Letter from Berlin

Dear Canadian family,

we truly hope you all are doing well and beyond well. As the love of Christ connects us in unity across the big ocean, may he keep your hearts locked onto him and in his abundant love and grace for us all. It feels great to write those lines knowing you are our dear brothers and sisters in him and through his resurrection that has redeemed us all.

It has been quite a while since we last updated our english blog so this will be a XXL jumbo size letter! Enjoy. :-)

We arrived at Tegel Airport Berlin about this time last year. Spring was in full bloom and we were able to enjoy the richness of bright, green colors from all trees and plants around us. Surprisingly, apart from the horrible jet lag including a baby, it was not hard to adjust to life in Berlin again because everything felt quite familiar to come back here. We love the European lifestyle: amazing public transport, the richness of history among all those old and beautiful buildings and lots of cozy coffee shops (!!!) and supermarkets everywhere. It also feels great to have family and friends so close by again and we are thankful to be able to deepen those relationships now again before we embark onto another journey. 

We were warmly welcomed by our people here and Luna's mother opened her home for us for the time while searching for an apartment. In total we stayed at her place for six weeks and during that time we were able to find an apartment and a job for Harry, which was such an incredible blessing! Apparently the housing situation here right now is quite hard and being able to find a job in just two weeks just God's amazing handiwork as well. 

Those six weeks with Luna's mom had a lot of happy moments and a lot of challenging ones, too. It was not very easy for us to live so closely together in a small apartment and with quite opposite personalities as well. It was a chapter in our lives that we were happy to finish quickly but right now we do not want to reread it. Finding a "yes" to the past and looking forward is what we are doing now. And we see that God is healing this relationship little by little. Well, and there is this huge gap of four years that needs a bridge, right? After all, building relationships takes time and patience. Pray for Luna's mom to find happiness for her soul to fill all emptiness and loneliness with Jesus' healing light. Pray for us, too, to be good and compassionate but also to set clear boundaries within our relationship with her. I love my mom. :-) 

Anyway, our new apartment is wonderful and we love it and the area we live in! It is still a work in progress as we are making it into our home little by little. Luna has big plans of painting and writing on big canvases that her mom saved from the dump (cannot believe someone would throw away high quality canvases!). We bought our very first amazing bed with even more amazing new mattresses as a couple. The rest of our furniture were pretty much leftovers from family members. Just as in Canada, God is providing for everything. And we are super thankful to be able to have cheap cellphone plans (compared to Canada). Our neighbors are also quite nice and we have bbq gatherings a few times a year, which is great for getting to know them. Some have been living here for over 40 years already and always share some crazy stories from the apartment building like that one time when some gangsters were the owners of the complex or how our apartment building used to be quite run down and the apartments a fireplace shelter for homeless people. This is a good picture for Berlin city, in which there is stuff happening all the time and so much wonderful diversity but also dark sadness. A place of hope and desperation at the same time. This is why we really enjoy to be able to get out into greener surroundings sometimes. We miss Canada's vastness and raw nature a lot! Right now, it satisfies us to visit Harry's parents who live in a small town near Berlin. It feels good to get away from those huge people crowds from time to time. Last June we had a Mueller family gathering at a beautiful little Inn and had tons of fun with 13 children and 14 adults in total, including ourselves (two were also still pregnant at that time). During summer, Luna had the privilege of spending three weeks with her family in Croatia and swimming in the Adriatic ocean after a very long time again. Unfortunately, Harry had to stay back because of work, which was quite hard. We hope to never be apart for such a long time ever! But for Luna, it was a great time with her family and introducing Junia to her grandpa, uncle, cousins and great-grandma. 

We really missed Canadian Thanksgiving last Fall. It is a great time to think about all blessings we receive and to have a little down time there. Too bad, it is not being celebrated here. At the other hand, we enjoy that every Sunday here is quiet because all stores are closed and there is less traffic in general on that day. We do celebrate Christmas here though and it was wonderful to have spent it with both families again after four years. Last summer we also started attending the church that we will be official members of soon and are enjoying again a great life group and church service. We are making great new friendships there and are thankful for those people. Each one is a big gift to us. It was also a blessing to find a church so quickly and not having to look for one for a long time. Incredible, how church makes one feel at home and at ease anywhere in the world!

