|
| There is a grocery store in Buesingen (more of a mini mart really) that I pass everyday on my way to and from work. In the window are artfully displayed products that one might buy at a grocery store; Swiss chocolate, soap and Pringles to name a few. Their presence in the window is not meant to imply that these items are actully sold at this store but rather to inform passers by of the kind of store that this is.
This store is not meant to supply all the needed ingredients for schnizel, that is what Lidl (if you have Euro) or Migros (if you prefer swiss Francs) is for (I reccomed Migros for milk and produce and Lidl for everything else). This store does what it is meant to do quite well; that is provide a place for you to pick up the liter of milk you forgot at Coop (better milk than Migros) for tomorrows breakfast, a tube of Signal brand toothpaste, or some potato chips for an after work snack (after work but not lunch time as this store, like many stores in Germany, is closed for two hours in the middle of the day so that the store's propriators can eat luch like most normal people.)
| | |
| Once again I have to apologize for not keeping you fine hard working
people informed about my adventures in Switzerland. There are reasons
(or excuses) for this, but I'll get to those in a minute. Also if
you've tried to email me and haven't been able to get through; that is
my fault. Apparently you have to log in every 120 days or your account
is deleted, who knew. In anycase I fixed the problem and
info@stevenvredenburgh.com is now working again.
The last time I
updated I was talking about my trip to Ukraine and some of the projects
I was working on while I was there. It is all a bit of a blur right
now, but the week I got back from Kiev I spent a majority of my time
putting together a video based on the interviews I taped regarding the
rehab centers. This was a particularly difficult task since all of the
interviews were in Russian and I now know 5 phrases in Russian (ask me
some time, I might still remember them). This meant that we had to have
the videos translated, which I knew going into this, but the guy at our
office who speaks Russian was on vacation and wouldn't be back until
the day the video was due.
Frantically we got on the phone
with one of the Missionaries in Ukraine and arranged to have his son
translate them for us. After several days of technical difficulties he
was able to translate the project for us and I was able to finish the
video and turn it in at the last minute. If you attend a Nazarene
Church ask your NMI president to show the videos to you. If you don't
go to a Nazarene Church, one of the videos is on YouTube here. The other I'll post when I get permission from the boss.
This
week has been simultaneously less eventful and busier than it has been
for a while. As far as office work goes I have had very little to do.
All our big projects for this quarter are done and we have yet to start
talking about what we'll be doing next. On the other hand all three of
the people in communications department have been in the process of
moving.
For reasons I'm still unclear of I had to move out of
my apartment so that the regions new finance director could move in. I
wanted to stay on campus and Simone and Amy were happy to move off
campus so they both found rooms elsewhere and I moved into their old
place. The last few days have been spent climbing many many stairs,
packing boxes, and cleaning. The good news is that all my things are in
my new place and most of Simone and Amy's is out. I just have to find a
place to put everything.
I would show you pictures, but
somewhere before I got to Kiev my camera decided it had had a long and
fulfilling life and it was time to go home to be with Ca'non the great
protector who watches over digital cameras with his 3 million mm
telephoto lens from heaven. It broke. I have decided that this is
really a blessing in disguise as it provides me with an excuse to
invest in a decent SLR camera. Someday, when I have money.
One
last thing. On the third floor of the communications center is in the
process of being turned into a TV studio. There has already been a lot
of work put into it, but we could really use some help finnishing it
up. If you attend a church that is looking for a Work and Whitness
project, or know of a church looking for a Work and Whitness project
we'd love to have you. | | |
| I flew into Kiev on July 31 and spent the night at Kiev First Church of the Nazarene. The trip from the airport, which I'm told should take 40 minutes, ended up taking 2 hours. Traffic, I think, is a global pandemic that should be addressed so that I can get to places faster. In any case I met up with several people who had been in kiev for about a week working on getting things ready for NYC (I'll explain in a moment) and hung out in victory square. Good times were had by all and I got to meet a lot of cool people I would get to know better in the next week or so.
NYC stands for Nazarene Youth Conference and is a chance for youth from various regions to get together every four years or so. When I was in High School the US/Canada regional NYC packed out the Houston, TX conference center with several thousand High School students. The Eurasia regional NYC had 270 people from 26 countries and was held in an old communist retreat center (some of the rooms had broken saunas in them) 40 minutes out of Kiev.
The theme of the conference was One Mission and through that lens we looked at the Kingdom of God and what that should look like. Before the conference the communications center put together 4 videos on that topic and one more while we were there.
The first night there one of the pastors there got a bunch of people together and we went swimming in the lake at 10pm, things only got better from there. We also got to spend a day in Kiev seeing some of the sights, like St. Sophie's church and the WWII memorial. The latter of those was intense as the USSR lost about 30 million people of the 60 million total lives lost in the war. There were several villages that were completely destroyed and 2 or 3 that lost all of the men in the village to the war.
During the conference the com team worked on putting together a video that was part recap of the week and part clips of people talking about what they think the kingdom of God is like or should be like. It's always a little stressful trying to put a video together that fast, but I was really happy with how it turned out.
