me me me me me me

Blogging has in the last few weeks become like writing Christmas thank-you letters: something I know I ought to do but it gives me no pleasure thinking about it and so I put it off and off. But the funny thing about both Christmas thank-you letters and blogging is that they are both quite enjoyable, but hide their enjoyableness from you. The reason I like them both is because I get to tell people about me.

I reckon I should start by giving a quick update on life in order, through the medium of keywords (?) … since the end of February.
Moved House
Mum came
Went to Paris (flew Air France, saw my balcony in my new flat from the plane)
Saw lots of wonderful people in Paris and had a great time doing a bit of singing
Had a week back in Berlin with my awesome flatmate
Had a flatwarming party (woop) in which my phone got stolen (grr)
Went home on ze Flugzeug straight from teaching
Saw friends from school – lush
Went to church in Cambridge, equally lush, lost some kind of game that gave me an embarrassing forfeit much to the delight of Brian Elfick
Helped the epic clear out of my grandfather’s wonderful house: said goodbye to it for the last time, which felt like closing part of my childhood. Does that make me a WOMAN now? I think not.
Flew back to Frankfurt Hahn – an experience in itself. It’s pretty much as near to Frankfurt as Cambridge is. Stupid Ryanair.
Went on the StudiKon (www.studikon.de)
Took the train back to Berlin with the crew for 7 hours
Got back to Berlin
Went to a language school giving out welcome packs and trying to chat to people
Made carrot soup

Which makes me realise that perhaps I ought not to enjoy writing weder thank-you letters noch mein Blog but each of those had some kind of meaningful effect, except perhaps the carrot soup, but perhaps even that did, because it is another example of how wonderful it is to live with Tine. And how much of a difference it’s made to my experience of Berlin so far. There is something about living with another Christian, especially one that I get on well with, that means caring and sharing takes on another dimension.

There was one other thing I wanted to say as well (as well as my now prolific use of commas, sorry) … which is about the title of my blog : ie the “What happens when you give your year abroad back to God?” … well, it might sound really cheesy but that is totally what I am doing this year. Most of the things I am doing, dealing with and having to endure (haha, not as difficult as endure but still the little things that my job involves aren’t always that much fun) are things that I myself find really awful and in my own strength could not and would not want to do. But because I believe that – especially relevant just after Easter – that Jesus really did live, really did die and really did rise from the dead and therefore lives today, it is not my strength that I am relying on. It is promised in the Bible – Paul says in his letter to the Philippian church that “I can do everything through him who gives me strength” … but then why? Why would I want to go out and talk to people about Jesus and stand in the cold and rain by a little table of feeble pamphlets hoping someone will come and talk to me? I do it because I believe that through Jesus, God has given me something so big that I can only respond by giving him not only my year abroad but my whole life. And I want others to know the pure joy that comes from knowing what it is like to be in relationship with God and the comfort it is to draw strength from him, not me.

That’s why.

And that’s why I’m most probably coming straight back here after f*nals.

And on a completely different note, I won’t go into details about it, but man alive the only way to cleanliness on the StudiKon were COMMUNAL SHOWERS. Like, full on (but not mixed) … hilarious. Kind of liberating. But still, man alive.

http://www.st-helens.org.uk/easter/