i don't understand

this is going to be a very quick entry and it's not chronological at all. but i have to write about this because it's been really bugging me.

so one of the things i miss the most about the US is going to church and getting to worship, freely and uninterupted, for a half hour or so. the worship is not what i would consider worship at all. it's a song that feels really stiff, then someone talks, then an even stiffer song in english, then another person says something. it's like the songs are just put in because they're supposed to be there. it doesn't feel like it coming from within.

so last night i went to a reach out that the youth held and they had a time of "worship" at the beginning. all the songs were in english. all of them. there was one that they had one verse in german but then they immediately sang it again in english. i just don't understand why they sing in english so much.

i asked hubert and sylvia and they said that the younger generation here thinks that english is just better. if there's a song in german they'll translate it and sing it in english because they think it sounds better. but they problem is that, while a lot of people here know some english, they don't really understand everything. and then it hit me. that may be why "worship" feels so stiff and rigid. because they aren't worshiping in their own language they have to concentrate really hard to just get the words out, which they don't really even understand, and then they have no room left to really praise God in the way He deserves to be praised. that's what i'm perceiving at least. it's really hard for me to see that since what i want to do is to help people worship God freely and without any sort of hinderance. i'll write more later after i get to talk to some of the youth about it.

everyone should come to austria for a hair cut

i think i need to update this thing more often because i don't even know where to start. i think i'll start with wednesday last week.

so, my hair was getting out of control. it was too long (it was on my neck) and i just couldn't handle it anymore. i wanted it all gone. so hubert took me to the local "cheap" salon. he needed to cut his hair also. first i needed to get my hair washed. everyone knows that feels amazing because it's a freaking massage on your scalp. it was the most awesome scalp massage i've ever had. then we go to the chair and she asks me how i want it. i told her a little shorter in the back than in the front and asymetrical bangs. that was all she needed. she starts cutting away. checking and re-checking the length to make sure everythign is even. sectioning it off so that the line is smooth. it was really amazing to watch/feel. then the cutting was done after about 30 to 45 minutes and i'm thinking, "okay i'll be done soon. she might blow dry my hair a little and let the rest air dry." well, she starts out doing that. but she proceeds to dry my hair all the way, with a round brush, ie my hair was the straightest i'd ever seen it (it had a little curl at the ends). i'm thinking, "wow, this is awesome!" then, she pulls out the straightening iron. she sections things off and begins the process all over again, as if she was cutting my hair, except this time she was straightening it. and straightening it. and straightening it. i couldn't believe it! by the time she was finished with my hair it looked like i was born with naturally straight hair. i wasn't quite sure what to do with myself. i felt like i needed to dress up because i knew that i would never be able to get my hair back to this state on my own. here, i'll show you.

it was expensive, by my standars, though. it was 33 euro. however, hubert tells me that the place we went to was really one of the cheaper places for a good hair cut. i think even if i went to a less quality place i would still come out with a better hair cut than i would if i got a slightly expensive hair but in the US. i don't know if i can afford that kind of hair cut again but i think it was worth the experience.

so, i dressed up a little then sylvia took me to see the fortress in salzburg. it's hard to believe that there was once a whole community of people living there, from servants to the very wealthy. and the way up to the fortress was very well built, if you want to make sure your enemies have a hard time getting to you. or maybe they knew that in the future lots of tourists would need a little excersise after really long trips. either way, it gave a really pretty view of salzburg. there's not a whole lot else to say about it. it was a castle. i think i was still distracted by my hair. i'm not trying to sound vain but i just couldn't believe the miracle she had worked with my hair.

i think i'm going to make another entry about vienna and the village festival and then another one about this week as of monday. otherwise this would be the longest blog entry in history. it probably rival moby dick for length. :)

are you ready for this, austria?

so, pause on all the deep stuff and i'll catch you up on random stuff that's going on.

i'm learning to drive a manual transmission. mhmm, that's right. jody gets to drive a stick in austria! and, this is pretty cool, i don't have to get an austrian or an international driver's license. i get to just drive! (a little scary, huh?) the scariest thing about learning to drive a stick is that i have to learn how to deal with hills and ice and snow, something i never would have had to deal with in texas. crazy! so here's how things went down.

