english below

Wir hoffen, dass ihr alle ein ganz schönes, besinnliches, friedliches Weihnachtsfest hattet. Als wir in der Tagesschau und von euch von dem Schneechaos hörten, überkam uns eine Mischung aus Wehmut (wir wollen auch Schlitten fahren) und Dankbarkeit (wir sind froh, dass wir nicht so frieren müssen).
Es war unser erstes Weihnachten ganz woanders und es war schon merkwürdig. Aber wir haben das Beste daraus gemacht und das war gar nicht so schlecht. Wir durften auch ein paar amerikanische Traditionen kennenlernen. Über die Weihnachtsbeleuchtung hier komme ich immer noch nicht drüber hinweg. WAHNSINN!
Am 1. Weihnachtstag sind wir morgens in den Park gegangen, um mit den Obdachlosen zu feiern. Ein Mann aus der Gemeinde hatte 500 Dollar gespendet, für die wir bei Walmart Unterwäsche, Socken, Mützen und Taschenlampen geholt haben. Auserdem hat jeder einen warmen Schlafsack bekommen. Drei befreundete Familien haben ihren Weihnachtsmorgen geopfert (der Vormittag des 25. Dezember ist hier das Weihnachtshighlight mit der Bescherung) und haben uns beim Verteilen geholfen.
Am Montag waren wir in Houston und haben ein paar Geschenke mit unsrem Freund Mr. Lee ausgetauscht. Danach hat er uns noch ins Kindermuseum begleitet. Es war ein schöner Ausflug. Einmal hat Mr. Lee uns als "seine Familie" vorgestellt. Das hat uns gerührt und die Leute erstaunt.
Ansonsten hatten wir viel schöne Familienzeit und Zeit mit neugewonnenen und alten (Lisa) Freunden. Wir vermissen euch und wünschen euch von Herzen einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr.

English:

We hope that you all had a wonderful, reflective, peaceful Christmas celebration. When we heard about the snow chaos on the news and from you all, we experienced a mixture of nostalgia (we want to go sledding as well) and thankfulness (we are glad that we don't have to freeze).

It was our first Christmas somewhere totally different, and it was a bit strange. But we made the best out of it, and that wasn't that bad at all. We got to know a few american traditions. I still can't believe the christmas lighting here. AMAZING!

On Christmas morning, we went to the park to celebrate with the homeless. A man from church donated 500 dollars, for which we bought underwear, socks, hats and flashlights at Walmart. In addition to that, each person received a warm sleeping bag. Three families, friends of ours, gave up their Christmas morning (the morning of the 25th is the christmas highlight here, when the gifts are opened) and helped us with the distribution.

On Monday we were in Houston, and exchanged a few gifts with our friend Mr. Lee. After that, he joined us for a visit in the children's museum. It was a nice excursion. At one point, Mr. Lee introduced us as "his family". That touched us, and astonished the other people.

Other than that, we had a lot of wonderful family time, and time with new and old (Lisa) friends. We miss you, and wish you a heartfelt "Happy new Year"!

our new home

deutsch unten





Last week we moved into our new home. It is a red texan barn that was redone into an appartement on the property of one of the church members.
We are so happy to be here and feel very comfortable. It is sooooo our style! Nice, small, cosy, with a lot of space to run and be outside. The only sound we can hear is the wind blowing in the trees. Soooo quiet and nice.
The church family did so much to fix the barren up for us so that we have it nice. They are great folks and we enjoy being their neighbors. They even painted it for us. There we have the texan generosity again. We are thankful that we can live here for free.
We are really thankful for that new place and will now enjoy some nice, quiet days off here during the christmas days.

Deutsch:

Unser neues Zuhause

Letzte Woche sind wir in unser neues Zuhause umgezogen. Es ist eine rote texanische Scheune die in ein Apartment umgewandelt wurde, auf dem Grundstück von einem der Gemeindemitglieder.

Wir sind so froh hier zu sein und fühlen uns sehr wohl. Es ist genau unser Stil. Nett, klein, gemütlich, mit viel Platz zum Rennen und draußen sein. Das einzige Geräusch das wir hören können ist der Wind, wie er durch die Bäume weht. So ruhig und schön.

Die Gemeindefamilie hat so viel an der Scheune gearbeitet und renoviert, damit wir es schön haben. Sie sind tolle Leute, und wir freuen uns daran ihre Nachbarn zu sein. Sie haben die Scheune sogar für uns gestrichen. Da kann man mal wieder die texanische Großzügigkeit erkennen. Wir sind dankbar, dass wir hier kostenlos wohnen können.

