Serving University students in Berlin…

Kristen and I find ourselves on a little one week break before the semester starts in mid October in Berlin. A long time friend of Kristen’s, Amanda, and her family are our hosts, and it is wonderful to be welcomed and hosted by them. Though rain has been our constant companion in the last couple days, and is fore casted to be our close friend in the coming days as well, it has been wonderful wandering the streets of York, dipping into little shoppes, eating cool British food, and generally just holding Kristen’s hand and experiencing this time in life together.
A large part of the fun is seeing places and meeting people that have been important in Kristen’s life in the P.J. (pre-Johnny) days of her life. We were briefly at the bible school she attended for a year at Capernwray, and tomorrow, I think, we will be heading back for more walks in the country around and visiting the village of Capernwray where the school is located.
Not very many pretty pictures lately, which I’m a little bummed about. Its troublesome trying to keep the rain off the lens, and the skies are so white when it rains, too! Oh well, maybe I can figure a way to take some crazy late night, long-exposure shots. Anyway.

Love you all.

John and I were able to take a little vacation at the end of August before our 10 day student training conference (CSM). For me, it was all new, but for Johnny, it was a blast from his past. We traveled by train to Munich, Germany. John’s home for 11 years, when he was a little boy. We found his old houses, kindergarten, grade school, and high school. We had coffee with a John’s neighbor, who still lived in the same house. Her husband had passed away in the last several years, but her son still lived in the area and came to say “hello” to us, too. At Johnny’s kindergarten, we found his teacher, who still worked there, and remembered him right away when he said who he was. She said, “I was just thinking about you the other day, wondering what had become of you.” You could tell she was so pleased to see him again. We also had lunch with John’s best friend, when he lived in Munich. Lots of memories were shared over that table. It was quite the experience for me, to walk down this memory lane with my John. I just soaked it all in, watching the joy on his face, as he recollected stories, parks, homes, and neighbors.

We also got to stay with some friends of ours, that used to live in Berlin, but have since moved outside of Munich. They live in a BEAUTIFUL village, like out of a picture book. The Alps in the distance, rolling green pastures, beautiful homes, cascading with flowers from the balconies, and sun shine! What a treat! We hiked in the mountains one day, went swimming another, enjoyed eating outside, and even had a bonfire where we roasted sausages. It really felt like we were on vacation. The rest was wonderful, the time with friends was refreshing, and the walk down memory lane was delightful.

Though several weeks have passed already the unreality of the passing of Joe Zickafoose still lingers. Much has already been said. He will be missed by us, by SfC, and especially by his wife and kids. My heart aches for them.

He was a vital part of the team, full of wisdom and sharp insight. He modeled a man who followed God with his mind, heart, skills, and in his relationships. He was, as Paul put it in Philippians 3, someone worthy of following as he pursued Jesus.

We’ll meet again, Joe, I’m sure where, just not sure when.

See you… John and Kristen

Hi my happy readers.

Yesterday I discovered that my website had been hijacked (a little) by some malicious person(s). After long talks with my webhost provider and a couple hours working away at the website, it should be all safe again, with no more redirects to a website claiming to be scanning your computer for viruses and *kindly* offering to install itself on your computer (Windows™ only, of course).

I certainly hope none of you followed through on that advise! Please, as a happy reminder from me to you, keep your virus software (if you are a Windows™ user) up to date, and be a skeptical internet surfer only trusting sites that are reputable, being careful not to get duped by websites that have similar, but not the same names.

For some free antivirus programs that I use, check out AVG and AntiVir.

Have a great day!

In some of our spare time both Kristen and I are involved in resuscitating various projects in our lives. For Kristen its the African Violets which just started blooming after having it for a year. Every reasonable means was used, including singing to it, dousing it in fertilized water, repotting was considered… but it finally happened and many pictures have been taken of the beautiful little thing.

