It’s Over There!!!

After all these weeks, we finally found where they are keeping Europe…It’s over there!!!

Thanks France! You are so helpful!

Thoughts on Prayer from Job

Over the past several months I have been slowly digesting an amazing book called The Gospel According to Job.

This book has short two page “devotional” type chapters as it walks slowly through the book of Job. Just like Lays potato chips, you can’t read just one. But you can’t digest a whole chapter at a time either. They are rich and thick with deep truth and wisdom.

Last night I ran across this thought that I would love to shout from roof tops in order to help every single person think differently about prayer and to become more and more successful at prayer.

Most people, of course, have questions for God. But hardly anyone is willing to hold out and wait (let alone to wheedle and pester the Lord) for an answer. Most people will not wait on God for one minute. Why not? Surely it is because we do not really expect any answer. But the message of Job, of Habakkuk and Jesus’ parables on prayer is all the same: the word of the Lord comes without fail to those whose faith takes a peculiar form – the form of despair, honestly and passionately expressed, combined with stubborn persistence in holding out for consolation.

Wow! Take just five minutes and re-read that and allow God to speak it to your heart. For me it was conviction and hope all rolled into one paragraph.

Blessings on your prayer time today.

All the Dogs in Europe Get to Go

For our dog, “go” is a pretty important word. What we have discovered here in Europe is that all the dogs get to go – everywhere. Dogs go to restaurants; dogs go to museums; dogs go on buses and trains; dogs go on tours; dogs just go! I have seen some dogs in old churches, but not often so someone must draw a line somewhere. One dog got refused at the door of the 95 thesis church in Wittenberg, but he didn’t look offended.

Even the signs tell you that dogs are permitted. This sign was at the entry to the Berlin space-needley-thingy. As you can see…dogs are ok – soccer balls are not.

So here are just a few of the dogs of Europe that we have taken pictures of for you. The pictures are a little odd, because people look at you weird when you are taking pictures of their dogs.

This is the dog that just came out of Burger King. He must have had salty fries, because he needed at big drink of water at his car.

This is the dog that is going up to the Wartburg castle tour to learn about where Martin Luther hid out and did spiritual warfare.

This dog is going into the ice cream store.

This dog just got off the train and peed on the wall inside the station, which no one seemed to think was a big deal. We are not sitting on the floor anywhere ever again!

This is the dog that couldn’t go into the 95 Thesis church. He seems ok with that.

This dog was at a wedding.

BUT no dog is as important as this dog:

See you soon Whopper-Doo!

Pondering

I know. I know. I know. The more prolific of the family have plopped out many blog posts in the past several days and my blog has been stuck on the chocolate post.

(What a great place to leave things…with chocolate. Be sure to see Thomas’ post on our trip to the Lindt chocolate factory. We truly wished for smell-a-vision to send a sample of the marvelous odors wafting around. But their lack of tours at Lindt has left the Frey chocolates on top. Actually I’m glad they don’t just let the masses walk through where the product is being made. Keeps the bird/swine/whatever kind of flu germs out of my chocolate.)

Anyway all that to say, I’m kind of in the place on this trip where I’ve got to allow God to work on the things he needs to work on in my life. There is no getting to the restoration I need without allowing him to reveal and work on the junk. I have a couple of frivolous posts in my head, but they aren’t in my heart. And what is in my heart is just a little close to home to put out into the vast cosmos of the internet.

So I humbly submit these two offerings on my blog.
1) This awesome article by Bob Kilpatrick on the Cloud of Witnesses.
2) This youtube video of the greatest song ever: Restoration. If you listen to the song and then find yourself humming it or singing it to yourself, would you offer it up as a prayer for us, for all the people that you know who may just need the restoration hand of the LORD on their lives. Don’t forget to get all the way to the end of the 10 minute song…we all need the the hallelujah part!

Chocolates – A Loser, A Mistake and A WINNER!!!

In the search for amazing chocolate in Switzerland, Austria and Germany, there have been some developments.

