Why are you really doing this?

This week is one in which Berlin students find themselves with high stress levels. Textbooks and notebooks full of notes from the past few months in front of them, trying to decode what it is they wrote down in October that will be on their upcoming tests. Oh, test week!

Our STINT team, partially remembering from our experiences as students that this week is one where you can between wanting to cry thinking about all you need to do and the elation of actually remembering a concept for your test, decided to serve the students.

So, we gathered together this morning to, through the help of some assembly line action, put together 300 studying care packages. Filled with goodies like Haribo gummi bears, tea, coffee, etc, we set out to hand them out to unsuspecting Berlin students.

How skeptical of free things we as humans are. Can someone really give something with no strings attached? Can we really serve people without wanting something in return? How many students turned down free snacks. It was fun to be there and while handing out the packages observe the reactions of German students. The skeptical "Why are you really doing this? to "Wow, this is so generous!" with a smile breaking across their face. It was fun to see stressed out students suddenly not be able to wipe a smile off their face. To see them do the double take as we assured them that we were truly giving them a free gift.

I love that I get to be here to serve the students of Berlin. That some days they get to experience a free gift, a physical gift. Other days we talk to students and enter into spiritual conversations, asking them questions and sharing with them how they can have the gift of life. What a gift!

you fail sometimes

Failure. I will admit that more often than not, I fear failing. There are times when I play out situations in my head, and if I fear I will fail, I'll not go through with them in real life. Then come the times when you have no choice. You have things on your list that you need to do. Things like getting a cell phone, setting up a bank account, getting a visa.

This picture has nothing to do with this post
I just liked it!

Those things are exactly what I have had to do since being here in Berlin. They seem like small simple things, but I think at times it's the small simple things that test us the most. Especially when the small and simple, doesn't stay, well, simple. In fact, all of those things have become more complicated than I ever wanted them to be.

Through my frustration of not knowing the system and making mistakes in applying for all of those things, I have felt frustrated & humbled. That through using these things, God has been showing me how I sometimes take the little things for granted and how I rely on my own ability instead of his. In these moments of frustration, there is a choice I have to make. Am I going to walk in the Spirit or not. You see, I think sometimes it's the littlest things that test us the most. The smallest things that can get under our skin the most.

Thankfully, I have had many doses of frustration and some I have handled well, and others, not so much.  May Jesus use the small things in your life and mine to shape us more into His image!

Kimberly

Sonntag in Berlin

I don't know if anyone out there is like me, but I'm going to throw this out there. Weekends are hard. I love them, don't get me wrong, but either I feel this HUGE pressure to do all that I ever wanted/need to do in two days and never accomplish all I have planned. That, or I have no plans and wander aimlessly through a weekend and when Sunday evening rolls around I think, what did I even do?

Weekends in Berlin have been very slow, and I have really enjoyed that, besides special Sundays, the shops, besides Restaurants are closed. Here's what my typical Sunday in Berlin looks like:

8 am Wake up
10 am leave for church
11 am -1:15pm Church at Berlin Projekt

Then, besides lunch there is nothing built into my days. I have been enjoying going to church and worshipping in German. It has been challenging my language abilities, and beyond that, it's been challenging my faith and belief. Something about having to really pay attention to understand what's going on around me and then from there process through what that means for my life. There are definitely times when I miss my favorite songs, or singing in English.

I am learning to enjoy a different pace of life, that we can rest and there is value in that! :) What about you?

Wer ist die schönste Dame an der Spree?

Of course the answer to the question is Berlin. The question is (who is the most beautiful woman on the Spree? The Spree is a river that runs through Berlin.


I've already been here in Berlin for two weeks. There are just some things that happen in your life that are so hard to comprehend. One of those would be that I finished raising my support and am free to do what God has called me to do in Berlin. I thought I would make this a little more of a light-hearted post giving you a little insight into how my adjustment to life in Berlin is going.


Things I LOVE about Berlin:

*the underground/transportation system
*living within walking distance of a grocery store, or two, well actually three
*doing daily life in German
*speaking German
*people-watching on the subway

*the international influence:people from all around the world call Berlin home
*that Germans love coffee
*getting to know the other people in my language class
*having keys, a place to call home, and being able to make someplace feel like home


Things I'm learning to love:
*cobblestones. so pretty. so hard on my feet.
*going to church here. I love the church I go to, but at times I miss singing the songs I've sung my whole life, knowing people where I am, having people know me
*my neighbors
*my team....I'm constantly learning how to love them well, as I get to know them more. 

These two weeks have gone by so quickly, and I've loved almost every moment. I feel so at home here! Here's how you can be praying for me & my team:

Language School//that we would be diligent to learn and take the opportunity that we've been given to become learners of the German culture by learning their language. That we would build friendships with the other students in our class.

