It is well...

So yesterday the parents left. 'Twas quite a day. I don't think I really slept the night before because people were having a party above me until 3.30 am and when they finished I was in such a wound-up state I couldn't really get to sleep. So the goodbyes to the parents was really difficult. I was just too tired to keep a rein on my emotions. When I was really little and my mum used to drive me to school every morning I used to ask every traffic light to turn red so I would have longer with her and less time at school. I felt like that again yesterday as we were going to the airport.

And so on the way home I prayed and prayed in a way I haven't for a while (in fact since the summer) ... I sometimes do wonder what on earth I am doing spending a year working with students many of whom have no vision whatsoever, many of whom are really hard work, and on top of that the place in which we have been thrust is just huge and completely terrifying.

I napped, and then went to my SMD (German Christian Union) group. It was wonderful! Not all of them turned up, but the ones who were there were just so nice! We had a great Bible study on Jonah 1. It's fab. There's a bit in it when the sailors on the ship are so terrified that they are going to drown that they draw lots and the German says "sie warfen das Los und das Los fiel auf Jona" (they drew lots and the lot fell on Jonah) ... they all pray to their various gods to save them from the horrendous storm (Jonah is fleeing from God and so God is chasing him) and the real God answers them by directing the lots they draw. It shows me, at least, why life is so intricate. There are some stonking bits coming up. I'm excited. Stories about fishes swallowing men and vines withering... and the truth in chapter 2 verse 10 that "die Hilfe kommt vom HERRN" (Salvation comes from the Lord).

The group cooked something resembling pizza and we ate it round a kind of oven-fire like thing that they are using to heat their house. Cosy. They have no fridge! Puts the ants into perspective. But at least they have each other. It's quite lonely where I'm living. I might look for somewhere else.

And then my team leader let me sleep in her flat of joy. It's the place I stayed for a fortnight when I first came to Berlin and so holds many excited, happy, forward-looking memories; so it was the perfect place to stay the night and get some sleep back.

Today it was Phil's 21st and so we had a day of eating and film watching, completed with an evening playing Berlin Monopoly which we bought him for his birthday. It was great fun, although I kept going to Gefängnis and being forbidden to go über Los which was most frustrating, but at least I got to three houses on my highest set and got the electricity and water boards. I didn't get any money from Frei Parken either.

What I did forget to mention was that before the parents came we went to see Hertha Berlin beat Stuttgart 2:1 in the Olympic Stadium (where Zidane did the headbutt in the 2006 World Cup) ... it was great fun! I'd never been to a football match before and really enjoyed the atmosphere - everybody was pretty well behaved, even the drunk Germans, although we weren't right in the hardcore fans' stand. They didn't get drunk as the English are seen to do (again, this is going from TV not actual experience). We were pretty close to the pitch and it looked quite small, but when we climbed up to exit the stadium I got a real picture of how massive it all was. Not sure I'd really follow Hertha - last night I think they played in the UEFA cup because I saw lots of fans on the U-Bahn about 22.30 (how European am I with my 24hr clock?) and I had no idea beforehand - but if I were to support something out here it might be that. Although my choir man (choirmaster?) loves the ice hockey scene so I might check that out. Or even basketball. There are loads of adverts for Berlin's ALBA team on the TV screens in the U-Bahn, where incidentally I get most of my information on current affairs these days.

So it's been an up and down few days.

Facts and not feelings are what sustains me. I go up and down like a yo-yo, especially dealing with such an uncertain, freestyling "job" with the SMD and IFES (http://www.ifesworld.org/) - but above my bed I have stuck words from a hymn which I always draw great comfort from:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.