The plan (skip this if you’re read it before) was to go off to north Germany for just under a month and learn how to be an ambulance driver, come home in June, get eight weeks experience and go back for exams in the beginning of August. The plan worked, despite certain practical problems, right up to arriving at the school. Unfortunately that’s where things began to unravel.

The problem was not meeting lots of new people, language or any of the other stuff I was concerned about. It was decibels, specifically coming from our teacher.

He started shouting in the first lesson: this school wasn’t going to be ‘average’; it would be the best; we were going to be pushed to the limit; he’d make us stressed as far as we could bear and then some; his students scored an average of 1.2* and he would make sure we did the same, apparently by shouting. Everything taught each day would have to be learned in its entirety by the next morning. It would be tested by pulling people up to the front and grilling them, and woe betide any student that was not Good Enough.

Quite what this was meant to achieve I don’t know: all it did for me was stop my brain working.

I held out until Monday: the teacher did deal with some of us more carefully than others, but in the end it dawned on me that to stay I’d have to spend the next three weeks trying to make myself fit into the ethos of the school, and that wasn’t the sort of person I am or want to be, and wouldn’t have made me a better ambulance driver either. My identity didn’t need to be wrapped up in being Good Enough for this particular teacher, nor in becoming an ambulance driver by August, so after watching five people get shouted at for an entire lesson I packed my bags and came home.

When I wasn’t avoiding the teacher I was having a great time and enjoying the work, so I’m trying to find another way to get to the same place, maybe by working with the local Red Cross and then applying to a school nearby with more relaxed lessons and less decibles; we’ll see.

In the meantime it’s planting season, and I still want to ride a century this year, I’ve a carpentry apprenticeship to start in September, something fell off Middle Son’s bike, (It is a mystery to me how the boys manage to lose obscure fittings on their bikes, but they do) so I need to get fixing it, and I’ve just realised it’s mothers day in Germany tomorrow.

More normal (ie: Bike and garden related) posts from next week.

*Exams in Germany are typically graded from 1.0 (perfection) down to 4.9 or 5. Britain as usual has to be different so my grades are all in letters, which causes no end of confusion.

Hopefully, given time and money, Andy can race down to see the family for a very short weekend in the middle of the course, then after the first exam he should be working from home for two months while he completes a month in an accident and emergency ward, and then another month in different ambulances. Of course he now has to apply for these placements, which means more paperwork, on top of the paperwork for the carpentry apprenticeship, -or more accurately, for the finance for the apprenticeship- and visit the carpentry school and discuss how many lessons he’s expected to attend, and file an amendment to my original application (with paperwork to back it up) because he’s now working part time at the bike shop, and then another amendment (with different paperwork) because he’ll be away throughout May.

Unfortunately the Job Centre is not being very helpful: we are now getting some social security payments, but they will reduce them while Andy is away, and he’ll have to pay for health insurance for some of the time in Meck-Pom. Andy is still (just) inside the allowed time frame for being away from home, so please pray that we find two internship placements which are near to us here, otherwise we will have to work out what we’re doing next…

We’ve made a lot of progress in the last week, please pray we don’t forget that in the face of all that is still to complete…

Nativity Story Birth to Cross

Wishing you a good Easter!

The Medakademie has contacted [Andy] and informed him that the …course …won’t be happening due to the lack of students. They offered him a possibility of doing the same course in north of Berlin, providing the lodging cost… Unfortunately that course starts in the end of July instead of beginning of May, which means he will have to cancel his visit to the UK this summer… We appreciate your prayers for our decision on this situation.

 It seems that Medakadamie has offered me two options:

1: a place at the school in Daschow, north of Berlin, at exactly the same time as the one I applied to attend in Stuttgart.

2: A place in the school in Stuttgart, but starting in August.

Because I applied on the understanding that I’d be in Stuttgart, they have offered to cover the cost of the bed and board in Daschow during the one-month theory phase. This would still mean getting there, and being away from home at least a week at a time, and possibly two, although I realise that’s quite normal for many families, so I can’t complain. For the practical phase I’d ask them to find me placements near Stuttgart, so I can come back for those months at least, then I’d have to go back to Daschow for the exam week.

The other option would mean doing the theory phase in August, missing my friends marriage, and then trying to fit the practical phases in when I have a holiday from my carpentry apprenticeship. As the practical section must be eight weeks long, and we get about four weeks a year, it would take two years with no break to finish the course, then another week to do the exam, with long gaps for me to forget everything in between. If I do decide to try this, there are other schools which offer part-time courses, but everything depends on dates.

So I guess the question is if we think it’s worth it for me to go to Daschow, or should I risk trying a part-time course…

So as Michi said, your prayers are appreciated…

The free evangelical school in Stuttgart is a private school. It will cost monthly €145 for the half-day-care school kids. They told us that they’ll make an exception for 100% school fee free for Stephan – for his first school year as 5th grader.