In January Luna started working as a caregiver for a young woman with down's syndrome (10 h/ week) and it is a lot of fun for her. The girl and Luna are getting along very well. 

Right now, we are again in job changing season though. It is almost a bit annoying to have those changes again because all those four years in Canada felt like a very changing time for us and we never felt like we had some kind of routine as a family. There was a lot of uncertainty, upheaval from College work and trips, and lastly, the huge changes that came with Junia and moving back to Europe. To be honest, we still feel quite strained and hoped to have a phase of good old routine and settling down a bit now but it seems like God wants to close some doors and open other ones now. That's ok because he has the right to do this, after all. Anyway, Harry is working his last week as a salesperson for a big outdoor store this coming week. And then? What's then? We don't know yet! We both applied for jobs but so far there has not been a positive response yet. Harry has been applying for some office jobs and a job as youth advisor for the conference our church is a part of. The latter will be helpful for where we want to be in a few years in terms of experience but it could also mean to have family unfriendly work hours again. The salesperson job shift was mostly 11am to 8pm and working three of four Saturdays, which meant not a lot of time for Harry and Junia. She was already asleep by the time he came home. We were hoping to avoid such thing in the new job. This may be the normality for a lot of families but it really should not be (did you know that the average Japanese dad sees his children 17 minutes a day?). We don't want it to be normal for our family to see our children very little (which is exactly one of the reasons why we are building our own business here and in Canada!). For Luna, it sometimes felt like she was raising Junia on her own. So please pray that God may give us both jobs that are preparing us well for the future ministry we have in mind. And we are longing for a resting time as family... which is why we will have our first family vacation in a week's time on a farm. A whole week of reshaping, rethinking, replanning in prayer, silence and tranquility... wait, Junia is coming with us. ;-) 

I (Luna) find it hilarious that one of Junias first words was "cucumber" (in German) considering I was calling her that sometimes in Canada because I find the word cute somehow. But she is using lots of other different words now and repeating a lot what we are saying in both, Croatian and German. Thinking about how little she still was when we came here to how much she has learned in only one year is incredible! Last May we started giving her solid food, which confused her at first. Now, she is eating a lot of things, even food from the ground... or sand... or soil... if she is fast enough. Last August she was sitting well and starting to crawl, two months later we participated in a crawling research. The test was supposed to last about 120 minutes. She was done in 45. Talking about speed. And applying the Pavlov principle with cheerios (no electric shocks though). 

Then, at the end of December she walked her first steps unconsciously and a few weeks later she joined the world of upright walkers. Now, she climbs up the couch or runs as fast she she is able to with those short legs. At the beginning of her solid food story we had to feed her. Now she often refuses to eat when we try feeding her and wants to eat by herself. She loves Quark and dates and nibs on apple halves like a pro with her 14 teeth. No more toothless grinning. Give me something to chew on! She understands now that she is an independent individual and has her own will. She is learning to be patient and that not everything can be as she wants it to be. Some hard lessons to learn here! Delayed gratification, for example. Going up six staircases by herself on her knees because, with groceries it is just too heavy to carry her up three floors as well. Walking on the sidewalk holding our hand. Feeding animals. Loving them to pieces, all of them. Chasing birds. Playing in the park with sand and sliding and swinging. Understanding two languages and interacting and conversing with grown ups in both. Caring for her dolls but sometimes spanking them, lol. And playing hide and seek and "cooking" to feed her stuffed animals. 

Sometimes, it is awesome to be a parent. It is fun, there is lots to laugh about. Junia is cute and has a happy personality. Playing together, enjoying great moments and laughs, cuddling and receiving little kisses. And just watchIng her being Junia is amazing. Other times, it is hard. The hardest job in the world. Making the right decisions in upbringing, forgiving oneself for messing up and loosing temper, tending to a sick child, changing so so so many, dirty, nasty diapers, becoming more confident as parents and being woven into a strong family of three through adversity. When Junia is grumpy and crying we often tell her: "Junia, in life you have two choices: you can choose to be happy or you can choose to be grumpy. But remember: It is always better, it is always smarter, it is always wiser to choose to be happy. So be happy!" (Skip Ross) This is the daily choice we must make as well.

So long dear friends! Those were bits and pieces of our first year back in Germany. And now the pictures.

We love you all!!!