i've known that i can drive here for about a week now but i've only driven a standard like twice in my life and it was mainly around parking lots. hubert had been trying to get me to drive ever since we found out i could drive. my response was always, "are you kidding? i'm not driving with other people around. they drive crazy enough as it is here without me as a driving hazard on the road. i'm pretty sure we'd die." so, i had managed to get out of it so far, until yesterday.

sylvia and the kids and i were going to a lake for the day but we had to go to a drug store and pick up some things first. she gave me this look and said, "you drive." i said, "are you kidding? we have kids in the car and there are going to be other people on the road. no way." "oh, come on. it's only about a mile. you can do it," she said. now, i'm thinking, "$^*#! but it's only a mile or so. okay okay okay. b r e a t h e...okay." so, she hands me the keys, we strap the kids in, i take off my jacket, because i had gotten suddenly very warm for some reason, and i get behind the wheel.

first, i adjust the seat so i can actually reach everything. then i look at the gear shifter and think, "oh God, what am i doing?" sylvia walks me through all the different gears and i try really hard to feel the difference but all i could really tell was that 2 and 4 were towards the back of the car and that R, 1, 3, and 5 were towards the front of the car and that you had to push the gear shift down to get to R. so i start the car and i put it in R. the car starts rolling back. "okay, this isn't so bad," i think. then, i try to turn the wheel and i discover that not only is the car a manual transmission but it's also manual steering. i wasn't ready for that one. so i start C R A N K I N G it. i mean, whew that was hard work, kind of cranking. then i needed to put it into first and i just kind of move the gear shift forward and hope it's in the right place. it was a miracle that it actually got in the right place because i didn't know what i was doing. i let up on the clutch as i pressed down on the gas and we start moving. YES!!!! oh wait, drat! i have to stop and check if there's a car coming. crap. that means i have to start over again. okay, no one coming. clutch up, gas down, jug-a-jug-a-jug-a, we stall. i try it again, jug-a-jug-a-jug-a. well, they say, third times the charm...and we're off like a sloth. that's okay though because i didn't really want to go much faster than first would allow me. however, i didn't have much of a choice on that because there's a hill that i had to go down and it really was best to have it in second for that. so, i said a quick prayer, a couple of PG-13 words, put the clutch in, pulled on the gear shift, let the clutch out while pushing on the gas and HOORAY!!! i did it! i changed gears while moving!!!! maybe this whole manual thing isn't as hard as i thought it was.

i'm going along great, shaking like jello, but everything is good. the trees are so pretty, especially on this hill. now i gotta turn left because my road dead-ends into another one, no problem, i hope. so i stop and turn left, jug-a-jug-a-jug-a. *@^#...ummm...what now? it's okay, there's no one coming. just start the car again, put it in first and go. (oh yeah, it's a really good idea to use the hand break here if you're on a hill and there's someone behind you and you have to go forward. that way you don't roll back into them and cause all kinds of problems.) so that's what i was trying to do. i try it a couple of times on the hill and every time it's the same, jug-a-jug-a-jug-a. then sylvia thinks it might be easier if we try starting from a place that's a little flatter so i put it in R and we roll backwards down the hill. alright, okay, whew, i can do this. put it in first, i think, and clutch up, gas down, jug-a-jug-a-jug. @&$%!!!! (in my head) what's going on? why won't the car go? we try the gear a couple of times to see if it's in first, we're pretty sure it is, and it just isn't going. so sylvia and i trade places and she gets us up the hill beautifully. she thinks it's just that i wasn't giving it enough power on the hill, which is very easily fixed. i think it's more because i was in third when i should have been in first. when we get up to a flat-ish part of the road she stops the car and makes me drive the rest of the way, which was okay. i think i actually got up to using third! we get to the drug store and i park, which was a lot harder than i ever thought it would be since the steering was manual as well, but i got it in the space just fine. i put the hand brake on, turn off the car and got out of the car. i must tell you that i had a nice layer of "sheen" on my skin. :) "not bad," sylvia says to me. "not bad at all."