UniMAT//Next week we will be spending two days at a conference for German campus staff. I may get to do some translating for the team. Pray that God would give me understanding and the supernatural ability to do that well.

Spiritual Movements// Pray for spiritual movements here in Berlin. Pray for movement in people's own personal life, including mine. That these small movements would invite others to come and be a part of what we're doing.

in Berlin

Kimberly 

a becoming reality

Everyday, it becomes more and more real! I'm going to Berlin! I leave September 2nd. I have a friend who flies out this very week!! I am currently at STINT briefing, where we learn about what our job will be overseas, and grow in relationship with our teams.

So far, it has been so good! I have seen friends from Ocean City and I seriously LOVE my team going to Berlin. There are nine women and 2 men! Wow! What an awesome group of people that I am privileged to  spend a year of my life with.

Our speaker asked us to think about the moment that we knew. The moment we decided that we were going to go overseas. I think mine has been a series of decisions and a series of moments, but I think the first time I started to see God's heart for the world and feel the tug of that on my life, rather, to seriously consider that was when I was in Ocean City. We had a week that was dedicated to World Vision, and basically were bombarded with the facto over and over again, that God wants people from every tribe, tongue, and nation as a part of His Kingdom. I realized that was something that I could be a part of.

I think while I was in Berlin, I had another moment. It was our last Sunday there and one of our last days and I was sitting in church and overwhelmed with the reality that this is what my life could look like for a year.

It is because of HIM that I am here, ready to go to Berlin, because of Him, that I can go and share with other people.

Kimberly

"The will of God for our lives is bigger than we ever imagined." Jim Elliot

Is HE good?

I have been wrestling, pondering, discussing, thinking, mainly consumed for quite a while by the goodness of God. Probably not in the way that you'd think. This attribute of God is the hardest one for me to believe. How can God be good when I've been through crazy stuff in my life, there's war, famine, etc. Although I know that my own experiences in life have lead me to even entertain these thoughts. The thoughts that doubt the goodness of God.

I know that the process started a lot sooner than this, but the place where I started to confront my disbelief of God's goodness with the Word of God was last summer. We did a whole Bible Study one night on God's goodness to His people. It kind of felt like an inconvenient truth. Over and over and over again in the Bible, people talk about the goodness of God. "Every good and perfect gift comes from above." "The Lord will supply all my need according to His riches in glory." The references continue.

I don't even know how I had come to disbelieve it, but I think that I had failed to protect that belief and slowly the world and my enemy started to chip away at that belief as I saw what was going on around me without looking through the lens of scripture. I stopped being satisfied in what God have given to me and started looking in other places for satisfaction.

I won't say that this issue is laid to rest in my life. You know what, it may never be. However, there have been some things, including the Bible Study that I did that have challenged my thinking and have started me asking the questions: when did I stop believing He is good, and how can I change that? As I opened up with God and told Him what I thought, He started to bring some things into my life. (Sorry for the ensuing list)

1) One of my friends was diagnosed with cancer and this is a blogpost he wrote that rocked me.
2) This song.
3) I realized that I believed that God was withholding good from me. That there were things that I thought i deserved for following Him. I thought i deserved wealth, friendships, a relationship, that I wouldn't have to experience brokenness.
4) This season. How can I believe that God is not good when everyday I see Him at work as I trust Him to go to Berlin. He's providing in more ways than I can ask, think or imagine!

i believe He is good,
Kimberly

Electricity Dependent...

The lights flickered before they went out. The storm that brought darkness at 6pm also brought copious amounts of rain and our lights went out. These lines could no longer hold on against the storm. Here I sit seventeen hours later, and there is still no electricity in my house. I came to the library to send a few emails and on my drive I thought about the night and the morning. How many times I flipped the light switch just out of habit. I definitely did not freak out because I mean there's plenty to do right? Well, everything I thought of doing like checking e-mail, or opening the refrigerator for something to drink, well it takes some amount of energy. How dependent we have become for those currents to come into our house. You know what I'm realizing? I actually like it. How much quieter it is without the hum of the lights, the clocks, the refrigerator. How that does something for my soul. I'm not suggesting that we all go Walden and get rid of everything that needs to be plugged in, but instead that maybe we could unplug some things and just listen.

Beyond that, I wonder this, what if I was dependent on God the way that I'm dependent on the lights or the refrigerator or even running water (which takes electricity). I walk in a room and out of complete habit I flick the switch. Even if I told myself like five seconds ago that the electricity doesn't work. My body has been conditioned to turn the lights on. What if that were true, that I instantly turned to God instead of, well anything else. That it was completely a way of life. Not just a habit for the sake of habits, but one thing that by faith I taught myself to do.

Hoping the lights come on soon,

Kimberly