5 Years ago today, we arrived in Germany to begin a new phase in our journey on God’s path.  As you can see, we were bleary eyed from the all night flight but adrenaline was flowing through our veins in anticipation of what was ahead.  We really didn’t know what was going to happen or what God was going to do – we just knew we where God wanted us to be.  Some of the more prominent memories I have of the past 5 years are:

• Meeting & hanging out with  Yoyot from Indonesia and so many other fascinating people from all over the world in our language school
• Krista & I doing “rock, paper, scissors” to take care of a bill which we didn’t understand what it was about (of course, it all had to be done in German)
• First day after language school – working in the office with the eDOT team and the excitement I felt in using my computer skills for developing frontline mission solutions to expand God’s Kingdom
• Alex’s first day of 1st Grade at Black Forest Academy where he was interviewed by the principal and had the whole school laughing hysterically and him innocently not knowing why
• Traveling to so many places, not to see the sights, but getting to meet the people where they are, where they live.  Hearing their hearts, getting to speak words of encouragements and bringing them ideas & technology solutions that bring them closer to their Creator
• Sleeping in a church’s closet with Bob (construction supervisor) on a work project only to realize later he was always up so early because of my snoring – not his desire to get the day going
• Getting rushed into a Ukrainian church 3 minutes before the service was starting and being asked if I wanted the 1st, 2nd or 3rd sermon slot (it was assumed I would give at least one of them)
• Having the first time I worked with Windows Vista be in Russian as we configured a Mobile Outreach Center in Ukraine
• Getting to work on an Internet Cafe in Moldova in a town where there was only one paved (barely) street, horse drawn wagons, and out-houses and then hearing about the life-changing effects that Internet Cafe had on people’s lives
• The countless number of plates set before me where I couldn’t identify what was on it but ate it all (and usually wanted seconds)
• Surprising my son when my sister showed up “unexpectedly” for his birthday
• Getting to work with men & women who pour their lives into other people in grace filled ways so that they can know what life in Christ is like
• Hearing 1st hand stories of imprisonment & persecution because of their faith and realizing that we can help minimize that through technology security techniques
• Seeing the joy in my wife’s eyes as she came home after a couple weeks of teaching a women’s Bible Study and knowing that she had found her place
• Continuously getting to seek out how God wants technology to be used to expand His Kingdom in ever innovative ways

Those are just some of my highlights for the last 5 years.  There’s so many more things I could share but I think I would go on forever.  Thank you to everyone who partners with us in both prayer and finances to allow us to be in this place.  We are truly blessed.

Yesterday, I was trying to order something through a Dutch company.  Their website was completely in Dutch (not a language I know well).  When I do these types of things, I usually make sure I’m using Google’s browser Chrome.  Why?  Because of a neat little feature of when you are on a website that is in a different language, it will ask you “Would you like to translate it?” and when you say “Translate” – Chrome translates the whole page for you.  In my ordering yesterday however I didn’t hit the translate button until I was about half way through the order form as I could understand most of it.  When I finally did hit “Translate”, I noticed something different – my name was now “Courtney Intoxication”.  I knew my last name was Dutch but I didn’t know it had meaning let alone this meaning.  I looked it up and sure enough in Dutch, Roes = Intoxication; drunkenness; whirl; fuddle; lust; and well this last one is a word my wife doesn’t like used and not appropriate for this website.  I’m not sure what to make of my ancestry right now.

When our son was born, we wanted his name to mean something so we named him “Alexander” which means “helper of mankind”.  We didn’t want to place too big of a burden on him but we wanted him growing up knowing that he had a purpose in life and that it was more than seeing what he could get for himself.  In the Bible, we see people all the time having their name changed to reflect the person that they are or the person they are to become.  Barnabas wasn’t always named that but when people saw that he was an encourager, they named him “son of encouragement”.  Peter the disciple wasn’t always Peter – he was Simon but then Jesus saw in him something more than anyone else and renamed him “Rock” and on this “rock”, Jesus was to build his church.

Today, we don’t formalize these names as much – mostly we use them as nicknames.  But if someone were to come up to you and give you a nickname that reflects how you are or how they see you will be, what would those names be?  Would it be something that you would want your children and your children’s children to inherit?

Krista has started putting observations about Germany that she has been having as we’ve returned to our small village after being in America for a year on Facebook.  Here’s the beginning of her list:

#1 - The stoplight turns yellow right before it turns green, so you can rev your engine

#2 - mustard comes in toothpaste tubes!