so that was my first lesson in driving a stick in austria. it was pretty crazy. and, to make a long story a little bit shorter, i drove again after our outing to the lake and i did fine. i even changed gears while i was going up a hill twice and the car didn't stall. it worked just fine in fact. i even was successful at the whole "starting with the hand brake on" thing but only on flat surfaces. i didn't have the courage to try it on the hill again. i also must say that i now know, really know, where all the gears are and i'm not just guessing. AND...i can do it without looking. i'd say that's pretty good for one day of driving. i wouldn't say that i'm ready to take on the streets here yet, because it's way worse than anything in the US. everyone here only kinda sorta follows the rules so pretty much anything can happen. you gotta be quick on your toes here and i definitely don't think i'm there yet. in fact i can say i'm 101% sure that driving with other people on real roads is still a really bad idea. :)

a blemish on a pretty face

yesterday i saw something ugly, the first really ugly thing i've seen since i've been here. i keep on saying how pretty things are here but here was something that didn't fit.

i was waiting for sylvia to pick me up from the train station so we could go see the fortress or the museum of natural history, depending on how rainy it was, and then we would make our way to church. i had just started reading "traveling mercies" by anne lamott when i saw a man coming up the stairs. he was obviously homeless. he was so dirty that his skin was darker than nature had intended by quite a few shades. he worked slowly up the stairs because the elements and inability to afford medical attention had aged him prematurely. he could only shuffle a few steps at a time and only then by supporting himself with a rail or door. as he reached the top of the stairs a woman passed him and quickly moved past him, staring at him disdainfully. a few other people passed him but they didn't even look at him. he was a moving object to walk around.

my first reaction was the same as the woman's who passed him, disdane and disgut. but as i watched him, God filled my heart with compassion. satan, however, spoke against the stirring by saying that it isn't safe for me, as a girl, to help him, a man. a conversation with a friend of mine came back to me. we had been talking about helping the poor and this one girl had said that she would always see people on her way somewhere and would want to stop but would instead keep on going. i had said that that was probably a good thing because being a lone girl could be very dangerous and that it is really best to have a guy there just in case something happened. and to this my friend asked me if i didn't think God, our all-powerful father, was big enough to protect His children. i said, yes of course, but that doesn't mean we should take unnecessary risks. i said there was a difference between acting foolishly and trusting in the power of God to protect His children. i still believe the last statement but i also think that i wasn't really believing that God would be able to protect me in such an event. i was afraid. anyway, i kept on hoping that someone would help him, that someone would act on the compassion that i wasn't. i kept on fighting the voice by saying that helping a man like him was unwise, and that Jesus had told us to be as wise as serpents and gentle as doves. i managed to fight for so long that by the time i might have given in the man was already outside. i was so afraid of the bad things that might happen that i didn't even think of the blessing it might be to the man if someone actually saw him as a human being and would extend a helping hand.

then i got a call from sylvia asking me to wait for her outside so that when she arrived i could just hop in the car and we could go. i started to gather my things: my bag, my book, my scarf, my bottle of water, and sylvia's jacket, which i had borrowed. i thought it was going to be much colder than it actually was so i was carrying all my warm things. that's when i made a deal with God. i said, if the man is still out there i'll help him by giving him my scarf. between the time that the man went outside and sylvia called me, God brought to my mind the part in James that says, if you see a brother in need of food and clothing and you say to him "be warm and full" but do nothing to help him, your words are empty (very paraphrased). also, know that the scarf i had was a scarf i had gotten from my dad. it was one of my favourites and also his. so, when i made that deal with God, i didn't *really* think that the man would be there. so i walked outside to wait for sylvia. i looked around to see if the man was still there. yep, there he was. no more than 50 meters away from me. then, as you might have guessed, i stalled again. i thought, i'll wait for sylvia to call me so that i can give him the scarf and make a run for it, just in case. i also started thinking that it was my dad's scarf and he would probably be mad if he knew i gave it to some homeless guy. then i thought about how many scarfs i have and that my dad would be glad to know that his scarf had gone to someone whose need for it was greater than my fashion need for it. i finally decided to quit stalling and just give him the scarf. as i walked up to him i saw that he was smoking a stub of a cigarette. i almost turned around. i didn't. i took a bit of loud talking to get his attention once i was in front of him, i don't think he's used to people talking to him. i shoved the scarf towards him and said, for you (in german of course). and this too (my bottle of water). he looked at me with a very surprised look and said, thank you. and i just walked away. it was a few minutes before sylvia called me so i was able to look around at the man a couple of times. he held everything close to him. i started to think about how easily i get dehydrated and "drat" that i had given him my water. then i saw him drinking the water and i became so happy. i was so glad to have been able to help.

