The best laid plans of man... Part 2

We are so proud of our students! As you know, Rhein International Academy is a Christian school, but Christianity is more than just learning from the Bible, it is working the lessons of the Bible and faith out in the real world. So, when the tragedies struck Myanmar and China over the last couple of weeks, it was not terribly surprising (but very heart-warming) when our middle-school students wanted to take action. They came up with the idea of a bake sale. They researched the different groups that have a presence in the countries already. They understood especially the difficulties of getting aid to the people who needed it in Myanmar. They found that World Vision is already in country there and chose it for their proceeds. The students organized publicity, sent out requests for support (i.e. bring in the goodies) and staffed the tables. Different grades helped bake items to sell - we literally involved the entire school in the project.

One of our middle-schools students sells baked goods to her mother (No special discounts here!)

The first-grade class is pictured here with another of our middle-school students. Guess whose parents brought in the sushi? (Let me tell you, the sushi and spring rolls sold out quickly - do you see any spring rolls on the table?)

Another of our middle-school students designed and created this sign in German as we have some foot traffic that walks by the school and we didn't want to leave them out.

I can just see this student saying: "What's it going to take to get you to buy one of my delicious wares today?" (By the way, that 50 cent sign is for 50 Euro-cents - roughly $0.75 US) The students raised over € 200 and 30+ CHF which works out to about $350.00 for the earthquake and cyclone relief. It may not seem like much when there is such deep need, but therein lies the lesson: it is not the amount that counts, but the motivation of the heart. These students are learning to reach out beyond themselves to be the adults and citizens of tomorrow. What a privilege it is to be a part of shaping how they see and affect their (and our) world.

Love all, serve all. Be blessed this coming week!

The best laid plans of man...

We finally have some time to catch everyone up on the blog today due to a series of quite interesting and humorous circumstances. After a fantastic church retreat last weekend, we came back renewed and challenged in several great ways. Delynn and I had a very "European" room arrangement. The retreat center we used caters more often to singles than couples and are quite spartan compared to U.S. standards. Many of the rooms are set with bunk-beds, two small study tables and chairs, armoire and sink with the toilet and shower down the hall. However, the retreat, the fellowship, the movement of God's Spirit in that place was incredible. It was definitely something we needed more than we even realized. But, it left us behind on other commitments, like the blog. Here are a couple of pictures from the retreat - such beauty can bring one to tears.


We traditionally have a talent show during retreat - except for our friend Bryn on guitar (works at one of the local pharmaceuticals in Basel) these are all teachers at RIA. Amy-Jo is signing, Allison is singing, Anne is on violin and yours truly on bongos. I didn't know I had it in me...

Anyway, back to the subject this entry. Today is a holiday in Germany -it is called Fronleichnam or perhaps better known as Corpus Christi in the states. So, federal holiday in Germany means no work, shops are closed, busses and trains on holiday schedule. Okay, good so far. We have a day off school. By the way, this is our last holiday before school ends on 18 June.

Now, in Switzerland, each Kanton or state is either Catholic or Protestant (I know, weird concept in the U.S.). Based on this, it may or may not be a holiday. The question then arises: Are the trains running on a non-holiday or holiday schedule? The city of Basel is its own Kanton (sort of a City-State) and happens to be Protestant (although historically it was Catholic), so our friends who live in Germany (holiday today) and work in Basel (no-holiday today) therefore need to report in to work. Of course, since Basel is "open today", lots of Germans take advantage of the holiday to go shopping. Now, France doesn't celebrate the holiday at all, so it is also "open" (i.e. shops, trains on regular schedule (snicker...), etc.).

Delynn and I had the brilliant idea that we would take advantage of our day off to travel to Mulhouse (roughly pronounced "M00-looze" on French), France. Why? Well, because we have never been there and it's only 30 minutes from the Basel main train station, so why not. Oh, yeah. Did I mention that the SBB (Swiss rail company) is doing construction at a train stop, so our normal train schedules are mixed up for a couple of weeks? Well, okay - there it is. This actually works in our favor today because we can take a train from Weil am Rhein directly to the Swiss Main station without making a transfer at the Basel Badisher Bahnhof (that's the German train station that physically resides in Switzerland). Confused yet?