I, on the other hand, have finally had enough time to pull the Mac SE out of the box (with my Grandpa’s overalls wrapped around it for protection), plug it in and turn it on. Do you know, after having sat in my parents basement for probably 4 years without being turned on (or plugged in) the date and time were still accurate? That’s incredible to me… they just don’t make them like they used to! Unfortunately in the Koeshall Family reorgs the keyboard was thrown away, so all I have is a Mac SE and its original Mouse as well as the System 7 disks.

Well, back to listening to Beethoven’s 5th on the stereo… Love you all!

Hi Everyone… 

we are posting our end of semester slideshow pictures. We had a constant 30 people in our house and people coming and going from 5 PM - 11 PM. Much fun was had, a lot of food and drink consumed, and, to everyone’s sadness, we celebrated Jon Ziegler who is headed back to Louisiana after three years in Berlin. We will all miss him!

This morning we scrubbed the floors, rearranged the furniture, and returned tables and chairs that we had used. Time to rest… *sigh*

Life group grill party

Well, Johnny and I are starting to wind down for the summer. Saturday was my last Lifegroup meeting with my girls. We had a “grill Party” (aka. BBQ) at one of our girls apartments, eating lots of tasty food, chatting, and singing some worship songs at the end. Here are some pictures from our time together.

Tuesday night was our last official large group meeting for SfC. Three of our students, who are finishing up and moving on from Berlin, spoke about what God has been teaching them this year and what SfC has meant to them. It was a really encouraging and wonderful night. Johnny put together an end of year slide show, capturing events from the whole year, which brought applause from the students! Fun!

Tomorrow will be our end of semester SfC party, which we have had to move to our apartment due to expected rain showers.  We plan to set up our living room like a cafe, dish up food in the kitchen, and then have games in our guest bedroom. If the rain clears up, we have a park near by with a volleyball court and ping-pong tables.  It will be a full house (we’re expecting 30), but it should be fun!

All in all, we can’t believe it has been a whole year. We are looking forward to next semester, but at the same time feel a bit overwhelmed. The couple we have been working with as a team are back in the States for this next year. Keep us in your prayers. It will definately be an adventure!

A fascinating and real life look into Berlin through an interview with famous DJ and native son, Paul van Dyk. Find it here.

We had a wonderful time with Stephie and Johannes in Erfurt. They took us up into the hills to the cabin where they honeymooned as well as around the picturesque and historic town of Erfurt. There we stumbled upon a free exhibit of the Stasi prison in town. The Stasi were the secret police of former East Germany. You walk into the former prison and you feel ‘in prison!’ It was sobering reading the stories that were told by the people themselves who had spent time in there, many for simply asking for permission to emigrate from the country! They were held without trial, and as many found out later, the amount of time they spent there was actually determined before they were even arrested. During their arrest, they were questioned repeatedly, all day, given no privacy, were made to sleep in certain positions. Every 10 minutes the light to their room was turned on and they were checked on. The guards outside had control of the light switches and thermostats which they used to create constant discomfort to those held inside. You were told half-truths and lies, and because of the tremendous amounts of secret surveillance going on at the time, much of it was so close to the truth that the prisoners could not distinguish which was which.

Kristen and I walked away from there incredibly thankful for the freedom we can exercise.

Thursday night our living room was packed full of students rooting on Germany in the European soccer match. We projected the soccer match live onto our living room wall. As the German national anthem played our students were waving flags and singing along. What energy! We had our windows open and our little fan blowing to get some air circulating through the room. It also let out the cheers and hollers that rang through our apartment!

Before the evening began, we had some technical difficulties… the projector wasn’t finding the signal from our computer. I began praying - “Lord, please get this to work.” After several reboots of the computer, and students starting to arrive, Johnny and our intern, Jon, ran to get his computer. We started to show the opening of the soccer game on Johnny’s computer. It was kind of hilarious - here all these people were coming and all we had was this little computer set up in the middle of the living room floor! I can just imaging what the people were thinking…”we’re going to watch the game on THAT?!?” Just as the game was starting to play, Johnny and Jon were back and got the projector working. Thank you Lord!

All in all, it was a blast! Fun to have the students in our home and enjoying the Fußball fever together.