unhappy about our presence, so I was very excited when the bakery stand lady stopped me and said, “If you will give me a stack of the invitations, I’ll give them to my customers.”

We had several good concerts in the Kirchberg area, but I don’t remember much about them. I met an interesting lady who teaches handicapped children. We sang in a town square and a shirtless man who acted drunk sat on the fountain in front of us and kept clapping and talking to us.

We had Bradley’s birthday celebration (not during a concert). It was so funny that I cried.

Oh, and food. I do have lots of Kirchberg memories centered around food. First, there are the sandwiches.

I’m sure our hosts from the previous stop gave us sandwiches to eat on the way. When we arrived at Kirchberg, they said that we were going to have kaffee and kuchen, but it turned out to be kaffee and sandwiches. That was ok, but for some reason, the team seemed to have reached our sandwich limit. So we didn’t eat very many sandwiches. But, the church people kindly left them at the church so we could have them for a snack later.

That evening, we were singing at a church in another town, and having supper there. When we arrived, there were lots of bottles of Fanta and beautifully arranged platters of sandwiches. It would have been funny, except that I think the church ladies must have made 7 sandwiches for each of us, and we were only able to eat about 1.745692 sandwiches apiece.

It’s not that we have anything against sandwiches, especially the beautiful ones that the German ladies make. And really, we were ever so grateful for their hospitality. It’s just that American young people can only eat so many open face salami (or cheese or egg or smoked salmon or bologna) sandwiches with a bit of butter and an artful slice of pepper or cucumber.

We also had sandwiches at a different church, and hot dogs at another. I thought we did a great job of eating the hot dogs, but one of the serving ladies didn’t. I think she cried when she saw how many were left over. I felt sad for her, but really, they didn’t need to make approximately 87 hot dogs for us. I think they got confused and thought they were feeding starving children from Africa. That, or a basketball team. At any rate, they expected us to eat ten times more than we actually can, and to eat it 30 minutes before we were supposed to sing an hour-long concert.

We were all staying at the church in Kirchberg (not in host homes), so when other churches weren’t feeding us, we cooked for ourselves. That was fun! We had pizza one day, and schnitzel another. Oh, and Dr. Dad made scrambled eggs for breakfast. Germans don’t generally make scrambled eggs, so this was the only time all summer that most people on the team had non-boiled eggs. And yes, we did eat those like we were starving. I think Dr. Dad made 100 eggs for the team. It was something ridiculous like that, anyway, and I think we ate them all! We did skip lunch that day, though.

Finally, there was an actual kaffee and kuchen (this one included coffee, and cake, and no sandwiches at all). There’s a very sweet couple in the church in Kirchberg that hosted me and Tim last year. This year, we stayed at the church with the rest of the team, but they invited us and Heather Davis and the Drs. Parents over for kaffee and kuchen.

Dr. Mom wasn’t able to go, because she wasn’t feeling well. So, there were just 6 of us at the table. But for the 6 of us, there were 3 kinds of ice cream, and a huge strawberry cheese shortcake and pastries and bread with butter and probably other things that I’m forgetting. We were expected to eat the entire strawberry creation, along with huge quantities of icecream and pastry. These people are so sweet, but I’m glad that they aren’t my grandparents. If they fed me on a regular basis, I think I would be dead. Oh, and on the way out, the lady gave me and Heather a box of chocolates!

Nov

Some people cry when they visit the concentration camp, but I didn’t. I felt stunned and a little sick. I’ve heard people say before that something left a bad taste in their mouths. Just thinking about the things I saw at Sachsenhausen makes me want to spit. (more…)

Nov

On Saturday (during our stay at Oranienburg), we went to Berlin! Saturday evening we gave a concert at a church on the outskirts of Berlin, but during the day, we had time to see the Pergamon Museum, Checkpoint Charlie, and the Brandenburg Gate.

Our visit to Berlin began on a disturbing note when we were accosted by a gypsy woman. (more…)