Strangely we felt the need to bring the whole situation back to God again – the private school in Stuttgart or the state school in Nellingen. Stephan also felt difficult to know which school God has for him. It may sound funny after the amazing offer, we got somehow quite unease and unsure about the decision to make. So three of us spent some time in our living room, praying and listening to God’s voice. After exchanging our thoughts and what God has shown us, we finally came to a conclusion to send Stephan to the private school. Stephan told us, ‘I’d like to try.’ Knowing the risk of switching the schools if the school cost reduction doesn’t work out next year(s)… I personally got an impression that God has given two choices to Stephan, either of which He will walk along. It’s not our job to find out ‘the right one’, but instead we should relax and let Stephan explore. At some point the two separate roads (whichever the school he chooses) will meet for his furthering path.

At the same time Andy’s carpentry apprenticeship application process and additional paper works after his 4th visit to the job centre continues. The Med Akademie has contacted him and informed him that the Retsann course he applied won’t be happening due to the lack of students. They offered him a possibility of doing the same course in north of Berlin, providing the lodging cost and extra transport support. Unfortunately that course starts in the end of July instead of beginning of May, which means he will have to cancel his visit to the UK this summer. (His best friend in England is getting married!) We appreciate your prayers for our decision on this situation. I’m also currently looking for some morning job to take from September onwards.

Jesus didn’t promise us a comfortable and an easy life. We are grateful to have each precious crew members on our boat, as we sail our journey further.

* spannend: exciting, thrilling, fascinating, stretching, suspence-packed

A short devotion from Cafe Sophia, the vurtual internetcafe made me think more of the wonder we experienced today. God bless you-.

Our family life is about to face some changes and adjustments. Often those process create another piles of official paperwork, just like when moving houses.

Andy was working on gathering the necessary information and filling forms to apply a course for an ambulance (emergency medical) technician, which was sent out last week. After disappearing in a black hole of Deutsch Post for the past 8 days, it was finally received. He was also working another sets of forms for the job centre and a tax form with a help of friends. We are blessed to have friends like them who used to work at a state office for foreign immigrant, at a tax office, a Christian financial advice office and such. We are also filling various paper for school applications (for 3 of us) and two renewals of UK passport (for Stephan and Lucas).

We are waiting to hear from Med-Akademie if they have enough students for running the course Andy applied as well as from a Christian school we asked for a school cost reduction for Stephan. In the coming weeks I (Michi) am supposed to get a call or a letter from a job centre for advising some work possibility from September when Andy starts his apprenticeship.

Meanwhile we sent Stephan off to a school trip this morning. We’re looking forward to hearing his stories at our welcome-home-dinner with his wished dish, Lasagna on Friday. Two young brothers have cried when they came back to our home without Stephan, but are now recovered and are enjoying the beautiful sunny day outside. I’m now off to meet up with girls for practicing dance & singing for Promise-land (Abenteuerland in Germany).

The song, ’27 Million’ was first released in the end of February this year with an aim for raising more awareness of one growing crime; human traffiking. (Click below to listen)

27 Million – Matt Redman & LZ7

It was originally written to participate an action against abortion and have already heard by many and is spreading with a strong message: Stand up for the voiceless! My small group girls are currently considering making a dance with this song.

On a short family note, today is my dad’s 67th birthday! It was lovely hearing his voice and laughter when we called him. The boys sung ‘Happy birthday’ in a special Japanese lyrics with a well known melody. Lucas played a duck song on pianika for him, which he enjoyed very much. Shower of blessing and God’s loving presence to Oji-chan!

I feel a bit like Abram leaving Haran, I’m following what I think is God’s voice. in this direction, and I really don’t know what’s coming next or what the next direction after that would be. Whereas Abram wandered into the desert, I’m applying for a three month course in first aid, patient care and (ironically) driving an ambulance.

I”ve thought up a few reasons why this could be a good idea. I can fit the course in before I start the carpentry course, but the job carries a fair bit of responsibility and it means I can earn money while actually helping people rather than being part of a machine. It also allows me -and equips me- to go into places help people there. It may also be connected to the scary morning when our youngest son couldn’t breathe properly.

I’m also aware that in the (highly unlikely) event of us returning to the UK, the Immigration Service may more readily recognise this than carpentry as ‘a way to support your family’. We may need this because although I’m a British Citizen, I’m married to a “non-EU national” and notwithstanding the hysterics of the British Media it really isn’t that easy to bring a non-European into the country.

But those are all guesswork: basically it’s a feeling that it’s the right thing to do and so far it’s worked out so I’ll keep following it.

Assuming nothing changes or stops the process, I’ll spend May commuting by tram into central Stuttgart (if there’s a safe and convenient cycle route I haven’t found it yet) and then a month in an emergency room taking patients off ambulances as they come in. If I haven’t passed out, thrown up or done anything else embarrassing, I’ll spend a final month going out as the ‘third man’** on several different ambulances, and then I’ll come back to school for a week of revision and being graded on resuscitating mannequins and fixing fake injuries.

Graduation is in the first week in August. By mid-August I’ll be in Newcastle on Tyne watching a friend get married and then in September -hopefully- starting a 3 year carpentry apprenticeship.

Meanwhile I’ll be working in the Garden, organising bike tours, trying to ride a century…

Not too much then.

