I never thought I'd set foot in a place so far away from my homeland, but finally, I am here. From the time I arrived in the Frankfurt am Main airport getting my passport stamped for the first time, to missing trains in Dresden, and to falling asleep with my forty pound bag in my lap, my mind just sort of dazed in amazement. And up until recently, I feel as if that's still been the case - Just sort of taking it all in. Processing.
When I arrived in Löbau the first time on June 15th, I was greeted by Sean, Amy and Mona. I was so delirious and tired yet putting my physical exhaustion aside, I just wanted to see and feel the air of Eastern Germany blow in my face. Almost immediately after getting my things settled in Herrnhut ( the town where I basically live…) I was invited to go on tour with my friend Liz Mannchen and her band, Liz and the Lions. I've known Liz for maybe four or five years at this point from living in Orlando. It was through her that I caught my first glimpse of what was going on in little Herrnhut, Germany.
So tour. So I accepted, and in several days, we’d head off on tour!
In two sad, crusty old white vans, a team, nine of us, set off… BACK (for me) to Frankfurt and it's surrounding cities like Mainz and Wiesbaden to play music and raise awareness about some specific global issues through story, books and photography. One issue in specific is the garbage towns in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where Liz and Uli's organization Pick-a-Pocket has partnered up with 14 girls, loving them, teaching them, living with them. Mainz was really our homebase on the tour thanks to Denis Biesenbach and the people of his(the) church there in Mainz. For the week we slept in the cafe of an old hotel, on the floor in sleeping bags. During the day we all hung out at their coffee shop in downtown called Awake. It was a very lovely place and honestly would probably compete strongly with some of the places back home. That iced mocha, wow! During the week we set up in a little corner at the café with some of Uli's photography of some of the the girls from the town in Ethiopia, some hand made items like music player holders and pictures thanks to the wonderful skill of Theresa and also some handmade t-shirts that say, "Garbage sucks to live in". That's because the children in this town and others literally LIVE in the garbage dumps. During our hangout sessions at the café, Liz and I made it into the Mainz local newspaper when a photographer from said newspaper came in, already knowing a little about the event going on later that night. He was quite hard to understand and not because he was german, but because he kept telling us, "look at the camera… NO, act natural!… NO… look here…". But alas, hidden online in the German, Mainz local newspaper is a quite poor picture of Liz and I pretending to look natural… and at the camera at the same time.
Around the end of tour I hopped on a plane to Spain to visit the Hamel's and see them before my DTS. I wouldn't have went obviously because I don't really have money to be using at my leisure, however, Bryan found me a flight through Ryanair.com that ended up only being $60 after tax both ways. Not only that, but they supported me quite well through food and driving and so much more once I got there. I even got to bring back some film to Germany to shoot on before I started developing my own. Spain can have it's own post because honestly, it was an adventure on a different track.
Flying back to Frankfurt (Hahn) was a drag. Firstly, I was leaving Spain, which thus far, I think, would be my choice of residency if I had the permission from the Spanish Government. A couple other reasons for the less than comfortable travel back from Jerez, Spain are… The seats in the airplane for Ryanair are the equivalent to sitting for 3 hours on the hard plastic lounge chairs in the terminal at most airports. With Ryanair, you board the plane like a bus; meaning, you just walk on in no particular order except the order in which you got in line. Once on the plane, they tried selling everything you can think of requiring 5 passes on different carts. No thank-you, I don't need to buy your overpriced Armani cologne even though it comes with a travel size aftershave…
Even though these are the cons of flying with Ryanair, they really are nothing to complain about when you take into consideration the price of that actual flight. Truly, I am thankful for the full experience, wooden-like seats and all.
Arriving into Frankfurt the second time and I already almost feel like a veteran on the train system, understanding how to buy tickets and just feeling overall more comfortable with using the train system. Frankfurt Bahnhof to Löbau this time takes 11hrs and 21 minutes. This means I will sleep some, only some. I think I watched a movie and then played bejeweled 2 on my iPod touch. I took some pictures, ate, wrote plenty and doing what I think I do very well, just stared and sat, silently…
Now, in short, or at least told in a much shorter way than needed - The first month of "Justice DTS" here in Herrnhut, Germany.
Well I'll start off by correcting myself and stating that really, the castle and side-building next to it, in where I actually live are actually located in Ruppersdorf, Germany. The Ruppersdorf Wasserschloss (Water Castle) originally burned down in 1687 and perhaps again in 1752. The Lord of Nostitz commissioned the architect Andreas Hüningen to design a new castle on the foundations of the old one. Nostitz family lived in the castle until 1830. Between 1938 and 1945 the castle was used by the National Socialist (Nazi) Party as a school, and from 1945 until 1947 it was used as a home for Germans displaced by the war. In 1948 the castle was used as a childrens' home by the German Red Cross. YWAM then through an amazing story purchased the castle from the German Red Cross for around €270,000 I believe. They originally asked for €1,000,000!
So that's a very small amount of history.
Now to what I'VE been doing…
I live in a super old building dubbed the moniker, "The Side-Building," which probably only a quarter of is actually functioning. I live with three others, one is a friend of mine from home, Mike Kochenburger. We worked together and I was stoked for him to come out with me and experience the DTS together. The other two are some wonderful german guys we’ve got to know quite well, Sandro and Tobias.
Every weekday we wake up at 7am for breakfast, or 8:30am if you would rather skip breakfast to sleep. From 8:30am to sometimes 9 up to 11pm (21:00 up to 23:00) we are either in lecture with the weeks speaker, morning worship or prayer, coffee break at 11am, lunch at 1pm (13:00). From 2pm - 4pm (14:00 - 16:00), the each of us has a work duty to perform. Mine is sweeping the basement and the stairs leading down, and then mopping said stairs. I like it honestly. Sure, it builds character and I feel like I'm giving back to the "castle". But usually during manual labor, which I actually enjoy, I brainstorm and reflect, and most of the time uncover hidden mysteries in my mind, things I was told were there by my brain's own table of contents, but usually something I couldn't really find by it’s unordered page number.
