So... the final countdown

What I love about Christmas in Germany:

10. The Christmas Market
9. Real Candles on the Christmas Tree
8. The Incense Man
7. Snow (or the possibility of snow!)
6. The Food of the Christmas Market
5. The HIUMC Children's Nativity Play
4. The United Methodist Women across America sending me Christmas Cards
3. German Paper Lanterns
2. Singing in the Choir during Christmastime
1. Sharing the joys of Christmas with my church family

Disclaimer: There are many things I love about Christmas, but I tried to focus on what is unique about Christmas here. If I were doing a list about what I love about Christmas period, or Christmas in California, or Christmas in Hawaii... it would look a bit different. Happy Christmas everyone!

Countdown to Christmas (part 4)

And the final two selections in my Countdown to Christmas!

 What I love about Christmas in Germany - Number 2: Singing in the choir at Christmastime! 

Today was our Service of Lessons and Carols and it was filled with joy as we, as John Wesley instructed, sang lustily and with good courage!  This church is a great singing-church: no matter how few we are or how many, the people of Hamburg's International UMC sing well, often in parts, often with the gusto of a much bigger group. It is amazing to sing "Alleluia" and feel like it's a real "Alleluia!"!    This is also my first experience being in the choir and it continues to be joy to sing alongside people willing to share their gifts so readily. We are a small choir, so there is no hiding - if you sing the wrong note or miss an entry, you're heard. But when it's right, when the parts work, when the harmonies work together, I feel my heart shout "Glory to God in the Highest!" 

And.... drumroll please.......

Number 1: Sharing the joy of Christmas with my church family!

I love Christmas: the songs, the foods, selecting the perfect present for people I love, sewing my Christmas bags to wrap presents, writing and sending cards, baking cookies: all of it! And it is truly a joy to share my love of Christmas with others, and to experience the season with those in my church family. So far this season I've baked cookies along two young expert-bakers, crafted the Advent Wreath for church with a festive group of church friends, shared in the joy (and Gluhwein!) of the Altona Weihnachtsmarkt  with members of the choir, hosted a Christmas Open House for members of the church and for those in our extended family (pastors and members of our partner-churches in Germany) and shared in the Youth Christmas Party and gift exchange. I look forward to Christmas dinner with one of my substitute families and a New year's gathering with the church! These activites, whether they are shared with one person or a large multi-generational group, reinforce my call to be a part of this wonderful community of immigrants. We are constantly working to "sing the songs of the Lord in a foreign land" and that work is strengthened by our sense of connection with one another. During this time of celebration, with those of us away from home, I celebrate the joy of the holiday hand in hand with those I call my Hamburg family.

Countdown to Christmas (part 3)

Continuing my Countdown of the things I love about Christ in Germany:
Number 4: The United Methodist Women group across America sending me Christmas Cards.
The UMW has a practice of sending Christmas cards and birthday cards to missionaries and it is so wonderful to get a little taste of home when you're far away. even from strangers. reminding me that we're all part of the same family. I have so far received cards from Florida, North Carolina, New Jersey, Iowa, Ohio and Illinois. Thank you, UMW!


Number 3: German Paper Star Lanterns! 

This tradition reportedly comes from the Moravians in Southern Germany, as far back as the 1830's. The tradition has been adopted as a symbol of Advent and these stars hang in the windows throughout Hamburg and in the stalls of the Weinachtsmarkt all over Germany.  Today, witnessing the stars in the windows that lined the route of my morning busride, I decided to go the the Christmas Market and purchase my very own. There was such a diversity in styles: white and yellow and orange and red, different shapes and sizes, various inserts and patterns. I decided on a red star, placed high in my office window, beckoning out to the people walking past! Rejoice, people! Rejoice! Perhaps someone will be cheered by my red star. I sure am.


For more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravian_star

Countdown to Christmas (part 2)

Continuing my Countdown of the things I love about Christmas in Germany...