First the loser:
We’ve seen whole shops dedicated to the Mozart Chocolates. So I bought a couple of these:And ewwww, what was that stuff in the center? Rather a grainy texture without much flavor.

Secondly there was my booze chocolate fiasco:
We were nearing the end of our day in Lucerne and Mt. Pilatus and everyone was starting to get a little crabby. So just as we were about to board the cog train down the mountain, I rushed into the gift shop and grabbed this chocolate bar.I love cherries and there are tons of trees all over the place that are ripe right now. So I thought, hey, we’ve had cherry cereal and fresh cherries, this chocolate with the “kirsch liquide” center will be excellent. But apparently the word at the top of the wrapper “alcool” means alcohol. So when these beauties were bit into the liquid center dribbled out and the kids spit the whole kit and kaboodle out.

Third – We have a winner.

Up until now, nothing has compared in any way to the Lindt Lindor chocolates. These little wonders are available everywhere in the US and are great rewards for getting the grocery shopping done, cleaning the bathroom, mopping the floor, and successfully navigating just about anything. The Lindt chocolate factory is in Zurich and I hope to visit there before we come home.

But then yesterday…I discovered this little gem:and the angels sang, and there was an open heaven! This little piece of heaven is a Frey chocolate (same last name as our friend Pastor Desmond – pronounced Fray not Fry). It has a slight chocolate shell and an amazing melty center.

So lessons learned: Mozart should have stuck to music; learn German so as not to make mistakes or intoxicate children; and figure out if Frey chocolates are available at World Market (they have an super selection of European chocolates.)

Fourth of July

Well, here I am as everyone back home gets ready for my favorite holiday of the year, and there’s not an Oscar Meyer hot dog anywhere to be found.

The Fourth is my favorite holiday for quite a few reasons. Here are a few:
1) fireworks/explosives/fire
2) a holiday that is not focused on the meal (Thanksgiving – hours to prepare – consumed in 20 minutes – clean up another hour or so)
3) fireworks/explosives/fire
4) no gift pressure (Christmas – did I get them the “right” gift and how far out of my budget did I go?)
5) fireworks/explosives/fire
6) grilling – the very best way to cook and keep the kitchen clean, and most of my favorite foods
7) fireworks/explosives/fire
8 ) relaxing day of family with converation, fun and blowing stuff up, and mostly outdoors so that the house doesn’t have to be as tidy
9) fireworks/explosives/fire
10) childhood memories of fireworks, cookouts, and services at the little country church cemetary to honor vets.
11) fireworks/explosives/fire
12) a holiday that does not require an extra church service (makes sense if you are part of a church staff family)

So as you can see Fourth of July is the best holiday ever!

Here’s a little clip from my favorite comedian, Jim Gaffigan. Remember, he’s rated PG 13. He gets to the Fourth about 2 minutes into the clip.

Score!

Last night I finally succeeded in going to the grocery store, buying stuff to make dinner (with no mistakes) and produced an actual “German” meal.

The feeding of this family has been a bit of a challenge since we arrived here. Guess what – the groceries in the store, they are all labeled in German! Who would have thought! And there is a total lack of the familiar products I use without thinking. (Spent about 5 minutes trying to decide which package of bread crumbs to buy – how can bread crumbs be bewildering?)

So, when you buy a cake mix…you have to come home, get out the computer and translate the directions on the back through an on-line translation service. (Be careful not to accidently skip a line, because the cake just doesn’t turn out.) Or you buy a can of corn and this happens:
Steve wrote about that night in this post. Or we order Swiss cheese at the meat counter and get enough for a year.

But then I hit on an idea. In the grocery store, I wrote down the name of some products that looked interesting and came home and googled them under authentic German recipes. Then translated the ingredients I needed and went back to the store. And last night – TaDumm!!! – I produced authentic German meatballs with spaetzle.

(I took a picture but someone helpfully deleted it or you would see my tasty accomplishment) Dinner was pronounced good and Steve even said that it was a repeat for dinner at home.

Back to “normal” American hamburgers for the less adventurous tonight and then Swiss rosti (that should have dots over the “o”) tomorrow night.