Lecture:
Well, lecture has probably been the biggest challenge for me and not because it pushes me intellectually, and not because the homework is rough. We don't have homework for the most part and for the majority of the time, I grow largely frustrated with the speaker. All of them actually, up until this weeks, Tim. But he is in August and this post is covering only June-July ha! However, as I said, the speakers, all YWAMers have seriously struck an important chord in me. I just couldn't believe, and honestly don't believe some of the things that come out of their mouths… Thinking things like, "How did you get there! Are you serious!?" Many issues are theological, which ironically I hardly ever have qualms with when it comes to others and their theology. Not that I don't ever disagree, because i do often, it's just that what I heard upset me more than before. For instance, hearing things dumbed down to a point of uselessness, or so it seems…or just hearing things that were based off of more feel good idea, and little biblical and pondered about truth. Again, this is what I was thinking, and maybe what I will continue to think… Of course, in kicked my red flags of, "What about how I'm responding or, more appropriately, how I'm reacting is unloving, inpatient and downright not me?" I started thinking about that for a little, and as always, it grew me some. This is in essence what I came here for: To grow, to learn, to be challenged and to become a better lover of God, others and myself. Since the beginning of lecture phase, I've asked plenty of questions, but I try to express if not personally to those around me, to you the reader here, that I do not wish to ask questions to doubt and hinder, for I've seen that before and realize it's terminal outcome, rather, I wish to ask full questions that only open more doors for myself, the speaker, and the other students in my DTS. Living the questions themselves. I truly believe we don't come to a meeting or to church or to a classroom to be taught facts and to walk away. I believe that to truly learn and discover the truth is to discuss and describe, to illustrate and test, to savor like coffee and to swallow once well chewed... When I create a design for someone, I know that when I only make one poster I only have one poster to give. It might be lacking. There could be so much more for me to discover if only I'd mix the paint a little and find new colors. Maybe if I deleted that text or those graphics, I'd realize that the negative space that it produced fit much more perfectly. So, I create numerous drafts. But more than drafts, I'd rather call them options, because they all could be complete, but again, they are options. I finish what I feel are enough options and look at them all from afar with fresh eyes. Comparing and testing, eventually I pick one. Now when it comes to truth, it just never is that easy, and I don't think I would want it to be. Some things I've been sitting on for years. Some things I believe to be too trivial and others far too complex and other-worldly to ever understand in my current dimension...
Moving on…
Also since I've been here, several of us have taken small trips to Dresden and once to Prague. It's so cheap* that when the lot of us goes, splitting the bill is acceptable and modest. Dresden was incredible and I believe very important to see, especially for the non-Germans. I get to see just where I am, and where I am is very old. So much history, so many archaic structures. What were the minds like that put these buildings up? I wonder what challenges they faced in their time. I wonder how they looked in comparison to myself.
Prague. Just over the Czech border, a mere 18km or so is Varnsdorf, a town in the Czech with a bus stop. On this bus you can travel to Prague for about €4,63 or $6.60 On a rainy saturday, a group of us did just this. Quite the adventure again it was. I think everyday our little group of 20 something is building itself together to work together. Trips such as the one we took to Prague do that in a much more elevated scale.
Because we purchased the wrong ticket on the Metro to Prague (Once you get to Prague via Bus, you still have to take the subway into the city.), a ticket with a mere 10 cent difference or 6 Czech cents, we got stopped, completely oblivious to the crime which we were committing and individually received a 700 Kč fine or €30, about 42 dollars. It was a sad way to start out an already tight budgeted trip. Even still we had a lovely, mostly rainy time. What a place of beauty and history. Also an extreme destination of international tourism where the same souvenir shop is on every single corner of every single street.
In another more detailed and shorter post I will give an account of my daily life here at the Herrnhut Castle.
Lastly. Support.
Truth be told, I believe in where I am right now. So much in fact that I flew over to a new country with little money, encouraged by others that “God will provide”, and I believe that. I do also believe that what we think we need sometimes is not what we get... and so, with that all said, I stand in a deficit. Money being due is just around the corner and I still have not been able to raise enough support for that. One reason being my lack of communication perhaps, but I have grace on even myself for that. Business and extreme saturation of new experience has pulled me from most computers and desire to break connection with that new experience.
I still need to raise a near €2000 or about $2850.
I scoff when I see numbers like these. I doubt. I mean, that’s double the price of my plane ticket here. But I fight my doubt and I try to pull eyes away from the mask of haze that doesn’t lift me up. I love how Rainer Maria Rilke says, “All feelings that concentrate you and lift you up are pure; only that feeling is impure which grasps just one side of your being and thus distorts you.” But anyways, I come to you the reader, my friends, family and hope that you might be able to contribute to me.
You can donate through PayPal on my blog:
http://brianandrewkenney.blogspot.com
http://brianandrewkenney.blogspot.com
Any questions, email me. I mean even if you think I’m making a horrible mistake and wasting my life here. I want to hear it all. I plan and hope on sending more updates, more frequently. And emails. Initially we had very little time, literally our time was limited by a login and a time counter, so we had only 20 minutes a day for internet. Now that is gone and we have plenty of time to communicate with our supporters.
----- Now I am focusing on my photography, my writing, reading plenty and understanding how my hands and feet are to express my heart.
Thank you for reading! Seriously, thank you.
*If you are concerned about how I spend my money, the money that you the supporter are gracing me with, please email me and we can talk about exactly what happens here with money. I am willing to be honest and open with you.