So. Here we go. We catch the 1038 train from Weil a. Rh. to the Basel Main station. Great. We walk over to the ticket counter and queue up. Delynn holds our spot while I jaunt over to the ATM and get some CHF (Swiss Francs) cause they don't use the € in Switzerland. When our turn comes, we are informed by the nice lady behind the glass that the French Rail are on strike today. Trains may or may not be going at times which may or may not roughly match the train schedule and that said trains are subject to random stops and "pauses" so there is no telling how long a 30-minute trip to Moo-looze will take. Plus, the return trip would be totally random depending on the whims of the French Rail folk. We have dealt with French strikes before, so the best thing we could do was return to Weil and our apartment 90-minutes after we had left on our little adventure. It was not a wasted trip however as we were able to purchase our June rail pass at the station while we were there and we stepped over to the Co-op grocery for something (since stores are closed back home in Germany).

Plus, as a complete bonus, we have a great story to share with all of our family and friends. Now you can see why we love it here!

Love to all.

Teacher and Staff Appreciation Week

It has been another wonderful week here in Germany in so many different ways. The weather has been exceptional. It has been in the mid-20's every day this week. Nice thing about spring here is the low humidity. We have several staff members that hail from the southern states - and they know from humid. With this weather, what we like mostly to do is bask in the warm sunny rays while enjoying (you knew it was coming...) a nice ice cream. Our Canadian friends here had a funny story about being with family on a trip somewhere. During the middle of a conversation about family or politics or Canada, someone piped up: "Did somebody mention something about an ice cream?" and off they went. So now, we have now taken to using that phrase rather often. By telling this story in our blog, I am hoping that the use of this phrase will spread far and wide - it works best of course when not talking about food (So, our family won't be able to use it much...) But, I digress.

It was Teacher and Staff Appreciation week in Germany - I don't know much about these traditions (we never had Software Engineer Appreciation week at Intel...) Our parents lavished us with a special breakfast one day and lunch on another. Our director's Bible Study group took over our cleaning duties on Friday afternoon (I was on downstairs bathrooms, so I REALLY appreciated that). They were all such a blessing to us all. Anyway, on Wednesday, the students brought flowers to their teachers and staff. Wow, what a surprise - I had never gotten flowers before. Each child has a bouquet of flowers - they walk around and present their teachers and the staff with a single flower and soon we were awash in a beautiful flora.

Here are Delynn and I, each at our desks with the beautiful results. Some of the flowers came from the childrens' own gardens, some had notes attached, but each flower was special. I think the students enjoy giving them away as much as we enjoyed receiving them. I think that I win the prize for the biggest bunch! (Please note that the hair is coming in nicely...)

May is also our Cultural Celebration Month at RIA - and boy do we have a lot of cultural to celebrate! We had our students do a take home project: to make a family flag. We then had an assembly where the students shared what their flag means. The vast majority of our families are multi-ethnic - everything from Scottish-Polish to Swiss-German. One family had 4 flags in theirs: Spain (where one child was born), America (younger sibling was born there), China (where the children grew up) and Switzerland (where they currently live). Student after student stood up and presented their diverse, yet seemless integration of cultures. It was a poignant reminder of how far we have come in shrinking this planet on which we live.
Chinese, German, American, French, Scot, Swiss, Polish, Lebanese, Indian, English, Spanish, Columbian - no matter what the nationality, God finds each precious. There is a lot we can learn from children.
Oh, yeah. We got a new chair. Weil am Rhein, the City of Chairs (die Stadt der Stühle) got its most recent edition last month. At a park near the school, the town of Löffingen erected this fine chair - complete with viewing platform! The children underneath were having a game of hide-and-seek at the park.

