Immediate, Costly Obedience
Come on a journey (virtually) with us! Beginning on January 22nd, we (Greater Europe Mission) and many of our friends will be journeying together through a five-week devotional book about service – what it means to reflect Christ and be His hands and feet for all to see! The end of our time together will culminate in a day of service on February 26th. We would love for you to join us. To get your five-week devotional book about service so that you can participate or to find out more, go to our website at www.GEMission.org/Pray/DevotionalTangible.asp
Maybe this is to be your New Year’s resolution that you don’t break!
Prismatically Encapsulate
A few weeks ago, the pastor from our sending church, Lake Forest, made a statement about “Prismatically Encapsulate”. It sounds beautiful but what does it mean? We weren’t the only ones that asked that question and Mike on his blog said that:
‘prismatically encapsulate’ is a brilliant post-modern linguistic syllogism for the orthodox Christian doctrine of ‘incarnation.’ Or the completely made up words of a raving lunatic emerging church pastor.
There was something that drew me in to want to look at this further. The idea of the ‘incarnation of Christ’ is a major motivation for what it is we do here in Europe so to explore it further is always a passion of mine.
Mac Vs. PC (Transformer Style)
Ok, get past the “Chessy” beginning scene and just wait. It gets to be pretty good.
Christmas “Mis-spokes”
Back when I was a young boy, we were spending Christmas with my grandfather. Now I was excited like every child about Christmas, not just my own presents but what everyone was getting. My parents repeatedly told me that I couldn’t tell people what they were getting for Christmas as that would ruin their Christmas. For my grandfather, we got him a fishing pole which was something he had asked for. Now fishing poles are not easy to wrap but I got to help wrap it and when he came into the room and saw this long, thin package leaning up against the wall behind the tree – he said, “Hmmm, I wonder what that could be?”. To which I blurted out, “I’m not allowed to tell you what it is but you are sure going to have a good time fishing with it!!!” Its the thing that family legends are made of as I’m reminded of that story every year by my family.
Well, Alex is following in this tradition. He is extremely excited about what everyone is getting and the other day he went out with his mother to purchase his Christmas gifts for Krista and me. Krista actually picked out her gift (Alex actually picked it out first as he knew it was something she was asking for) but I still don’t know what I’m getting. Well sort of. Last night as we were trying to figure out what we could watch on TV and as I came into the room, Krista had this weird look on her face. I said, “What are you guys thinking?” Alex replied, “Well we were thinking about watching your present but Mommy says we have to wait until Christmas.” So I guess I’m getting a video for Christmas.
On a different story, Krista just walked into the living room having wrapped all the presents and was putting them under the tree. Alex ran over and said, “Where’s the big one that’s as tall as me?” Krista replied that these were all of the presents and then asked, “Why? What did you think you were getting?” “A teleporter,” replied Alex.
Ein wunderschönes Weihnachtsfest wünschen Ihnen! (We wish you a wonderful Christmas!)
[Editor Update: I got the Spiderman Trilogy on DVD both in German & English]
Celebrating Alex’s Birthday
Today we have been celebrating Alex’s 8th Birthday as a family (we had his party last week – see the pictures in the Photo Album). When Alex was born we were very relieved that he came on time and wasn’t born closer to Christmas. Little did we know that we would move to Germany where December 6th is Saint Nicholas Day. Now Saint Nicholas is different than Santa Claus (known as Weihnacht Mann) however some of the American stories and traditions do come from Saint Nicholas. Anyway, I’m not here to talk about these traditions; I want to just share some of the events that happened today.
We started out the day American style by having pancakes with real maple syrup (we brought some back with us from the US this summer). Then we started decorating the house for Christmas although we will get our Christmas tree the week of Christmas as is the tradition for most Germans. Alex also participated in our town’s celebration of Saint Nicholas day where all the children in town go to our Blumenplatz and the various shops give out little gifts (fruit, peanuts, some chocolate & gummi bears). Then we had Alex’s favorite meal known as “Crackpot” (its actually pork tenderloin with potatoes made in a crockpot).
During the meal, Alex pulled out some traditional German cookies and he had learned about the history. He told us that a long time ago they weren’t made with any sugar but the people didn’t like them that way and so they went to their pastor (in reality, it was their priest) and asked if they were allowed to put sugar in the cookies and he said that they could. Krista then asked why they had to go pastor and ask him to put sugar in the cookies to which Alex replied – “Well, in the old days, pastors were like presidents!”. To my pastor friends out there, sorry, you were born during the wrong time.
After the meal, we asked Alex what he would like to do this evening. He asked back, “Why are you asking me?” We replied, “Because it’s your birthday.” Then Alex started doing a little dance and stated “Birthdays rock!!”.
As a little side note, we asked Alex to set up the manager scene in our house (see the picture above). I have to say I really like how he thinks. He didn’t set up all the wise men, angels, Mary, Joseph, shepherds and animals lined up so that you could see their faces. Instead, he has them completely encircling the baby Jesus with everyone gazing up the holy Child. Yep, I believe that’s how it really was.
[Edit Note: After I published this blog, I realized that my title talks about Alex's birthday and the first thing you see is a manager scene. No, we don't think that Alex is perfect nor the savior of the world. We think he's a pretty good kid but no, not Jesus.]