Wir sind sehr dankbar für dieses neue Zuhause, und werden nun ein paar schöne, ruhige freie Tage hier während der Weihnachtszeit geniessen.

christmas season

english below

In den letzten Tagen sind wir einfach überwältigt von der Großzügigkeit unsrer amerikanischen Freunde hier. Wir hatten schon zu Beginn erleben dürfen, wie uns Menschen, die uns gar nicht kennen unterstützen und für uns sorgen. Doch was hier gerade in der Vorweihnachtszeit geschieht, ist wirklich fantastisch, und dass, obwohl die meisten Familien von der ökonmischen Krise betroffen sind.
Letzte Woche habe ich Gemeindemitgliedern, die ich inzwischen kennenlernen durfte, eine email geschrieben, in der ich ihnen von verschiedenen individuellen Bedürfnissen erzählt habe. So wünscht sich z.B unser Freund Mr. Lee einen Anzug, damit er einen Weihnachtsgottesdienst mit uns besuchen kann (er will sich dafür unbedingt schick machen). Eine Frau die wir bei dem Austeilen der Thankgsgiving Mahlzeiten kennengelernt haben, braucht Unterstützung, damit sie genug Essen auf den Tisch bekommt. Für einige Weihnachtsfeiern für die Bedürftigen brauchten wir verschiedene Dinge.
Seitdem wir all diese Wünsche geäussert haben, werden wir überschüttet mit Tüten, Kisten, Geschenken, Klamotten, Lebensmitteln und Geld. Nun verbringen wir die nächsten Wochen damit, all diese Sachen zu verteilen und Menschen zu segnen. Was für ein grossartiger Job.
Außerdem haben wir 500 Dollar gespendet bekommen. Für dieses Geld wollen wir am 25. Dezember eine Weihnachtsfeier für die ca.30 Obdachlosen in Conroe veranstalten. Wir sind begeistert! Gott ist gut.

Within the last days we´ve been overwhelmed by the generosity of our Texan friends. We realised pretty much at the beginning how generous they are, providing so much for us as we arrived here. But we are really AMAZED about what is happening here in that christams season, even though a lot of families are struggling with the recession. Last week i send out an email to church people i got to know up to now. I told them about some specific individual needs we became aware of. For example there is our friend Mr. Lee who wants to take us to a proper afro- american church, but he wants to dress properly for that and needs a suit. Or a lady we met as we passed out thanksgiving meals. She is struggling to get enough food on the table for the kids she has to provide for. Than we needed different things for the upcoming christmas events for the needy we will be involved in.
Since we communicated those wants and needs we are bombarded with boxes, bags and envelops full of things that are so useful. Now we will spend the week driving around, distributing all those items to the people who need it. This is a great job!!!
In addition to that someone donated 500 Dollars for the homeless. With that money we are going to organise a nice christmas party for the 30 homeless we know in Conroe. We are very excited about all that. God is good!

no white christmas in houston

Hey Y'all,
just wanted to let you know...
...that they don't have white christmasses in Houston...

after a lot of work finally done...
let me know what u think...
I can deal with: wow - that was cheesy, or worst clip ever...
I'm strong in my idendity... ;-)
and sorry about the sound problems, that has to do with my too slow computer...
that can only be fixed with more Megaherz...

chriss

lunch in the Park

On being a Mary

Here in Texas we have a smaller place to live, not so much to take care of anymore.... we have less responsibilities..... there is less pressure on us..... we have less friends we can spend time with (which we are sad about).....
all these changes make it easier for me to be like Mary, and i enjoy it so much!
At the same time i am thinking about how I can keep the Mary- attitude when i am back in Germany.
So what was special about Mary? She was sitting down and spending time with Jesus, while Martha freaked out to make all the arrangements she thought needed to be done to make it nice and comfortable and special for the people around her.
I guess this is a mistake a lot of us are doing, especially in this Christmas season, but basically all throughout the year. We spend huge amounts of money, time and energy in decorating our house and our garden. We buy gifts, bake cookies, cook meals, and before we know it we are totally stressed out and tired when we are actually supposed to be full of Joy and Peace and Thankfulness. On top of that we get angry because the people around us do not acknowledge all the hard work we are doing to make this season beautiful for them.
Let us not fall into that trap. Let us keep the important things in mind.
If you spend your day cleaning the house it will be dirty again next week. But playing and cuddling with your children will make them remember the beauty of christmas for always.
Get all the christmas presents you need in one afternoon may be very effective, but walking through town with your loved one or your friends will give you lasting memories.
Getting up early to have everything prepared before the day starts might be a great idea. But getting your soul prepared to really cherish life and love God and people might be even better.
In the culture we are living in it is really difficult to be a Mary. We have so much to do and in addition to that we have so much to distract us with. Our two hours of free time each day are easily absorbed with Facebook and TV. But let us all fight for the Mary within us. Let us keep her alive.
SAVE THE MARY!