By the way, this entry is being written on Monday because it is Pfingstmontag (Pentecost Monday) which is a holiday in France, Switzerland and Germany (probably some other places too.) Also, we will be away at a church retreat all next weekend, so the next post will be delayed somewhat. Our church retreat is called "Food for the Journey" - pretty cool when you think about it... Love to all.

April showers bring May flowers...

And May flowers bring lots of pollen. Ahhh-cheww! Good thing we have the Costco-size bottle of allergy medicine. We have just enjoyed our first May Day in Germany. While it was fairly calm down here in the south, May Day (sort of the Europeon Labor Day) brings with it the usual protests for higher wages and some rioting in the larger cities. It also marks the start of vacation season. We have some friends that could not find a hotel room in Vienna for the weekend (oh, there was that suite for €800 per night...). I think they decided to take some day trips around Weil. I conveniently came down with a cold, but I have effectively knocked it back with lots of Vitamin C (fizzy tablets of course), liters of juice and walks in the sunshine.

Our town of Weil a. Rh. had a lot of activity this weekend. The weather was in the low 20's (low-mid 70's F.) with clear skies. Weil hosted two different festivals - the first was a fitness festival in which they closed down a section of the Hauptstraße (see below) to allow vendors of various types to hawk their goods. The model shop had a course laid out for kids to race some remote controlled cars. There was a para-glider and scuba diving vendors, cardio-fitness, body care products and insurance sales (okay, so it is a loose definition of "fitness").

But they also had PowerRisers! This seems to be an up-and-coming thing in the Dreiländereck - they are short, springy pogo-stick like extensions for running. Delynn said that they remind her of something from Star Wars. I captured the guy mid-flight in picture below. Looks like great fun, but I think I will stick to a bicycle...

This old bus was on display right outside our apartment building. It can be rented out for special occasions - weddings, retirement parties, etc. I think that in the past, the Deutsche Post also ran some bus services (probably to the outlying towns) because this bus has several Post emblems and what looked like a slot on the side of the bus for posting letters. Anyway, I thought dad would like this picture, so here it is.

WARNING: for the slightly squeemish, one of the following pictures and descriptions may need to be vetted by someone of less delicate constitution.

So, in the middle of town, we are having a loosely-defined "fitness" festival while simultaneously, not 3 blocks away, Weilers are celebrating a Schlachtfest! which literally translated is a "slaughter festival" (yeah, really.) I had to ask my German friend Karin about this one. So, in the past, when someone in the village would slaughter an animal (which was a pretty rare event in those days) like a pig or a cow, they would throw a small party. While most of an animal's meat and parts can be preserved using various means (most involving salt and smoke), there are parts of the animal that must be consumed quickly. So you invite the neighbors over for the party to share in the meal. Karin said that the farmer would inflate the animal's stomach like a balloon and post it on the fence to signify the party place. Yum!

No inflated animal parts here, but in springtime, Germans, like people throughout the world, will take any excuse to set up a bandstand and tables, erect food stalls to sell Wurst, Schumpfnudlen (concoction of potato noodles, sauerkraut and bacon), and Heissemandeln (hot candied almonds) and just enjoy the sunshine together. Of course, a Schlachtfest would not be complete without bringing out the mechanical bull.
And, here it comes... An ox on a spit. Now, some people will find this rather disgusting, but I have seen one before and really it is not much different than roasting a chicken, it just takes a bigger rotisserie. I took this picture on Friday morning, just as the fest was starting up. Delynn and I both sampled the ox and it was delicious - a very tender roast beef flavor. Germans eat very little beef, so this is quite a treat. By late afternoon on Saturday, this entire ox was consumed - it was literally bones on a spit (sorry, no picture of that one - I didn't take a camera)

I hope that from our postings, we do not mislead everyone - it probably seems like all we do here is travel and have fun - right? Well, we are doing good work here too. Our students and their families are our focus. We are greatly blessed to be able to be here and do not take it for granted. We are grateful for your thoughts, your prayers and your support. Love to all.