Moving into the barn, um, I mean the EMC

My Desk as we first move in

Well, since we first moved here two years ago we have had a project of renovating a 100 year old 3-story barn into offices and apartments.  Things have been moving quickly here lately and just the other day, we started to move into it.  eDOT (and myself) finally have a home.  I am so excited.   Above is my desk (well, kind of) behind a pile of carpet tiles that still have to be laid in another part of the building.  Some of the other ministries have started to move in as well.  We also have three of the four apartments being lived in.

We still have a lot more to do – common areas, bathrooms, half of EuroTeam, all of GEMStone Media are left to be finished.  We also have done nothing with the outside as our parking lot is full of mud and construction debris and we still have the fourth apartment to completely do so it looks like we’ll be at our desks for half the day and doing construction the other half still but at least they’re at the same place.

Check out more pictures of our new eDOT offices in the Photo Album.  To view some pictures of the barn project as a whole, go to our sister ministry’s website – http://www.euro-team.org/SMGconstBarn32.htm

Berlin Street Conversations – Part 2

Yesterday, I told you about our experience talking with Stefan while I was in Berlin.  As Charles and I continued walking, we decided to get out of the cold and get something warm to drink in a little shop.  There we met Saleem (or thats close to his name but I don’t know how to spell it).  Saleem is from Turkey and works in his good friends Doner Kebab shop (trust me, Doner Kebabs – a turkish like Gryos -  are really good here in Germany. I have one at least once a week or more).

We talked about where in Turkey Saleem was from and he asked us where we were from.  We told him we lived in Europe but that I was from North Carolina before and that Charles was from Texas.  That’s when things got interesting and it went a little bit like this:

Read more >>

Berlin Street Conversations – Part 1

This last week, I had the opportunity to be in Berlin with the leadership of our mission, Greater Europe Mission.  We took a break from our meetings to go into a part of Berlin and do some Prayer Walking or as some call it, Spiritual Mapping.  (If you don’t know what this is, I would suggest doing a web search on the topic – great stuff) Essentially, this is where you ask God to reveal to you what it is He is doing in the area and open up your eyes to see what the state of the area is spiritually through praying and speaking with people.  I want to share with you a couple of conversations I got to be a part of during this time (this blog is 1 conversation, I’ll blog the another one later).

I went on this adventure with Charles, a missionary based in France, and therefore I became the interpreter since I knew more German (scary).  As we were walking, a young man, whom we later found out to be named Stefan, approached us asking if we lived in Berlin.  He held a stack of papers like he was doing some sort of survey.  As it turns out, he was getting people who lived in Berlin to sign a petition to allow students to have the choice of taking a religion course instead of ethics.  Currently, everyone is required to take ethics but if they want to take a religion course, it is only offered after normal school hours.

The conversation went a little something like this: Read more >>

Need Your Help with Feedback

If you are a supporter of ours, either through prayer and/or financial, would you please take a few moments to fill out this survey?

http://survey.equiphispeople.com/index.php?sid=58112&lang=en

We are redoing our GEMeDOT.com website and we want feedback from people who we believe to be the people we want looking at our website. Would you take just a few minutes to answer 14 questions? It would helps us greatly.

Interview with the GEM President

Just wanted to share with you this interview with Greater Europe Mission‘s president, Henry Deneen as he talks about where GEM is going as a whole in the year 2009. This is an overall vision from our president and we, as a part of eDOT, are trying to figure out what our role is in seeing this through. Exciting stuff!!!

Jan 2009 Mission Network interview of Henry Deneen

(about 7 minutes long – originally aired on Mission Network News)

PS – See this write-up about Henry and his daughter when she was auditioning for American Idol in Salt Lake City, Utah (Scroll down to Idol Hopeful #5). Yep, this is the kind of guy that leads our mission –> http://blogs.sltrib.com/tv/archive/2008_07_01_archive.htm

I like Dr Pepper

I like Dr Pepper. I have since I was a kid. I drank Dr Pepper while doing homework, while out with friends, even at parties – that was my drink of choice. While in college, I used to drink so much Dr Pepper that one day I came in to find my roommate had created a “wall” in the window sill from my Dr Pepper cans blocking almost all of the sun light. When I’m doing some serious programming, you know the kind where you loose all track of time and space and even start to think in code, I’ll easily drink one or two 2-liter bottles of Dr Pepper. One time I was programming all day and drank a couple of 2-liters but only when I was standing up to leave for the day (because a co-worker happened to mention the time) did I realize that I’d never made it to the bathroom all day. I made it in record time then.

Since moving to Europe, I have found that Dr Pepper is not as easy to get. Well, at least not in our area of Germany. Every time I travel though, I keep an eye open for some but it is very rare. However my friends and co-workers know my addiction desire for Dr Pepper and sometimes when they fly back from the States on a direct flight they’ll bring me a can. (Several cans have been lost to security officials by people not flying direct) Even some of the Europeans know my craving and a lady we know had her brother who lives in the Netherlands bring me some down on one of his visits.

I write all of this to say, I’ve just been in heaven. Recently, I got two shipments of Dr Pepper. A six-pack from a co-worker while she was up in Belgium and a 12-pack of Diet Dr Pepper (American Style) from some American friends who have some links to a military base here in Germany.

I just finished a can, savoring every last piece of it. It tastes sooooooo gooooooooood. I truly believe that Dr Pepper will be on the dinner table in heaven. Now I must pace myself and not over indulge. I’ll just wait until tomorrow for my next can. Too long, I’ll just wait until tonight.

That day has come

Tonight is a first – Krista was playing a computer game tonight after Alex had gone to bed. In it was a difficult puzzle that she was having a hard time figuring out. She gave up stating, “I’ll just wait until tomorrow and have Alex figure it out”.

The day has come when Krista is relinquishing her title as top gamer in the house hold and passing that on to our 8-year old son, Alex. He, who has grown up in a world that has never known life without personal computers nor the Internet, is taking our house by storm in the digital gaming arena.

The next stage will be when he can figure out ways to do things with a computer better than his dad. Its going to be some tough teen years for us both.