Flipping to the last page

I looked up from the book I was reading, and glanced out the window.  We were passing through some city I didn't recognize.  I went back to reading, musing that I liked long bus rides.  There's a bit of adventure along the way, you're not quite sure of where you are, or where you'll be next, but you're secure in your final destination.  Why couldn't I treat life the same way, I wondered.  Stop worrying about the unexpected detours and unknown stops in my path, and just feel secure in my final destination.

When I was a kid, I used to love Nancy Drew mysteries.  Despite having read dozens, and knowing there were dozens more to read, there would usually come a point in the book where I was scared.  They seemed to be in an impossible situation with no way out.  So, I would flip to the end of the book, and just read the last paragraph.  I didn't want to read enough to give away the fun of the adventure, just enough to give myself the courage to keep reading, knowing that everything was going to be all right.

I feel a bit that way in my own life right now.  Not scared of danger, just scared of unknowns.  Overwhelmed by all the changes I know are coming just a year from now, and feeling like I don't have the resources to handle them.

But, as I was riding on that bus yesterday, I was reminded of something.  I do know the ending.  And everything does turn out all right.  There's a lot I don't know about the journey, but that's ok, because I know the ending, and that gives me courage to keep on keeping on.

"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son." Revelation 21:3-7

Full disclosure

I have the tendency to look at other people's facebook and blog lives, and admire, and sometimes long for, what I see.  My Mom reminds me that we only see one side of the story online and not to get jealous of perfect lives that aren't any more perfect than mine anyway.  My mom is a wise woman.

She also mentions how people are following my adventures and think my life is so perfect.  So, in the interest of full disclosure, if you're living through me vicariously, home in the US and thinking my life is exotic, or somewhere else abroad but still admiring my freedom, or safety, or picturesque surroundings, or whatever; it's not all perfect here either.  (I still think the good outweighs the bad most of the time, in this life I've chosen, so this isn't a "feel bad for me" post, just a post to share the honest-to-goodness hard parts about the way I live so people won't feel too envious ;) and also, if you're the praying kind, if you could pray that God would give me discernment as I'm choosing what to do after grad school so that the 2nd and 3rd things on my list aren't such challenges, I would really appreciate that.)

Here are the things I see in friends' lives that I long for.

Home
I'm living in student housing right now.  My kitchen (which I share with a flatmate and probably has less floorspace than my parents' walk-in closet) has a two burner stove and a mini fridge.  No oven.  My home decorating consists of a 20 euro area rug from Ikea and 2 potted plants.  Somedays, I think how nice it would be to have a living room.  To go furniture shopping.  To buy things to decorate my house, not expecting to leave the country in 6 months or a year.  I remind myself that this is only a season, but I'm glad that (hopefully) this season of country hopping and student housing won't last too much longer.

Family
My family lives on another continent.  I see them at Christmas.  That's hard.  I don't think it ever stops being hard.  The majority of my college friends are married now, settled down with a kid, or 2, or 3.  All I wanted growing up was to have a family.  This whole career thing only happened because waiting around for Prince Charming to show up would have been boring.  But I still long for marriage and children, and somehow flitting from country to country makes that desire seem even farther away.

Lasting Community
I have friends here, and in Finland, and in Colombia, and for that I am thankful.  I couldn't be so far from everything I know without friends to keep me sane.  But YWAM and international students are transient groups.  We come, we stay for awhile, we move on.  It's really hard to say good bye to people you love over and over and over again, and then invest in new relationships, knowing that they're doomed to be short-term at least as face to face friendships too.

Financial Security
God's provision, parents who let me stay at home while I was in the States, and some good financial decisions when I had a paying job mean I've never had to worry about where my next meal was coming from.  But still, I wouldn't mind having a pay check again.  I wanted a DSLR camera for years, and finally bought myself one this year at Christmas, using baby sitting money I earned in Finland.  I am super thankful I had that job and was able to save up for my camera, but there's something about saving baby-sitting money that makes me feel like I'm 12 years old.  :)

The power of his resurrection

My faith feels frozen.  I am weary and discouraged.  I don't see fruit in my life.  I don't see growth.  For one who knows the Truth, I seem to have a lot of unanswered questions.  

But spring reminds me of something: at the end of winter, when things seem most bleak, when it feels like the world will always be grey, things are changing beneath the surface where we still can't see them.  And then, from what seemed to be dead, lifeless, hopeless, new life appears.

Then, of course, there's the story when death appeared to have won.  

And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking Jesus down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mark 15:46

Death. A Tomb.  The end.  

Except, it wasn't.  It was only preparation for the most glorious beginning.

But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.” Matthew 28:5-7

And so, this Easter, I'm rejoicing. I'm rejoicing that I serve a living Savior.  I'm rejoicing that my God is in the business of redeeming hopeless situations.  I'm rejoicing that when things seem most desperate, God is working behind the scenes and below the surface and someday his glory will come bursting through.