#3 - Temperature right now 53 degrees. High tomorrow 67, high Sunday 66, high Monday 69, high Tuesday 69… ok so it’s a bit rainy right now, but I’d take rain over 108 any day

#4 - Bells, Bells, Bells… Every hour, 4 chimes and then the hour rings out, every quarter hour- one chime, every half hour- two chimes, every three quarters of an hour – 3 chimes. Believe me you hear every chime on jet lag. I like it! It makes my heart happy

#5 - No need for an alarm clock. Every morning at 7 the bells ring continuously for about 5 minutes …. wake up time. At 11 am the bells ring for 5 minutes to call the men out of the fields and tell the women to put the bread in the oven. At 4 pm the bells ring for 5 minutes to call the men out of the fields… work day is coming to an end.

#6 - Military time… this one takes a little getting used to.

#7 - We live in the little town of Kandern… whose claim to fame is that it was the birthplace of John Sutter, who started the California Gold Rush in 1848. This is his birthplace.

#8 - At church on Sunday they read off the names of everyone who had a birthday that past week. Kinda like facebook

#9 - Gooda Gouda…. Cheddar is hard to find here, but Gouda is cheap and tastes great. So we basically use it in place of Cheddar for everything… There is Jung (young) and mittlealt (middle-aged) versions. The young is very creamy, the middle-aged is more like sharp cheddar.

Memory makers.  Those are things that we as parents (and grandparents) try to make for our kids every now and then.  Right now as we prepare to return home to Germany, my parents are working hard to make memories with Alex since they don’t get to see him that often.  So the other day they came over to the house and picked up Alex.  They went out to see the movie “Cars 2″ and had a great dinner.  They had him spend the night (and kept him up late) and then the next morning, Grandpa and Alex met with “the Bob” (long story about the “the”) and went out fishing.  That’s where Alex took 2.5 minutes to reel in a 22″ large mouth bass where it broke up out of the water and into the air twice.  Not sure of the weight but probably about 6 lbs.  (a picture of Alex, the fish and “the Bob” above).  This is a memory maker for Alex.  Something he’s not going to forget any time soon.  We got a phone call a few hours past the time he was suppose to be home with “Can I stay longer?”

We’ve been very blessed this last year to be able to stay at my parent’s house and spend some great times with them.  Now we are beginning the process of saying good-bye, again.  In our training before going out to the field the first time, they told use we had to be able to say “Good-bye” well to be able to say “Hello” well.  Now as we begin our second term, we are going through the process again only this time we know more about why they said this.  Pray for us during these “hellos” and “good-byes”.  Thank you.

In high school I was pathetic when it came to buying gifts for my family at Christmas time.  I worked at an outdoor equipment store and so Christmas meant a lot of hours and that meant more money to spend over the holidays.  However, it also meant that I didn’t have very much time to go shopping for the family gifts.  So one year (and I’m not proud of this) on Christmas Eve, on my way home from work I stopped at a gas station and purchased all of my presents.  Mom got an oven mitt (only one) because I remembered she had burned her hands cooking a meal earlier, my sister got one of those cheap, fake roses next to the cash register (cuz our last name is “Roes”), and I don’t even remember what I got my dad – probably a fishing lure as I almost always give him something to do with fishing.  I actually did think about a reason for why everyone got what they got and as everyone says, “It’s the thought that counts!”  But did it?

One of my favorite scenes of the movie “The Passion of the Christ” is when Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane and he’s praying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” [Luke 22:42 ESV]  Then in the movie, they show Jesus stomping the heel of his foot on the head of a snake that is representing Satan.  I believe that this scene is metaphorically so “right on” here – that it really was at the point that Jesus said that he was determine to do his Father’s bidding, rather than his own, that it counted & Satan was defeated.  It was the thought that really counted there.  But did the victory over evil have any substance?  Any real power at that point? If it did, then why did Jesus have to continue through the arrest, the humiliation, the torture, the death and the resurrection?

“So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” [James 2:17 ESV]  See Jesus had the faith in God (and not just because he IS God  but as he is also fully man) that Jesus desired to be in God’s will no matter what.  Even if it meant living through some serious unpleasantries.

Most of the world’s faith is in themselves – as all religions, even humanism & atheism, are about seeing what a person can do to please their god and gain their god’s favor (for humanism & atheism, they are their own “god” or  better said their knowledge is their “god”), with the exception of following Christ.  If faith is in oneself, then their will is going to be followed and it’s going to be mainly about what pleases their self.  If they have “works”, they’ll be looking for the return for themselves.  While they might be a part of charity, it’s for whatever pleasure they can receive out of it or for status within the community because of it.