now, this entry is not to say, look what i did. i helped a poor, homeless man out by giving him water and i gave him my dad's scarf out of self-sacrifice. this entry is to tell how God shows me how to look beyond myself, to try and reach other peoples needs, wether they be very obvious or hidden. it's also to tell of the grace and patience God has with His children. He gave me an opportunity and i blew it. then He gave me the opportunity again and i stalled 'til it was almost too late. but i finally listened to the quiet, constant urging of His voice. yay God.

ps-can someone from hsl tell brady thanks for challening me about why i believed what i thought. he's the one i had to conversation with.

indescribable feeling

yesterday was a wonderful day of rest for me. i woke up late, helped my friends out by watching their kids while they got some much needed work done, and had races with the boys. now those of you who have seen me run, i don't run very fast, but the boys thought i was the fastest runner they've ever seen. now, they're also 6 yrs old. it was really fun though running around. i've been fairly inactive the entire time that i've been here so actually using my muscles for what they are meant for was great.

i had to get up pretty early this morning because there were some things that had to get done before 10 this morning, which is when i've been normally waking up. :) so last night i went to bed at about 10:30 or so and to help me fall asleep i listened to iron & wine. one of the songs that i listened to was called "naked as we came" on the album "our endless numbered days". it's about two people, presumably married, and what will happen when one of them dies. and it got me thinking about what it would be like to lose someone you had spent most of your life with. to have them there and then to all of a sudden turn around and them not be there. i thought of my parents and what it will be like when one of them dies. i became so sad because i could see it in both cases of my parents. if my mom died first and if my dad died first. i couldn't bear it for either of my parents. but i know it's inevitable. i hope it doesn't come for at least another 20 years or so but i coudn't help thinking that it was happening now. then i thought about what it would be like to lose someone who had been with you all your life, like my mom or dad or brother or sister. i started crying all over again. hard. i just can't imagine what that will be like. but i think i got a taste of it last night. and in a way, i've lost my family for a year. and it's harder than i ever thought it would be. all i could think was, "how do you cope? how do you unlearn their voice or their habits?" and the answer came so clear, "you don't. but you pray a lot." up to that point i had been unable to get the idea of such great loss out of my head. i just felt this incredible heaviness on my spirit that i couldn't lift. then i cried out to God to comfort me. i became unexplainably calm. i felt like i was being craddled and held tightly by someone i could trust to take care of me. i knew that the time had not yet come for these kind of tears and that when it did come i could fall onto the ever ready shoulder of God and cry until you can't tell the difference between tears and snot. i've been here a week and last night was the first time i had time to miss my family and what i had left behind. it was really hard. and i'm crying even now as i write this entry because the feelings of last night were so poignant. but i still have a great faith in the comfort of my God. He's the only one who could bring so much peace through so much turmoil in my spirit. (no song has ever made me think so much or brought such a tremendous reaction to words sung. it has shown me a new side of how influential music can be.)

please don't forget me in your prayers. i'm going to need a lot of help to get through this time. and also hearing from you is incredibly encouraging. you think it's just a short e-mail or letter or even a post card, but it means the world to me that you took the time to write me. i promise to try and write back in a reasonable amount of time. i love you all so much. (especially you, mom and dad and cary-anne and luke. especially you.)