In the past 4 weeks, a lot has been going on here at Unterwegs. The semester started 4 weeks ago and we didn’t have events at the house. Instead we were out and about on campus putting up flyers, handing out candy and ice cream just to get the word out about Unterwegs. I wore a rainbow colored full body suit in order to catch the eye and show off the fun side of Unterwegs. Our students came out and helped out a bit and that was great just to show we are just a bunch of random Americans but that people know us. It was a long week however, going straight from school to the University and advertising all day, it was a lot. We were meeting like 200 students a day, and a bunch of come by to Cafe English or Just Lunch.
The following week we began our events. Just Lunch is way better in the summer since we can have it outside. We play four-square, washers, and soccer and eat hot dogs. It’s like paradise. The weather here makes is a completely different town. In the winter, hardly anyone is outside, now I have no idea where all these people came from. I have a ice cream place not far from my apartment that sells ice cream for a euro a scoop. I can’t remember how much Cold Stone but I’m almost certain its more than that. But anyway, Just lunch was great but Tuesday is my busiest day, next is Handball and then a small group to close out the day. I don’t know if I have mentioned Handball before but I have played almost every Tuesday since January, and now I’m starting to dominate. Or at least, I think I am. It always seems like the rules only apply to me. Handball has a similar rule to Basketball that you have 3 steps or you have to dribble. But nobody sticks to this rule, and we have a referee and she never says anything. It’s like the NBA. Then when I stick to the rules and dribble, someone tells me afterward that I was “carrying”. And I want to say, “Yeah, carrying my team to victory.” But I don’t. I have tweaked Cafe English a little to be a little more Cafe. Combine that with the house reservations and it looks good. One of the teachers at the University offers extra credit if they come to Cafe English which is pretty cool and it has shown with increasing numbers. Every week I tell Beth or someone on the team, “We’re gonna need a bigger boat,” which of course is code for, “We’re gonna need a bigger house.” When it gets warm enough that the nights are warm, we’ll move it outside. But that week was big because it was the Unterwegs 2 year anniversary. We had a party at the house and grilled out. Some students got together and wrote us a song with the main theme being, “We are Unterwegs, we are here for everyone.” We also honored one student who graduated 2 weeks ago and has been with Unterwegs since it began. So we officially have alumni now.
Last week was our first Donnerstagabend event of the new semester. Our theme this semester is “Once upon a time…”. Basically, we picked a couple stories from Jesus’ ministry that we felt connected with and each team member we give the message of the story the picked. The stories are paraletic, Nicodemis in the tree, the healing of the blind man when he at first saw trees then say clearly, the prodigal son and then a wrap up. Mine is the blind man, I will be doing that on June 9th. Tyler talked about some stories that students were involved in and told a story about the toaster the students gave us during the break. One funny story from that night was, we all were there late and locking up and there was still one student with us and while we were walking out of the house at 1 in the morning he stops and says, “I have an announcement to make.” We all just stopped immediately and looked at him, holding our breaths. OK, it’s late at night at a campus ministry, after a bible study event, and a student that has really been engaging in Unterwegs says that. What would go through your mind? So when he invited us all to us birthday party that is today actually, we all exhaled at the same time and looked at each other like, “That wasn’t what I was expecting.”
This week we started our Vesper event. It’s a smaller bible study event we try to get our regulars to go to. It’s for team building, leadership stuff, and to go deeper with discussion. It was our first one last night, and it went really well. We showed this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbk980jV7Ao&feature=youtube_gdata_player . That was followed by discussion about the passage in one of Paul’s letters on doing things not for selfish reason but just to build another person up. Since the first bible study group started back in January, they have started popping up all over Unterwegs, and when I say that I mean like 2 or 3. But still, that’s huge. I am amazed almost everyday how quick walls go up when the word, “Christian” is brought up. The ones that get over that say we’re different from everything else out there and give it a good name. Over Easter, we went as a team to church everyday that weekend. We also invited students to come a long. And they came. The small victories we get are great, but I/we would really love a big one. The anticipation is killing me. Oh and I forgot, we had two new team members arrive. Pam and Nathan Heald are here so now Unterwegs is rolling 6 deep instead of four, with summer volunteers on the horizon. It’s great having them here, more hands, and more brains. Yesterday we became an official German nonprofit organization. We had a signing ceremony, nothing like the Deceleration of Independence like I was imagining but still a big deal. I’m an intern and a board member in the same organization, how often has that happened?
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