Willkommen

And so it begins, the great and terrible adventure of my 22nd year. As I’m sitting here waiting to board the United plane to Frankfurt at gate C16, I hear a voice I’ve grown accustomed to hearing over the past 7 months. It’s the voice of Aaron Weiss and his friends; singing about existence and the beauties of God. It’s the words that he’s saying that have shaped my life immensely since I came home from San Francisco last year. How appropriate that I continue to listen to those same words as I begin my time away once again from everything that I’ve known for so long. I’m sitting here on the bench alone, but I do not feel lonely. I feel excitement coming from somewhere deep inside of me. It’s that excitement which disguises the sadness and fear. I know some things about what is in store for me in the next six months, but there are many more things that I do not know. I don’t know logistical things like train schedules to the places I’m staying, and I also don’t know who I will meet. I don’t know where I will travel to, and I don’t know how I’m going to feel when I lay down to sleep in Herrnhut tomorrow night. I don’t know a lot of things, but that’s ok. For now, as I sit here waiting, those things that I don’t know don’t really matter. Some of the unknowns will be fun and exciting, but I’m sure there are some that won’t. I guess it’s all of those unknowns that are going to make this chapter both great AND terrible. So for now, I will continue waiting in anticipation for what is about to come. I have no clue when I will get the chance to write again. Until then, smile when you think of me because I can assure you that no matter where I am or what is going on, I will be growing....

I made it to Frankfurt. Our flight took off on time, we had no stops, there were no problems, but we got here 45 minutes later than expected. I don’t really know how. So I ran from my gate of arrival to my gate of departure, thinking it was only a 2 minute distance because of what the flight attendant told me, going through a passport checkpoint and a security check, only to find out that the plane had already left when I got to the very last gate in the airport. Feeling a little defeated, I was sent to an information desk that I had run past earlier to find out that the next plane would be leaving in 2 hours. At least there’s free coffee from a little machine that looks quite powerful with 12 different drink selections to choose from. I guess this is what I expected, to experience the unexpected....

I'm finally in Herrnhut, in a castle. It's been a little crazy since Frankfurt. The flight to Dresden was only about an hour, so I landed around 10:40 into a place that seemed to have nothing. There was no place to exchange currencies, no Internet, no phones, nothing. Maybe it was because I hadn’t slept in awhile, or maybe it was because everything was in a different language, but I felt completely lost. I was supposed to be in a city called Loebau at 11, but I couldn’t find a ticket to get on the train that was going to take me there. Eventually, I got a ticket on a train that left at noon and would arrive at 1 pm, but I got kicked off the train after three stops because apparently the ticket I purchased was only for people with a certain train pass, which I didn’t have. In fear of a large fine or getting arrested, I jumped off at the next stop only to find myself somewhere in the suburbs of Dresden. At this point, I was worrying about the lady who was supposed to pick me up. What was she going to think when I didn’t show up and there was no way for her to get a hold of me? There was no way I could reach her either. Nobody seemed to have a cell phone, or maybe they just didn’t want to let me use it. Aside from the fact that I wasn’t in Loebau, I was also at a train stop in the middle of nowhere with no real idea of where to go. I worked my way across the tracks to find myself a new ticket, this one being the correct one, which would be leaving for Goerlitz in 10 minutes. An old man with one arm helped point me in the direction of that one. So, at 12:16, 75 minutes after I was supposed to meet a person from YWAM, I boarded a train that would take me over an hour to get to Loebau. My nerves were raised when the ticket lady came around, but this time she just gave me a stamp of approval. I asked several people to use their “handys”, but I guess nobody has cell phones. The train ride was beautiful. We went through the countryside of East Germany. The area that had once been occupied by Soviets still seemed as if it were lacking something. Small villages of one-room houses crowded the tracks on both sides, but then there would be picturesque neighborhoods of old rectangular shaped buildings. German shepherds could be seen in the back yards of several places, racing along the fence to catch the train. We went through forests of tall naked trees clothed only with snow. Around 1 pm, I got off the train at a small station in Loebau (Sachs). Again, I asked to use phones, but nobody would let me. Not even the pay phone worked, so I started into town in search of a business that might be so generous as to let me make a call to my host. I was looking for Internet cafes and churches; two places that would be sure to have what I needed. Instead, I found a little old lady named Frau Lehman. She led me to an empty church, going right inside even though the sign said closed and then to a music school. I told her where I was from and what I was doing, and she told me about the effects of the post-war DDR on East Germany. She showed me signs of economic decay throughout the city, and told me about her lack of hope in the youth who could be seen crowding the streets smoking cigarettes and snorting comments at us as we walked by. It was in the music school that I found a phone to dial Carolin, my contact. She said that she had already been in town to find me, but when I didn’t show up she went home to contact the trains about my whereabouts. We agreed to meet back on the other side of the city Frau Lehman had just led me through at the train station. Frau Lehman led me halfway, but then stopped to say goodbye and good luck at a store she had to visit. I found my way back to the station, through the crowds of teenagers recently released from school. Just before Carolin arrived, somebody else came to visit me. It was Frau Lehman, and she came with 10 Euros and the advice to take a taxi next time. She said that the money was for a phone call should I need to make one, and wished me good luck again. Carolin got me and drove me out of Loebau through more countryside to a little town called Herrnhut. We drove through more woods, and eventually ended up at the grandest YWAM base I’ve ever seen. It’s an old castle, and it houses a lot of people. It’s here that I sit now writing this post, in a large room to myself drinking some kind of tea while looking out the window at the surrounding woods. Great and terrible today and yesterday have been. But to think, this is just the start.