For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. Philippians 2:13

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. John 15:16

The unexpected

We were on a train heading to Deining.  The girls wanted to do a photo shoot somewhere scenic and Fluvio and I wanted to hike.  But only halfway there, we spotted some castle ruins on the hill.  We all started wondering aloud if we could get there as the train pulled in to the next station.  As it was stopping, I spotted a hiking trail map out the window.  "Come, on, let's go!" And suddenly the 4 of us were piling out onto a platform in, well, we didn't really know where. The hiking trail map didn't have enough details for us to make up our minds which way to go, so we just set off in the general direction of the castle.

First, we had to make a mad dash across the train tracks, since we didn't see a crossing anywhere.  A sea of yellow rapeseed flower in bloom stretched in front of us, and we walked around it and down to an intersection.  "Maybe we should have looked at the platform sign before we left the station so we would know where we are" we mused.  A trail post stood at the intersection, "Laaber Burgruine" it read.  "Are we in Laaber, maybe?" I asked.  Fluvio looked at the sign. "Burgruine means castle ruins". Apparently we were on the right track.  A staircase lead downhill, and we caught our first glimpse of the castle ruins sticking up above the village.

The view from the castle was spectacular.  Past the town and the train tracks, forested hills touched the horizon.  A little church nestled in the trees half way up the hills.  Below us, the town spread out neatly, steep red roofs and pastel colors clustered around a church.

We decided that there probably wasn't a much better picnic spot on earth than right there in the castle ruins, and a fresh baked loaf of bread with brie cheese was the perfect picnic food.

After our lunch, the girls headed off to find the perfect spot for their photo shoot, and Fluvio and I headed into town to explore and find a hiking trail.  Behind the school headed into the woods, we found a trail marked by the stations of the cross.  We followed it up the hill to a clearing with three crosses, then beyond the clearing into an open field with views of the forests and mountains behind it.  The mountains weren't nearly high enough, but I still felt a bit like I was in the opening scene from The Sound of Music, and I just might have spun through the meadow singing "the hills are alive with the sound of music" for a second or two. . .

We crossed some more fields, and then entered a dark pine forest.  Pinecones covered the ground and the stillness of the place spoke stillness to my soul.  On our way out, I spotted some pussy willow that had been cut down, and cut some of the branches off to take home and decorate.

As we headed back to the train station, an ice cream store in town caught our eye.  There's not a much more perfect way to end a beautiful spring day than with an ice cream cone. The friendly lady behind the counter loved talking to foreigners.  She spoke in German clearly and slowly, so we could understand, and then chatted with us about where we were from and what we were doing in Germany. Just as we were finishing our cones in the outside patio, a few raindrops started falling.  We dashed for the train platform, but the shower finished before we even got there.

There's nothing much more delightful than a perfect day in a place you didn't even know existed when you left the house. 

Plan B

Our spur of the moment plan made sitting in the beer garden the day before didn't sound so good anymore, staring at the weather forecast.  Showers all day long, highs in the mid teens.  Who wants to spend 3 hours on a train, just to go see some mountains in the rain?

But, it was already 6:15 and we were meeting at 7:20.  If I didn't come up with another plan quickly, I'd be hiking in the rain (or more likely, huddling in a cafe) like it or not.

15 tabs in my finder later, I had a basic plan. It sounded good: take a shorter train ride to a place with a good weather forecast, pick up the Frankenweg trail there, follow it to the next town, and ride the train back.  There were just a few minor details missing, you know, things like, where to pick up the trail when we left the train station, how close the trail passed to the next town, and the actual distance we would be hiking.  Oh, and the fact that I couldn't actually print the map.

However, little details like that weren't enough to stop our adventurous crew (that and the fact that I may not have *ahem* disclosed that I didn't know the actual distance.  Google maps claimed 8.5 km.  Of course, that was following the road).  Our train stopped at Deining, and we stepped out onto the platform.  We looked around us, a bit bewildered.  We'd assumed if there was a train station, there would at least be a large enough town to find a cafe and drink a coffee while we waited for a friend who had over slept to catch up with us.  But all we could see was the platform, a road, and a sign.  Deining was apparently not a thriving metropolis.

We sleepily looked at the sign and tried to figure out which direction the hiking trail was, until Mikko made the brilliant deduction that we'd better continue the direction the train was going since our final destination was that way.  Our decision was pretty quickly confirmed as we spotted the first of the red and white stickers that were our lifeline for the rest of the day.

Turns out people do live in Deining, because we passed some backyards before the trail veered off into the forest.  Birds were singing, flowers were blooming, and trees were budding.  Our enthusiasm lasted for a couple of hours, as we moved in and out of forests and pastures, and through farmsteads.  A little village nestled in the distance, it's church steeple sticking up above the roofs. Giant wind turbines dotted the landscape, their modernity and sleek lines strikingly out of place.

After a couple of hours hiking, we came to a cross road.  The path continued one way.  A major road with a sign pointing to Neumarkt (our final destination) pointed the other.

Morale immediately sank to zero.  When you don't have a trail map and road signs are telling you the opposite of the trail blazes, it's hard to trust a sticker over a road sign, especially when only one person in the group has even seen the trail map and can confirm that it heads to the destination.  After a lengthy discussion, we decided to risk the hiking trail, but then realized we'd temporarily lost it.  At our most lost, our missing group member called us.  We told him to get off at the next town and walk back and meet us.  "Take the Frankenweg trail" I told him.  "It has red and white stickers.  Don't take any other trail, or you won't find us.  We're a bit lost now, but we'll let you know if we stop following the trail."