No. 6: The Food of the Christmas Market
Last Friday I went on a mission to sample the food of the Christmas Market. Being a vegetarian and a non-alcohol drinker, I thought the options would be limited, but I didn't consider the sweets available! I started with a Crepe mit Zimt und Zucker (with cinnamon and sugar). It was delicious but the amazing thing was the process. In a booth set up specifically for the Christmas market, two men stood before two large electric skillets and they poured the batter over the circular skillets, they spread it evenly and thinly over the circle. They flipped and folded and ended with this! It doesn't look as delicious as it tasted... but it was good.

I then moved on to cookies. I waited in line at a bakery booth, featuring all kinds of cookies including Pfeffernüsse, which I had sampled before and liked very much. But after waiting a while behind a couple who had come all the way from Berlin to sample the Hamburg Christmas Market, I decided to venture on...

I finished up my sampling with carmel-covered almonds, 100 grams of Mandeln. I have since learned there are many other sweet German delicacies I need to try. Maybe another visit is in order.

No. 5: The HIUMC Nativity Play!

This is my third Christmas in Hamburg and I am never more surprised and delighted than seeing our children participate in worship. They play musical instruments - violins, piano and flutes - for the prelude, offertory and special music. Our Sunday School Coordinator directs the play and the children and teachers work all during November to memorize lines and practice songs and they were great! 

It's crazy and lively, toddlers dance in the aisles and try to be a part of the play, kids laugh during their lines, little boys with facial hair and little girls wear angel costumes. It may be a bit chaotic, but there is something so beautiful about kids from all over the world singing about the Prince of Peace that unites us all.

Countdown to Christmas

As we begin the Advent Season, as we countdown each day with our Advent calendars and light each candle on our Advent wreaths, I am doing my own countdown of sorts: a list of things I love about Christmas in Germany. It is a way for me to focus on the positive and beautiful aspects of the season in this wonderful country. And not to focus on the homesickness I often feel at this time of year.

So, without further ado... the 10 things I love about Christmas in Germany:

No. 10: The Christmas Markets!
Each village and town sets up booths and outdoor food places and people gather to buy gifts, to drink Glühwein, to play games and to just have a good time. Street musicians play, kids frolick, good smells waft... overall it is a good time. (I would like there to be more handcrafted items for sale, more Fairtrade items, but I still like the atmosphere.)

No. 9: Real Candles on the Christmas Tree!
It sounds crazy. It sounds absurd. But it is awesome.
The Germans have a very logical and very practical attitude about Christmas trees. (Certainly more practical than mine!) My practice with the Christmas tree goes like this: Get the tree as soon as possible! Try to keep it alive as long as you can, but just accept it is going to die around the 12th and it will be dry and gross toward the end of the season. But because we only have Christmastime for a short time, try to make it last as long as you can. This attitude is very unpractical (and a bit obsessive!) because cutting down a live tree and bringing it inside and putting it next to the heater all day, then wrapping it in electric lights, is sort of insane. The Germans get their trees the week of Christmas. Some of my German friends even leave it outside in the weather until Christmas Eve, when the family does the decorating. Then, the children light the candles on the tree and the family keeps watch as they burn. It is a beautiful thing. Maybe something I should think about. But not this year....

Number 8: The Incense Man!
Friends gave me this charming incense burner two Christmases ago and I am still amused and charmed by him. You light the small cone incense and place it inside the man's wooden body, then the smoke comes out his mouth! It is awesome.

Number 7: Snow!
(or the possibility of snow) Being from Southern California, I am still in awe of snow, sleet, hail... basically any weather that is not sunshine. Living in Hamburg - a rainy and gray place - somehow snow makes all the grey worthwhile!


That's it for now.... Look for more, as I am planning to explore the Christmas Market today to sample some German christmas food. (but nothing alcoholic or meat-based.... is there any?)

Happy Advent!

the walls come tumbling down

This week we commemorate the great miracle in modern life: the fall of the Berlin Wall – the wall that stood as a barrier between East and West Germany, between confinement and freedom, between separation and unity. Chancellor Angela Merkel, a native of the DDR (East Germany), made news this week when she announced where she was when the wall fell: in the DDR, having a sauna and a beer! The following day, she and her sister made a trip– a pilgrimage – to the West, to a department store. I was in California, going to college and teaching, mostly oblivious to the miracle that was happening half-a-world away.

