Achtung, bissiger Löwe: Beten und nicht einschlafen

Last weekend I went on retreat with Christian students in Berlin through a group called Studentenmission Deutschland (SMD). The theme was the title above. (Rough translation: Warning, biting (better word?) lion: Pray and don't fall asleep!) We went up to Ruhlsdorf in Brandenburg, which is a tiny town with only 498 residents. I was a little hesitant about going, since I knew it was gonna be me and a bunch of real live Germans. Ok, there were also two Americans there, which certainly made the idea more tolerable. Don’t get me wrong, I was quite excited to be going, and I’m glad I did. We went up to the retreat center on Friday evening and had dinner and then a talk by a man that I found really difficult to understand because he’s from the Erzgebirge. Then I spent a loooong time talking about—what else—language with a German guy who enjoys correcting every little mistake I make. It’s ok, I asked him for it. I am quite the opposite of Calvin, an American who is one of the leaders of SMD at HU (the uni I took courses at first semester). He converses quite easily in German, but he makes so many glaring grammatical errors that it drives me crazy. Still, I'm envious of his ability to talk so freely. Anyway, back to the retreat. Saturday morning we ate breakfast, during which I discovered that Germans eat eggs differently. First, they’d never really heard of hard-boiled eggs (maybe that’s why my roommate once scolded me for leaving eggs in boiling water for too long). Instead, they eat them soft-boiled--yuck! Second, they apparently take the top part of the egg off and use a spoon to scoop out the rest from the bottom of the egg. They were laughing at me for peeling my egg (does one peel an egg?). I know this sounds inconsequential, but it’s one of those cultural differences that you never think about. Also, eating open-faced sandwiches for breakfast, something I became familiar with long ago during my summer in Portugal, I still find odd. Oh, and Nutella on bread as a typical breakfast item. Ok, I’m going off on tangents. After breakfast we had a talk on praying, this time in very clear Hochdeutsch. It was quite good. We met in small groups afterward, and because the weather was so gorgeous, my group met outside. About 30 Oldtimers (German word for vintage cars) drove through. Such a little town, couldn’t figure out where they were going. Ok, so after lunch, we had free time. As a mentioned, the weather was beautiful, so a few of us walked around a nearby lake and then played on a playground. The lake was quite serene and breathtaking. Except for the FKK people! FKK stands for Freikoerperkultur (a great example of a German compound word). Basically, East Germans are quite fond of getting naked. Especially when the sun and the beach are involved. So yeah, the naked men here and there were quite . . . a nice surprise to round out the afternoon.

Here's the lake from the far shore. I'd like to come back and go for a swim. Apparently rockin' Ruhlsdorf--a town without a town center--has festivals all spring and summer long.

After afternoon free time we had a Grillabend, which is basically a barbeque.
Scrumdiddilyumptious!

Half the group at the Grillabend. They all look really, really German. At the far right are a married couple, all of about 21 years old.

The other half of the group. They look German enough, except the two other Americans (girl in left foreground and hairy guy in shorts) are present. And wow, a German is wearing real shorts! Not the capri-like version! And an I love New York shirt. Because it's ok to love New York, just not America.

After the Grillabend we had a Gebetsabend—prayer evening. Then that night I played card games with the two other Americans and a German guy born and raised on a Mennonite colony in Paraguay. He speaks Plattdietsch as his first language. He was awesome, if only because I was fascinated by his story. I always hesitate asking Germans who were born and raised in South America how their families ended up there because that’s where a lot of criminals fled after the end of WWII and after the fall of the wall. But this guy was legit—his great-grandparents on one side and grandparents on the other fled to Paraguay because of religious persecution. I’ve been reading up on the history—there’s about 200,000 of them. This guy doesn’t even have Paraguayan citizenship and didn’t learn Spanish until high school. There’s basically no need to when you live on a German-speaking commune. Anyway (again), I left early on Sunday to go to church, and that was that.

Like I said, I'm glad I went on the retreat. Everyone was really friendly, and when I absolutely had to speak English (rather, use a few English words here and there), they were understanding. It also got me a lot thinking about prayer. The retreat was definitely very different than what I am used to with CF. There were only about 18 of us, and it was much more low-key and less organized, with much less worship music (just two guitars and a few songbooks). It was kinda nice for it to be a small crowd. Allowed me to feel much more comfortable in participating. And it was good to meet students from other unis in Berlin, because I've been going to the HU SMD group all year and haven't really met other German students outside the group. I do know a fair number of Germans from my own church, but they are so internationalized and thus don't always give me the best picture of what Germans my age are like. The students in SMD, however, are really what I imagine typical Germans to be like. (Except for their whole devotion to God thing. Yeah, it'd be nice if that were more typical German.) They all wore the typical German house shoes and were quite frank with each other and so on. Fun to be around--the most important thing!