* Read: “getting in the way”.

I’d have liked to attempt a witty yet profound post about this but to be honest I’m still in shock that they agreed, especially after watching me make the ugliest box in Christendom.

Assuming I manage to get the grants we need to pay for our living expenses (So far I’m apparently ineligible but Michi and the boys can apply), I’ll be at school from the beginning of September: the school is only about 20km away, but that’s 20 hilly kilometres. This goes up to thirty if I follow the cycleways which wander in random directions across the map and apparently spurn almost any direct route unless it crosses at least seven tightly spaced contours. What with that and the lack of safe cycle parking I’ll probably end up travelling by bus and train, but I’m sure I’ll get a few good stories out of that.

I’ve got a year of the carpentry school. With exams at the end in German and Maths exams. And this isn’t German as taught in an English school where you can graduate by saying “Where is the newspaper stand?” and “I am fifteen years old” *. My grade in ‘woodwork’ was even worse than German, but I still think I’d have done rather better in this if the workshop had included luxuries like saws that were sharp, and wood, or if teacher hadn’t spent most of his time with the prettier female students.

This of course is the ‘other’ reason I’m doing this: I’m a bit tired of the long shadow of a school which mostly taught me I can’t do anything. It’s time to prove them wrong, and incidentally do all the things I wanted to do then but was told I couldn’t: In three years I’ll be a carpenter, with a German qualification, and the ghosts can be firmly laid to rest.

Besides, I have a suspicion that nothing the school can throw at me will be half as difficult as the forms I’m trying to fill in for the grants…

*I am not making that up: it was in my final exam. To be fair I had a fantastic German teacher who is probably the reason I’m here now.

Day 1: Adrenaline and the call of nature combine for a wake-up call at 0530, which makes for a slightly relaxed morning ready to start at seven. It’s cold and dark, as you’d expect at 0700 in January. The Boss makes introductions to the other staff. I’m terrible at names, and my notebook (brought for such events) is in bag downstairs. Fortunately of the four I know the boss and the other apprentice has the same name as my son. so repeat the other two names in my head for half an hour while everyone rushes about. Do some simple jobs that even I can’t mess up, and spend most of the day watching the ‘proper’ carpenters making bespoke furniture and trying to figure what they’re doing and how. Feet hurt.

Day 2: Get up at 0530 again so I can have relaxed start. Unfortunately I then see it’s snowing: I’m responsible for clearing snow from my son’s Kindergarten, so a relaxed hour getting ready for work becomes a mad dash uphill with shovel and broom and a mad dash home, wolf down calories and run to work. Yard at work is covered in snow: I assume I’ll be cleaning this too but no, I’m sent off to the next town with a Real Carpenter, a lot of tools and an unreasonably heavy piece of glass. This is to replace a broken one in the customers kitchen. Real Carpenter wallops this until it’s thoroughly shattered and we manage to fit the replacement without dropping it first. Back home for lunch. Someone else swept the yard, hooray. Spend much of the afternoon scraping paint off a cupboard that someone painted sludge green with paint that was the consistency of vomit. After this I’m holding the other end of various bits of wood while a Real Carpenter cuts out a complex kit of parts for a new ceiling, and a door/wall that has to fit into a house at an angle of exactly 31 degrees. Added interest is provided by trying to understand instructions in German through ear defenders.

Day 3: Go to build ceiling and wall. Ceiling boards don’t fit, which we discover while trying to hold large slabs of chipboard over our heads. Much faffing with details and much patience from Real Carpenter as his careful instructions result in my doing a Laurel and Hardy act. Eventually ceiling done, door in place, come home ninety minutes late, feet sore, but energy levels noticeably better than previous days.

Day 4: Given a ‘project’: several wood parts to measure, drill, then glue and screw together in a box. Measuring works out (building model trains has advantages) but use the wrong drill bit causing the wood to spin like a frisbee and the drill to drop bits on the floor. This is not good. Change drill bit but forget to clamp the wood down so the drill repeats the operation. Apparently it’s not my fault the drill broke and I’m sent off to spray something while the drill is fixed. Finish box and leave it for the Real Carpenters to have a good laugh at. G o home to rest feet.

Day 5: Last day and joy of joys only a half day. Told to move heater into wood store. Heater is heavy so naturally it needs to go upstairs. Come back down to find boss looking for heater. Bring heater back downstairs. Boss highly amused, not for the last time that morning.
Off to fix doors in an apartment. This becomes a game of ‘look for the front door key in the garden’. Boss calls owner who confirms it is under a rock but as there’s about a hundred rocks this isn’t helpful. Doing this in -12 degrees isn’t helpful either. Eventually a neighbour lets us in.
Back later to the boss and the box. The box is with the boss. The boss explains the box*. Apparently not all the interviewees are given this project and I wasn’t expected to do this perfectly, thank goodness: I thought I’d blown it when I had to make four attempts to fit the door correctly. I think it will be shown future apprentices ‘how not to do it’ for several years to come.

Head home for lunch and to cool feet off.

More details to follow.

*I’m easily amused.