If you are a follower of Christ then you have declared that your faith is in God and your desire is to live His will, not your own.  Our faith in Him is not to gain is His favor but because He is the God of the universe, creator of ALL and yet He desires to know each one of us in an intimately, loving way.  Therefore our response to Him is to put our faith in Him and He gives us a new life (spiritually speaking) in Christ from which to live in His will. Since He is a loving God, there are many pleasures His will will bring to you.  But because He is a holy God and this is a sinful world, His will will also take you through many unpleasantries.  It’s in both the pleasures and the unpleasantries that our faith is lived out in “works”. Many people’s faith is only lived out in the “pleasures” within God’s will – especially in Western cultures.  I believe that this type of faith is the “it’s the thought that counts” type faith.  But is it really faith in God if we say, “I’m only going to have faith in you to a point”?  Is it really faith in God if we say “I’ll go to church and be friends with Christians and have family values but I won’t do  [blank].”

When is it for you that God’s will is too much?  When God’s will asks you to give a person who’s going through a tough time a hug and some of your time?  When God’s will asks you to regularly give of yourself to make lunches for kids through the summer or serve the homeless treating them to a banquet fit for a king?  When God’s will asks you to take the lesser paying job so that you have more time to give to your family and those needing a friend?  When God’s will asks you to invite your kid’s soccer team and their parents to your house for a bar-b-que? When God’s will asks you to do more than pray?

This is where I sit.  Is God’s will asking too much?  God’s will asked Jesus to go through death and Jesus’ faith was lived out in that work.  I’m a follower of Christ.  May my faith be lived out in God’s will in whatever “work” that manifests itself in.

Many of you know me and know that I can’t let things sit for very long.  We’re always going to be experimenting and trying to improve things which is why it became time to update our website, RoesGarden.com .  RoesGarden.com has been in some form since 1998 when our dial-up account came with free web hosting space and I decided to try my hand at HTML (the basic coding of the Internet).  This past iteration of RoesGarden.com was a blog.  Mainly a place for me (Courtney) to put my ramblings and findings out there for others to share in.  However now we find that we are in need for more of a website by which we can share more about our ministry.  While the Blog is still a part of it, it’s the not the primary feature on the front page.  Instead, we’ll be highlighting different things of interests that we blog about & write about in various ways through the website.  We’ll be continuing to make modifications (some will go silently, others we’ll make sure you know about) but it’s always fun to work with something to make it more practical in this ever changing world.

Please join us on the new site and let us know your thoughts in the comments area.

I was able to pick up a Nexus One last year and it’s been great – I’ve even started making my own apps (none are ready for publication – yet).  However as more and more people are picking up Android phones – everyone keeps asking what apps they should get.  So I thought I would share some of the different apps that I have loaded on my phone –  oh, and I’ve only paid for a couple of these (and I’ll mark those) so consider everything here free unless otherwise marked (use a barcode scanner to scan the QR codes to download the software to your phone):

General Use:

• ChompSMS  - just wanted something more than the regular SMS system and this does it
• Google Voice – gives me a number  that rings my mobile and my house phone, voicemail that transcribes the messages and sends them to me in email & text, and also allows for free texting within the US
• Locale (Costs money)  - Allows you to have settings based on location – so you can set it up to silence your phone when at the church or in my case, turn off my Google Voice line from ringing the house phone when I’m not there (requires an additional plugin that costs a few bucks more)
• Remember the Milk (requires a paid RTM Pro account)  - great todo list organizer or create lists that for just about anything on it.  I’m able to manage my lists online or from my laptop as well.
• Evernote  - Great way to note taking app that synchronizes our notes with your PC (Mac or Windows).  Notes can be written, they can be audio recordings, URL clippings, etc.  You can also tag them for easy classification and retrieval.
• Apps Organizer – helps in creating groups for your different apps so you can easily find them without doing a ton of scrolling through all your app icons
• Memento – helps you store any kind of information you want on your droid from video libraries to medical information.  You can design your own template for how you enter information. Very versatile.
• My Docs – Allows you to easily access your Google Docs online
• Dropbox – easy way to send files from your computer to your droid & back again.  Free account allows up to 2 GB of storage space.
• Amazon Appstore - Its an alternative to the Google Marketplace.  They give away a daily “paid” app so there’s free stuff there however the downside is that you have to open up a security block in Android to run it so be careful after loading this.
• Lookout – This is security for your phone – it easily scans for viruses when installing new apps, does weekly scanning and backups & has a way to try and locate your phone if it is lost.
• C25K Lite – Couch to 5k is a great help in preparing to run a 5k (which I’ve done a few times now).  Helps you build up running endurance through running in intervals
• My Coffee Card – Easily manage your Starbucks card as well as use your phone to pay for your drink – no card is actually needed once you have it all set up.