After the conference a group of about 30 people stayed a little longer to participate in ministry teams. 3 teams went to three town in Ukraine to work with the folks in the area. I ended up going to a town called Kosatin where we stayed in a Nazarene sponsored drug and alcohol rehab center with 14 or so guys. While we were there we helped out with several projects in the community. One of the days we were there we visited a mother and child home that has been open for about a month. We brought them food, clothes and toys for the kids and got to talk with the director of the center for a while.
In the afternoons we spent time hanging out with kids in the park. We played darts, charades and took pictures with the kids. I say we, but most of our team sat and watched while the Pastor's wife and a few of the leaders at the rehab center worked with the kids. That's being a little harsh we did join in when we could, but only 3 of the 7 people on our team spoke Russian.
A quick note; one of the leaders at the center has an amazing story. When he was 9 he started smoking, at 13 he started drugs, and at 16 he started heroine. If I heard the story right he's been clean for two years. However a year ago he jumped off a bridge while swimming and broke his neck. The doctors said that he shouldn't be alive, and when he lived they said he wouldn't walk. While I was there he was walking around all over town with a cane.
On top of all the work we were doing in the Kosatin community I was also working on a video project about how the Ukranian rehab centers is funding itself. In working on this story I got to ride in a combine while it was harvesting wheat. I also took the train to another own and talked to a guy at a furniture shop, whose profits would go to support the rehab centers.
I had a really good time while I was there and met a lot of cool people, but I am very glad to be home. Thanks for all your prayers and keep all the people from Ukraine in your prayers.
| | |
| Saturday
I had some free time and so decided to to take a walk down to
Schaffhausen to see the sights. Schaffhausen is only a 4km (2miles or
so) so I figured it was a good place to start exploring. I ended up
visiting an old monastery (I'm told it's still in use) then walking up
a steep hill to a castle that was last used when the French invaded
sometime in the 1700's. I was stunned; I've gotten used to the fact
that most of the buidings in the area have been around for a few
centeries and not a few decades like in the states, but this made even
the monestary anchient. I could go on but I'll let the pictures show you instead.
My
life is not just wandering around the countryside (just the
photographable parts). The rest of the week I spent working much like I
would have at home, except you know, in Germany. August 1st is the
beginning of the Nazarene Youth Conference in Kiev, Ukriane, an event
where roughly 300 youth from the Eurasia region get together to
worrship and learn about God. To that end I've we've been working on
several (four or five) videos that talk about the kingdom of God;
almost like modern day versions of the parables that Jesus told about
the same topic. I hope to share these with you when I'm done with them,
we'll see how things go.
Wednesday I'm traveling to Mainz,
Germany to do some video work (partially on the NYC videos) so you can
pray that traveling goes well as does the video work that I've got to
do. | | |
| today was my first full day in germany/switzerland. I got into zurich
at 7:15 and met Simone and Sibine who took me to Buesingen. (Simone is
my boss and Sibine works with compassionate ministry financing and
other things). When we got into Buesingen I changed clothes and got a
little organized and almost fell asleep in the process.
Later that night we (Simone, Sibine, Nicole [interns for Sibine] and I
went to anoher own just accross the german boarder for dinner. We had
Chineese. It was quite and experience ordering chineese food of a
german menu. Later we go ice cream in schaffhausen (one of the closest
towns on the Swiss side of buesingen. I managed to order a single cone
of chocolate all by myself. It required about 6 words in all, but I'm
still proud of myself.
Being as far north as we are it is still light at 9pm and even a little
later, which has add effects on jet lag sufferers. It also means that
the sun rises at 6am I know because I saw it rise (I have a few good
pictures of it.) So I hung around my apartment for a few hours until I
knew the tech guy would be around to set me up with internet access.
I met Simone at 10:45 and she showed introduced me to a few people at the college and the regional offices.
One of the interesing things about being so close to the border is that
germany uses euro while switzerland uses swiss franks. Since I'm never
sure where I'm going to be going I have to carry both currencies with
me at all times. This also means that we cross the boarder just about
every day for everything from groceries to geting your picture taken
for your visa.
So as I was driving across the border (yes I was driving in
germany/switzerland. I was scared too) I was stopped (they were
stopping alot of people) but since I didn't have my international
drivers liscense (which legally I'm told is not required, but this guy
thought so) and no stamp in my passport we were asked to pull to the
side and wait while he checked things out. He was very kind about it
and let us go without too much trouble (I've heard of people waiting
for up to an hour). Simone says that that's never happened to her
before, so I guess Germany just wanted to give me a welcome present.
We got food in Zinen (I honestly don't know how to spell it) and went
to the store, then Simone showed me around the place I'll be working,
and I picked up some pots and pans from the storage area in the
building. I managed to fix some of the problems that they'd been having
with a particular video so I feel like I got something accomplished
today.
It's only 6:00pm (and raining I might add) but I'm pretty tired (stupid
jet lag) so I'm gong to go make myself dinner and try to stay awake for
a few more hour so that I can get used to this time zone.
| | |
|
