Monday and Tuesday - Germany

Again I woke up at 6 in the morning and did my bible and morning coffee routine. Rafal and Jagoda were up around 7; Rafal brings Jagoda to Kindergarten on his way to work. Karina was up and at it around 9 am and Jeremiah was fed and happy. He is a beautiful little boy and happy as a clam most of the time :-).

Karina and I had breakfast and another great conversation together. I am so amazed at what happens during a conversation sometimes. How open people are to listen and how words seem to go to a place where they are needed and wanted. Martijn came at 10 o'clock to pick me and my bags up to go the Wroclaw airport. On the way we stopped at the best looking McDonalds I have ever seen. We said our "see you later"s; I really would like to go back and continue building the relationship we started in such a short period of time. Martijn and Ellen are wonderful people who started, built and pastor a church of great people.

The two plane rides to Stuttgart were rather uneventful if you don't count the busrides from the gates all over the respective airport landing and parking strips to get to the planes. I did notice now though that there are people in reflective vests who are keeping an eye out for accidents and such. That made me slightly feel better.

Outside of the Stuttgart Airport Baggage Claim area I met Gisela Huyssen. Gisela and her late husband were (and she still is one) missionaries in several countries all over the world, most significantly in The Philippines where her 3 sons are all involved in church and leadership building. World Mission for Jesus is the organization her husband started (http://www.wmfj.org/) and where Gisela is the International President. She came back to the place in Germany where she was born and raised (Frickenhausen) and she started a church there which has now grown to about 40 people on average. She works closely with Jochen Geiselhart who is the Foursquare Regional Supervisor of Southern Germany and with Jurgen Zeeh, the pastor of the Foursquare church in the nearby town of Engstingen. She really is a dynamite woman who absolutely and whole-heartedly loves the Lord.

After we had exchanged introductions, she told me that her 77-year old and dearest Aunt Traude was in the hospital with serious health problems, things like blood cloths in her legs and longs, a discovery of pancreatic cancer, no blood circulation in the left leg and bad circulation in the right leg. As you can imagine, we were on our way to the hospital right away...

We visited with and prayed for Aunt Traude who is a lively, clear-eyed, silver haired woman, who now all of a sudden had to make an awful decision. With pancreatic cancer in her body, the doctors told her that she would not live longer than 2 months. No blood circulation in her left leg means that death is imminent because of blood poisoning. It was apparent to all of us (her daughter Gabi, her niece Gisela, and myself, the stranger from America) that this woman wants to live. Since the doctors were very insistent about the urgency of the condition of the left leg, Aunt Traude decided that the doctors should go ahead and the leg should be amputated. Doesn't that just sound absolutely unbelievable? So, today (Tuesday), she went in for surgery and when Gisela and I visited her again around 5:30 in the afternoon, she was awake and had an unbelievably positive attitude. She even said that she had told the Lord that He now had to be her left leg for her from now on. And she smiled! She reminded me of the woman in the bible who came to Jesus because she wanted him to heal her daughter. Jesus told her that He only came to help the children of Israel and since she was not one of them, He was not going to do anything for her. She kept on insisting: crumbs fall off the children's table all the time, and the dogs get to eat those, so how about I will get the crumbs of what the children don't eat? I have always had this feeling that Jesus smiled and that He liked her because she did not give up after the first refusal. And He gave her what she wanted. I pray that Jesus will give Aunt Traude what she wants: a good night's sleep, a fast and not-painful healing of the wound, and proper blood circulation in her right leg. And I also pray for a few more years added to her life so she can give God the glory and so she can be an example to a lot of women in Gisela's church.

After our hospital visit on Monday evening, we drove home, ate a quick dinner and went to Gisela's church where four ladies where waiting for my teaching :-)! During my time in Poland, I had spoken with one of the young men in Martijn's church who stated that he was not convinced that the bible had all the answers for our lives (he studied philosphy and mathmatics), and that he thought philosophers through the ages had better ideas than the bible... That discussion made me think why I think that the bible has all the answers, so I went on a search of why the bible is so important to me. There were many scriptures and reasons why I think the bible is so important, and so that is what I talked about to those ladies on Monday evening. Gisela translated me and we had a good time together!

Tuesday morning Gisela and I went to a bakery where they have the best bread pretzels in town, and devoured them when we came back home! Lovely stuff! At 9:30 we got in the car, drove to Gisela's brother's house and picked up a bucket with tools and off we went to Baden-Baden where Gisela's mother-in-law is buried. We were there to do the semi-annual grave site cleaning. Yes, one must be ready for anything on a mission trip! With the two of us it took about 15 minutes to make it presentable again for another while, and off we went from the cemetery to the home of Jochen and Brigit Geiselhart. As I mentioned above, Jochen is the Foursquare Regional Supervisor for Southern Germany, a good friend of Gisela's, pastor of the local Foursquare church and also the managing director of a nursing home that Gisela's late husband's father started back in the day. We had a lovely lunch together; it was great to be introduced to Jochen and his wife.

After lunch Gisela and I went back home, but not by means of the Auto Bahn (which is a dangerous place, believe me!). We took back roads and went up and down the Schwarzwaldhohestrasse. Yes, Gisela took me to Mummelsee where the local Berg Hotel serves the BEST Schwarzwalderkirshtorte I have ever tasted in my life! It was a beautiful ride through the mountains, over the rivers and through the woods. And on our way home we visited Aunt Traude as I told you before... we were all the way home by 7 with bread and meat and cheese on the table for dinner with no plans for the evening other than putting our lounge clothes on with Gisela answering and making phone calls and I working on my blog...