Social Media:

• Facebook for Android – obvious what it does
• Hootsuite – great for managing multiple twitter accounts, facebook profiles & pages.  Also has a desktop application so I can easily manage these things on the road or at my desk
• Yammer – Yammer is like a corporate twitter.  You yammer feeds aren’t open to the public but only to those within your group.  Very nice for large collaboration groups.
• WordPress – helps me manage this blog and others.  I can write posts, moderate comments, etc.
• LinkedIn (still in Beta release so no link) – I’m beta testing the upcoming LinkedIn app and it is better than the 3rd party apps out there for LinkedIn.
• Diet & Food – allows you to interact with your account on SparkPeople.com (I’ve heard it called “Facebook for Fat People”)

Reading & Information:

• Pulse – this is a great way to ready various news sources & blogs.  It will even connect to your Google Reader account & you can bring in blogs from there.
• IMDB – great way to read up on movies and the Parental Guide on movies is very helpful for every age

Tools & Multimedia:

• Car Mode – Automatically sets to speakerphone when enabled so that all incoming and outgoing calls can be hands free.  STOP DRIVING WITH YOUR PHONE IN YOUR HAND.
• Car Home – sets up an easier to use home page for your droid while driving.  You can easily add easy to hit auto dials and it keeps your droid from sleeping so know trying to turn it on, swipe it, and then enter your unlock code while driving
• OI Safe – Great password keeper and password generator.  Encrypts all your passwords under one master password.  You can export everything to a file to read on your computer (although not encrypted so be careful with it)
• Meridian (couldn’t find it in the Market now though) – great way to watch and organize videos and other media
• Flickroid – Adds a Flickr share to link in different places which you click on “Share” like in the photo gallery and allows easy upload of photos to your Flickr account
• aCCleaner Free – Easy way to clean out cache files in all your apps to open up more space
• App 2 SD Free – Helps you easily move Apps to your SD card if you have Android 2.2 or higher to free up more space
• GAnalyticz – great way to be able to review your Google Analytics information about your websites while on the go
• OI File Manager – manage files through this great interface
• StopWatch & Timer – simple yet effective
• Wifi Analyzer – shows you all the wifi signals you are picking up and what channels they are on so you can configure your wifi router to the setting with the least interference
• Speed Test – run this to test your Internet connections speeds
• Advanced Task Killer – Some apps just keep running taking up memory.  Use this to automatically stop them when they’re not in use
• Bubble – use your droid to hang that picture level or verify the table is level before placing the really fully hot water pot on it.
• ConnectBot – for us geeks that want to use SSH from anywhere.  Here’s the client for you.  If you don’t know what SSH is, don’t worry about this one.
• Currency – Keep up with currency rates easily with this app
• Soundhound – Hear a song but don’t know its name – let SoundHound listen to it and it will tell you the name & artist.  Similar to Shazam app but I got it free on one of the Amazon App freebies.
• TuneIn Radio – Listen to radio stations from around the world and in all sorts of genres and languages.  Awesome.
• YouTube – Definitely the better way to watch videos than in the browser
• ShopSavvy – Barcode scanner that allows you to scan bar codes & QR codes (2-d bar codes).  If its a product, it will tell you where you can buy it and for how much online & locally.  It also allows you to save them in lists.  This helps me from impulse buying as I can see its cheaper online, file it away and then I forget that I wanted it.  ;-)
• Movela Netflix – Helps you manage your Netflix queues
• Movies – check movie times, watch previews, see what’s coming soon.
• Runkeeper – This will use the GPS to plot your running giving you great stats.  Not just for stats but is good for hiking, walking, cycling, etc.  Plots it all out on a google map for you and can save them up on their website in an account for you.
• Workout Tracker – easy to use workout manager that can even export your stats for reference or scrutiny

Games:

• Angry Birds – just addictive
• Coin Flip – for when I just can’t make a decision
• Cribbage Pro – I like it!
• Daily Dilbert – I so relate to these!!
• Shortyz – free crossword puzzles
• Spades Free – played a lot of spades in college.
• Sudoku Daily – challenge with numbers
• Texas Hold’em – gotta stay sharp.
• Traffic Jam – get the car out of the crowded parking lot
• TriviaBurst – trivia at its best
• Wordup – find as many words as you can in the timeframe
• X Construct – build bridges that the train can cross – don’t let the screaming people discourage you though when you fail