We crossed the road, looking to see if we could pick up the trail again, but there weren't any stickers to be seen.  We flagged down a young guy and practiced our German, but he could only tell us that yes, the road lead into town, and no, he didn't know any hiking paths.  We regrouped, confused again.  Should we follow the main road?  Or look for the hiking path?  Just then an older gentlemen came by on his bike.  "Entschuldigung!" (excuse me!) one of our group members called out.  The man stopped and the guy who stopped him suddenly realized he didn't have all the German skills necessary to ask what he wanted. "Kerlys!" he called, and our best German speaker went over to help him out.  She only got a few words out before she was calling me over, "what's the name of the hiking path we're looking for?"  Despite the poor man being overwhelmed by a succession of people all trying to ask the same question with varying degrees of German fluency, he finally understood us and answered.  "Straight ahead, just follow this path.  Yes it will take you to Neumarkt"  Feeling slightly more confident, we did as he said.

It wasn't the last of our confusion though. The path twisted and turned, stubbornly avoiding the direction that we were sure the city was.  Signs we passed neglected to mention Neumarkt as a destination.  We started to second guess ourselves again.  Our missing friend Hugo wasn't having any luck either.  I got a text message from him, "I'm on trail 5, with a yellow and white blaze".  Wait, what?  How were we ever going to find each other if we weren't on the same trail?  I called him back and explained once again what trail we were on.  "Make sure you find the same trail, or we'll never find each other"

The next trail sign we passed was stamped by the city of Neumarkt, so we started to feel more confident.  Even so, we'd passed 8.5 km long ago, and the city was nowhere to be seen.  Would we ever get there?  And would we ever find Hugo?  The last we'd heard from him, he'd found an orange church and was waiting there, sure we'd find him eventually.

Despite some dire predictions of death in the woods, starvation, meeting roaming bands of cannibals, or alien kidnapping, we eventually made it to civilization.  A sign post kindly informed us that we were 13.2 km from where we had started and that Neumarkt was only 3.7 km away.  (Whatever happened to 8.5 total?!  Thanks Google maps!) There was also a church only .8 km away, and a quick phone call to Hugo confirmed that it was the same one he was at.

We broke out into cheers when we reached the church and saw Hugo sitting in front of it, the city spread out in the valley below.  We'd been intrepid explorers, and finally were within sight of our destination.  The view made us all decide it was worth the extra kilometers of walking.

From the church, we headed down the mountainside into the city where we decided lunch was a must. After all, you work up quite an appetite walking 17 kilometers.  Sausages, potato salad and beer took the edge off our hunger, and then we wandered the town for a bit before catching our train back.

Five minutes before our train left, as we were speed walking to the station, a fire truck pulled up and the firefighters jumped out and rushed towards the platforms.  An ambulance with it's lights flashing was already parked there.  "That doesn't look good" one of us commented, as we rushed towards our platform.  Out of breath from dashing up the stairs, we checked the schedule as we wondered why the train wasn't there yet.  An announcement soon had everyone changing tracks, and we followed, a bit confused.  "Our train was canceled, we have to take the other" someone explained.  That train didn't seem to be going anywhere either, even though it should have left 2 minutes prior.  The conductor explained to someone through the window that all the trains were delayed, followed by something I couldn't understand.  Nina asked in English if the train went to Regensburg, and he assured us that it did, but then followed it up with, "But somebody has died.  We're not going anywhere until the track's cleared"  The ambulance and firetruck took on a whole new meaning.


We boarded the train, alternating between morbid curiosity and the feeling that our curiosity probably wasn't very respectful of whomever had died.  Uniformed officers went back and forth outside the windows, caution tape was put up, and then removed only minutes later, someone thought they saw the body being removed, and then realized they were mistaken.  Minutes ticked by and curiosity dulled to boredom and tiredness.  "Maybe we should walk back to Deining and take the train from there.  It might be faster" someone joked.  Just thinking about it made me exhausted.  As we were beginning to wonder if we'd be stuck spending the night in a town none of us had even ever heard of before, they made an announcement and everyone got off the train.  Good thing everyone in our group speaks more German than me- I would have been lost. They sent us to board a bus, which, we thought, would take us directly to Regensburg.  Ten minutes into our trip, as we were drifting off to sleep, the driver came on and made an announcement.  "Wait, what was that?"  No one really understood that time.  We arrived at another train station, and the driver said something else.  All that I understood was the time- 5:20.  The bus clock said 4:07.  It finally dawned on us.  We had to get off the bus and board another train. It would be there at 5:20.  The thought of spending over an hour on a platform made me want to cry.  But as we walked to the platform and checked out watches, we realized the bus clock was an hour slow- the train would be there in only 12 minutes.

Finally on the train to Regensburg, we closed our eyes.  If nothing unexpected happened, we should be home soon.  Fortunately for us, this time around, all went as planned.