It's hard to believe but we've been living in Munich for 6 months already! Time is flying by. We thought it'd be fun to show you a quick tour of our city and our life here. We hope you enjoy!
When I arrived at college I had major “potential friend” shock. After growing up in a small rural town I was now surround by hundreds of potential new friends. My shyness immediately kicked into high gear! How was I going to get to know people? However, I was determined to try to overcome my lack of confidence. So with lots of prayer (asking God for help) I jumped in with both feet! Some days were successful and I managed to ask good get-to-know-you questions and have genuine conversations. Other days were epic fails. (Like at orientation when I asked a Resident Director if he was one of the Freshman. Oops!) My ability to laugh off my faux pas seemed to grow daily! As cliché as it sounds, I definitely saw that the saying, “You have to be a friend before you get friends” really was true. . .
It's Christmas time in the city ...
An unusual kind of springtime is here. During the last week of November, every city square, triangle, or circle (everything labeled "platz" in German) started budding with wood sheds. Come the first of Advent, the awnings opened, and they burst into the myriad of colors called a "Weinachtsmarkt," or "Christmas Market." Tendrils of white lights extend down many streets and wrap themselves around light posts and shop windows. The sidewalks are buzzing not just with shoppers, but with clusters of friends crowded around steaming "Glühwein" or mulled wine stalls. It's a beautiful place to be this time of year, so we wanted to share a few photos to help you experience it with us.
I met M. in the central train station of a mid-size German town not far from Frankfurt. Even though I knew he was as eager to see me as I was him, the look in his eyes was tired and fearful. It wasn't a temporary anxiety or a general paranoia; it struck me as the sort of fear that had eroded its way onto his 23-year-old face over the course of weeks or months. For him, the train station had been a 40-minute walk from the refugee camp. After a week in the town, this was his first time to make it to the city center. Nor had he taken the bus, even once. “When we ask people for directions,” he said at one point, “they sometimes say, ‘Oh, it’s a really long walk.’ ‘How long?’ we ask. ‘About 5 kilometers,’ they say. After all the walking we’ve done, 5 km is not a problem!”
For us, landing in Munich has been something like being introduced to someone’s grandma in the kitchen just before dinnertime. She has an aged charm and a no-nonsense bustle. Practically everyone we’ve told we’re going to Munich has said, “It’s beautiful,” and it is—all the more so for its charming history, being about 900 years old. But it’s also a very modern city of 1.5 million people (almost 6 million in the metro area). So how are beautiful Munich and bustling Munich fused together as one city? That’s what I felt I began to grasp on our first day out and about town.
I can hardly believe it. An eight-year dream is coming true. When Nathan and I were dating we talked quite a bit about life goals and dreams. We found out that we had pretty similar dreams. God had put it on both of our hearts to live overseas and be a part of helping others think through what they believe and why they believed it. . . .