thoughts... by chriss

God’s love, his justice and righteousness

This last week while having my times with the Lord and His word I found something…

One of those things you thought you knew, but when you really see them, then you can actually grasp or at least you realize that what you thought all the time maybe was not all on target or actually only a tiny fraction of this huge truth of God.

We all know that God loves us, that He loves the whole world…

And we enjoy this truth and speak about it often in our churches. And so we should…

But how is it when it comes to speaking about His justice and righteousness? I really struggle with teaching those passages. But I will, as the Word of God is all I have to bring to the table…

So this last week as I was reading about Solomon I stumbled over something that I had never seen before:

As I was meditating over the “wise ruling” that made Solomon so famous I suddenly realized that this wisdom coming directly from God, probably would have a very difficult time to survive or find application in our minds and churches today…

If you look at 1.Kings 3:16 we see that these two women were prostitutes. According to Deuteronomy 23:17 (and many other scriptures) God was clear about not having harlots in Israel! So why would Solomon in all his wisdom even give these women an ear, if he was a man who was exercising “Gods righteousness”? “You two, just get your act together and then we can see if God’s Wisdom will have time for your problem…” that could have been his response to their request and probably would be most of the time today, right?

But there is even more about these two women that makes it hard for me to understand why God would choose this problem of these two women to have Solomon become so famous for his God given wisdom:

These two harlots were cold as ice – both their hearts were hardened from long years of abuse and abnormal humiliation in their profession. We can obviously see this clearly with the mother of the dead child, as she is ready without a wink to see the child cut in half…

But also the mother of the baby alive is hard as stone. Maybe not in the area of her heart as a mother, where this God given passion and love of a mother is willing to even let her own child go as long as it may have life…

If you look at 1.Kings 3:21 it says: “But when I had examined him in the morning, indeed, he was not my son whom I had borne.” (NKJV)

This term “examined him” we find also in Job and there the translation gives us a better understanding of what she did: Job 32:12 “I paid close attention…”

I don’t know about you, but the mothers I know including my wife would not have the emotional strength nor the mind to undergo a detailed examination of their child who has just died in their arms.

Why did she do it?

Well there is only one explanation for such an action:

She herself would have done the same wickedness to swap babies, that’s why she expected the other prostitute to do such a thing.

The death of her child did emotionally not touch her so far to overwrite the wicked assumption that the other woman switched the babies.

So with all this in mind, again the question: Why would God speak His divine godly justice into these women’s situation, women that were wicked, hard at heart and were actively involved in the godless activity of prostitution?

Well, the answer I found in chapter 10 of first Kings.

It was the Queen of Saba who visited Solomon to see the wisdom and all the riches for her self, when she profoundly pointed out: “Because of the LORD’s eternal love for Israel, He has made you King, to maintain justice and righteousness.” 1^st Kings 10:9 NIV

She understood that it was love that motivated God to put Solomon as King, so that He might exercise God’s righteousness and justice!

Jeremiah 9:24 states the same concept:

“But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight," says the LORD.”

God’s justice and righteousness is always motivated by God’s nature of love and kindness!

How does that go togther?

How can you exercise justice and righteousness and love and kindness at the same time?

God can and He does it over and over again…

The ultimate expression of this we find at the cross, as he exercised extreme justice and righteousness by bringing the penalty of sin upon His divine son Jesus Christ, to show us His love and kindness, so that now we can receive His provision for the punishment of our sin in Jesus, who paid for us!

So now the uncomfortable question:

Do we understand God an know Him in His lovingkindness, justice and righteousness? Or is it that we only embrace one side of this truth of God, because we either fear or don’t understand the other?

Ephesians 5:1 Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. We are called to live like this, to have both areas alive and active in our life, family and churches, if we call ourselves children of God!

God, may we understand and know you more so we might glory in the one true God…