We had the great opportunity to visit Germany this past July. It was a culmination of many different threads all coming together to allow us to have this experience. It was the first time Tara and I could go on vacation together without kids since our honeymoon. It was a 40 year birthday for me, and almost our 20th year anniversary.The trip also allowed us to reconnect with our friends who worked with us in Colombia. During the years we lived in Colombia we had many Germans that worked in Bocachica stay at our house, sometimes days, sometimes months. We were able to see many of them while traveling and staying in some of their homes; there were only three nights that we stayed in an Airbnb.
We saw many places and had many experiences. For Tara and I, though, we are always happy to be with people, so one of the greatest highlights was seeing all our friends. They were all excited as well and had plans when we arrived to show us the local sights. I feel like we had more depth of knowledge of the areas because of their personal attention. We are very thankful for their help and friendship, and sorry to the others we missed this trip.
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| Leni and Raphaela |
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| Maria, Anne, Elvira, and Arthur |
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| At the wedding of Tine and Sasha |
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| Doro and Hannah |
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| Patrick and Bianca |
There were also others that we didn't get photos with, our hosts in Munich, Gregor and Ana.
An interesting thing for us Americans may be a number of bicycles there. They are more abundant than cars.
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| The architecture was beautiful |
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It was exciting to sit where Dietrich Bonhoeffer sat and
studied. |
We saw many more sites and interesting things that would take more posts to tell about.
One of the greatest impacts for me was seeing all the history in Germany. Some of what forms our culture in the West originated here. Because of the long history, there are a lot more stories, and the places we saw reminded us of them. Particularly, the glory and the depravity of humankind. We were in the country where the Reformation started, and many great theologians are from here. People that shaped our spiritual heritage and freed and articulated better what the Gospel really means. Many of the technologies we enjoy are birthed in the minds of Germans. We saw generations of architecture that are beautiful and timeless. In the same place, we toured a concentration camp and saw memorials to those who were killed in time of the Nazis. We saw the Berlin Wall. All the history is still visible. What I learned is important though, is that we need to see and know both of these sides of humanity. Gregor, our host in Munich, said that there is shame about what happened in the previous generation, and what he noticed is that his grandparents and everybody else never talked about anything that happened before that time period. So he considers it a lost generation, they never talked about the bad things because they were horrible, but at the same time, they didn't talk about the good things. For instance, Dietrich Bonhoeffer is fairly well known in the United States and in Asia. These people groups make up more of the tours of the Bonhoeffer house than the Germans. Americans about 40 percent, Asians about 30 percent, and Germans about 15 to 20 percent. Gregor said many Christians in Germany have never heard of him. So it is important to know the bad and the good, to be reminded of what humans in their depravity can do, but also what the Gospel can do in humanity. That is why sometimes in America we need to be reminded about racism and colonialism. To see that we are not too far removed from the evil, but at the same time to see how the Gospel and transformed people can move us in a new direction.
It was great to see friends and new places. We had a great time.
We will be updating about Luis' project he just finished in the next post.