The wall was created seemingly overnight to stop the flood of exits – 20% of East Germany’s total population had emigrated by 1961 (about 3.5 million people between 1949-1961), and most of those were the young, the educated, the professionals—engineers, technicians, physicians, teachers, lawyers and skilled workers. So the wall was built to stop the flood of migration. But the Wall represented much more than the separation of people; it was the sight of lives sacrificed, people killed, opportunities lost, families divided. Such are the barriers we erect to keep some outside and keep some inside.

We create similar walls today: in Israel and Palestine, in North Korea, at our countries' borders and boundaries all over the world. But we also create walls that seem more pliable, walls not made of brick and mortar, but walls that separate us one from another: walls that divide us by class, status, culture, wealth and power.

And standing on each of those walls – crying for the destruction of the barriers that separate us… is Jesus. Jesus shows up, sometimes unexpectedly, at our walls with a hammer and a chisel, ready to start the dismantling, ready to start making trouble. The Lord dwells with us there at the walls. The Lord dances with us and sings with us, when we stand in opposition to those human-built walls that separate us from each other. And the Lord rejoices when we break through those walls and begin to dance with each other.

Reflections on Greece

In October I had the chance of a lifetime to travel to Greece on holiday: to visit ancient sites often reviewed during past Art History classes, to stand in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul and imagine the bustling city of Corinth, and to experience the sites and sounds of the rural and the urban cultures of Greece.... and to experience all of that with my dear friend Molly.

Molly and I have known each other for 10 years, through seminary and first jobs, and thankfully she is a mucky-muck with the World Council of Churches and had a meeting on the island of Crete and asked if I could join her for some touring when her meeting was done. Of course, I jumped at the chance: flights from Germany are very cheap and the chance to visit Greece - again... dream come true... So I hoped on a plane and travelled from Hamburg to Zurich, then Zurich to AThens, then Athens to Heraklion. Unfortunately, Molly and I hadn't communicated very well about which airport I would be waiting for her so as she waited in Chania and I waited in Heraklion we each enjoyed the sites of our respective airports, knowing all the while, deep down, we'd be together. Only through wall posts on Facebook were we able to finally connect.

We spent the first four days of our holidays on Crete, experiencing the rural life of small-beach-town Plakias, where we shared a studio apartment with a nice balcony. It was cloudy, but warm and we spent those beginning days transitioning into holiday mode. Many naps, relaxing on the beach, travels to monasteries and visits to various tavernas and to our favorite ceramist.We then travelled to Athens and after checking into our super-cool hotel (called the Fresh Hotel), went to see the Acropolis - literally "the High city"... the center of Ancient Athens' political and communal life. We saw the Parthenon, the Propylaea, the Erechtheum and a bunch of random columns and capitals and old-looking paving stones just strewn about.

We also made a day-trip to Corinth, travelling by train, bus and taxi to get there, but once there, we were allowed to just wander around the ancient structures.The were collanades where marketplaces once stood, stalls used for oil storage, housing quarters and ancient baths. Molly was interested in the first public toilet which was supposed to be there, but we never found it. I kept expecting to see a white porcelain toilet bowl standing randomly among the ruins, but never saw anything like that... It was fascinating to imagine Paul there speaking to the people of the Corinthian church.

Between the day trip to Corinth, the excellent meals (mostly including Greek yogurt and honey), and the shopping for souvenirs and handcrafted art, I enjoyed being a tourist in Athens. I am a big-city girl and love the hustle and bustle of a new city.


I am also a hotel-nut and the Fresh hotel was absolutely the best! The staff was so nice to us, giving us directions and helping us find our way. There was an awesome restaurant and coffee bar on the rooftop and I spent many afternoons there, relaxing in the cushy couches, enjoying the sunshine, drinking expensive but delicious cappuccinos and writing in my journal.

Moreover, it was great to be away from work and stress, enjoying the adventure of a new city, learning the streets and sights and smells of a new culture. It renewed my love of travel and my wanderlust - and luckily, I am fortunate to be in a perfect location and a perfect church to facilitate such wanderlust. I can leave the church for 10 days with the knowledge that they are self-sufficient and taken care of and during this time, I renew my SELF. What a blessing!