Travel:

• TripIt – Use the TripIt.com site to manage your travel arrangements and use this apps to connect to all the info while on the road
• TripCase – What is in the paid version of TripIt is in the free version of TripCase and vice versa.  Use the free version of both to get all the paid stuff free.
• FlightStats Lite – easily check flight statuses by flight numbers with this app.  Saves them for when you are checking over and over due to delays or anxious to see a loved one.

Know of any others?  Please share them in the comments area.

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I received a link to an interesting article entitled “If Muslim’s asked Europe for ‘empty’ churches” (you can find it here) and it’s an interesting development happening in Europe.  Europe’s history is with Christianity but the indigenous population has in majority left their faith however major immigration from North Africa and the Middle East has brought Islam to their foot steps.  So much so that on Fridays, the traditional day of worship for Muslims, mosques don’t have enough space to contain everyone and their worshippers are overflowing out into the streets causing traffic to be backed up or rerouted.  This is normal practice for where they come from but to many Europeans, its disruptive and illegal.  So the solution that’s being raised – let the muslims use the ‘empty’ churches to get them out of the streets.

Now I know there are many churches in North America and especially in South America, Africa and parts of Asia that do have these problems of running out of capacity but there’s very few in Europe.  While many towns have a church, not a whole lot goes on there and no where near where it will fill up except for the occasional musical performance (because of the acoustics) or wedding or funeral.  So what does it take for people to want to worship God so much that they’ll pour into the streets to do it? My thinking on Islam is that for most muslims, its just engrained into their culture, community identity, and social structure that they are compelled to participate in worship & prayer but in a way, do so under duress. Christianity has been like that too (and in many ways, still is) as we have seen in the last 2000 years and for Europe we see its remnants in the empty churches scattered throughout the land now being converted into museums, concert halls, dance clubs and now possibly mosques.  But is worship & prayer to God to be a cultural thing?  Are we to go through the week marking off our to-do list :  grocery shopping – check, picked up Tommy from football – check, went to the worship center & did something required – check, ….?

In my wrestling with this (and I’m in no way an authority here), I have to think that to really worship God (creator of the universe and all) it has to be something more from the inside (that He put there; created there) that erupts out in an outward expression.  It can’t be something that comes from the outside (i.e. culture, expectations, etc) that moves us but a deep down movement within us that explodes out in the form of worship and prayer.  Otherwise it’s just an act and doesn’t reflect our true core being.

What’s your thought of worship?

For those of us with a western mind set, individualism is a huge value.  Star Trek (and many other social inputs) pushed into our minds that “the good of one, outweighed the good of the many” even though it’s not the logical viewpoint.  We thrive on being individuals who have unique talents, traits, personalities or even just our hair that are different from everyone else.  When I was in high school, I would wear a tuxedo shirt, bow tie and tails jacket along with pants and my black Chuck Taylors (no socks mind you) to church.  Why?  To be an individual – I wanted to be set apart from everyone else in a very visible way (I also wanted to see where my parent’s boundaries were).  We all want that feeling of being special.

Then there are times that we just want to be a part of the crowd.  We just want to fit in and not be different.  We don’t want any of the things that come with being unique.  Now is one of those times for me.  As I was in the pre-op meetings this last week and the doctors told me (as they have to do) the various chances for different side-effects and possible outcomes of my impending surgery, they were using terms of “1 in 5000″ and “1 in a million” along with vomiting, red marks, loss of feeling, paralysis, etc.  Now is not the time for me to find out I’m unique in one of these ways.

This last week, we watched as a crowd moved past the confines of an individual.  No matter what you think of what happened in Egypt, we watched a historic event as individuals sacrificed time, income, and, for some, their lives to be a part of a crowd that has sparked the beginning of something different for their country & their area of the world.  This will affect us all in some way or another.  It was the crowd that made the change happen but the crowd is made up of unique individuals each doing their part.

God made us unique.  We are each a very special individual but God also put us together to be a part of something more.  We are drawn to being a part of crowds (yes, even us introverts).  We want to be something more than what we can do on our own.  But what is it that God has designed us to be a part of given our uniquenesses?  What has God designed you with all your specialness to be a part of that is greater than yourself?

This is not rhetorical – please let us know!