A li'lle somethin'

Hey dear friends,

time has progressed very quickly these past months, don't ya think? Since we are both very busy right now I will take advantage of mine being a bit sick and staying at home for today. Some nasty cold has been dragging on for about two weeks already but I have been constantly feeling better. However, yesterday my body just shut down in a feverish fashion. Done. Time for you to rest. You know what's funny? We've been just going and going and even though I am home now I cannot get myself to truly rest in solitude and nothingness. So I did the dishes. Sorted out Junias clothes. Tidied up her and our wardrobe, brought out the trash and the small clothes into our cellar.

Well, I did "rest" for a bit by reading a little and doing some stuff while sitting. Now the fever's back of course. So much for that. It just seems that if I go and go sometimes I can't stop by myself anymore to take a nap in God's presence. Harry's boss just went on sick leave for a month. Probably a burn out. And there we have the good old theme of balance again. Why is it so hard for us to live a balanced life and so easy to live in either extreme? Is it because we don't know ourselves and our boundaries enough? Possibly. A part of our basic personality attributes? Yup.

Anyway, you wanna improve your immune system? Work in daycare and delight yourself to constantly be sneezed, coughed and pooped on by those little bodies! Best way to do it, I tell you.

So what have we been up to these past months?

Harry's job is quite demanding and even though he works for a Christian organization, there are so many verbally unexpressed expectations in the air, which puts Harry and his team under pressure. They feel like having to prove themselves and the quality of their work constantly, but also need to learn to stay firm as one team and defend their ground. And then there is the crazyness of working with refugees. People who went through hell, who's future is so incredibly uncertain and vulnerable. People with dreams, hopes and goals but also people with trauma, depression and exhaustion. Children who are role playing the executions they had to watch with their very little cute eyes to cope with those experiences. The constant clash of cultures and, again, unspoken expectations from both sides. One may think once the refugees are arriving into a country without war that everything will be OK. They are safe after all, aren't they? Thats what we think. Thats what the refugees may think. Unfortunately this is a delusion and reality does not just stop. There are big challenges waiting for every person who moved into a different culture and has been torn from their own and from what they know. Then there is also the expectation that we "westerners" have power over enerything and can make all their wishes come true. But we don't. We can only help so much. They need to be motivated out of their own hearts to move forward. They need to learn that it is not our fault what happened in their home country and that a little Christian organization does not have power to remove all obstacles for them. But God has. Prayer can move mountains. It is a rocky road. It is hard work and, as always, there is no immediate gratification while working with people. But it is meaningful. And still, every morning my man is jumping into the trenches and this is one of the many qualities I truly admire in Harry.

We went on an amazing vacation to Binz (on island Rügen) in April and had a wonderful time there. It was so relaxing being near the ocean and spending so much family time together! You can take a look on our happy faces on the pictures and we will convince you that you gotta visit there someday!!! There are also other pictures here: The Muellers past six months in pictures
Pasword, as always, is the town in which we used to live in Canada.

Harry's grandma passed away after a long life in May so we went to the funeral and celebrated her life afterwards with the clan. It was a good time for Harry to also say good bye to his grandfather who passed away two years ago when we were still in Canada.
For our 6th wedding anniversary we went to a high rope course and had a blast there. It was so much fun climbing between trees although it took a lot of energy since this was not the classic climbing like rock climbing. For a lot of obstacles there was quite a bit of arm and core strength required! Still, it was a lot of fun and I cant wait to go back and do the other climbing parts we had no time and strength for. The best is still just sliding down the metal cable as fast as possible like batman.

We celebrated my mom's 50th birthday and Harry's 27th. For his birthday we went camping at a beautiful lake and tried out our Christmas presents there. Then we had bbq with friends, watched soccer and played viking chess.

My grandma in Germany fell a few weeks ago and the condition of her Alzheimer-Dementia worsened a lot since then. We are not sure how much longer she is going to be with us. If she has not yet, I pray that she will find peace with God in some way.

We had a Mueller family reunion in June with 14 adults and 15 children, which was a lot of fun and went by too quickly. So you see, year 2016 is still as crazy as it started for us!

For my part I am involved in many things right now. Working two jobs, which are fun most of the time (ECE for the little ones between one and two years of age and caregiver for a young woman with Down's). After summer break in August I will be switching into a group for children ages two to four, which I am looking forward to. I am also finally on my driver's license at age 31. Wow, in the States and Canada one would probably be dead by now without a license. There is a saying that goes like this: if you learn driving in Berlin you can drive anywhere in the world. I firmly believe this because coping with that much traffic is really a challenge! And on top of that I am learning the clutch. I am very thankful for my choleric-sanguine guarding angel who is constantly nagging me but also helping to not get involved in an accident every two seconds (my driving teacher). Apart from those things I am also one of the chairwomen at Junias daycare. In Germany we call such daycares "Elterninitiative" (parents initiative) where parents are chair(wo)men and also do some laundry, cleaning, cooking and are more involved in daycare of their children. It is basically a great idea because we don't feel like just dropping her off at some place but actually participating in her daycare life. At the same time being a parent and the ECEs boss is also a bit of an unlucky combination in more than one way. Since I am responsible for the personnel part and things have been just a mess in that part recently, it actually feels like a third job to me right now! We had one person becoming pregnant and having to go on "sick" leave (in Germany ECE's get a prohibition from work for the whole length of the pregnancy due to the higher infection rate in daycare but are receiving full pay from healthcare). Another person quit because she had some problems with a parent. Then we employed two new people but the woman who was still there did not like them so this week we found out through other parents that she had three job offers and is planning to leave! It was all quite nasty and a real emotional and relationship mess of injuries on both sides. I am very sad having to see two excellent people leave the daycare and do not feel trust toward the two new people yet. I feel a bit uncomfortable leaving Junia there and am somewhat desperate. We are also looking for another new person now and are getting six new children in August! Not sure how all that will work out with three completely new people, two of them not having a lot of experience with the very young ages and settling them in to daycare... so yeah, there is your big prayer request!

Apart from day to day crazyness we are planning our three week vacation in Croatia and are looking so much forward to it (did I mention that I love having six weeks of paid vacation plus receiving extra vacation money for going on vacation here in Germany? I know, it's awesome)!!! We will be travelling by car and are going to visit family but also family camping on one or some of Croatias many beautiful islands. Harry will be doing all the driving since I won't be finished with the license yet. We are going to drive through the night twice so please pray that all goes well there too! Harry will be doing some climbing or hiking in southern Germany this weekend. We are going to attend the wedding of a friend from life group who is getting married to her Egyptian fiancée (they have a crazy story btw). Summer festivals in Junias daycare and at work. And then there's end of July which marks the beginning of our vacation. This year has just been like a roller coaster ride! Oh, did I mention my friend who fell in love with a young Afghan refugee while helping out in a church in Greece? He already had asylum there but wanted to move here because of my friend. Now it is really hard to switch asylum countries once one has it somewhere. But since God is in control and all, they got married a few weeks ago with German asylum!!! God is good, ALL the time.

And what is our little one doing besides growing like crazy? Well, she has questions and themes of her own. Right now we started potty training because, praise God, she finally decided that she wants to go onto the big toilet out of her own free will. Hallelujah! I can see the end of the diaper tunnel. She has been doing funny rhymes (Simone Zitrone) and recreating song texts. She is a little climbing monkey and climbs onto everything (and everyone). She loves to take care of her dolls and stuffed animals but also loves to kick the ball and playing with cars (she wants to become a firewoman since the time we saw a couple including a tour on the fire truck). She can tell her name and her age when asked and is able to count to 20 in both languages. She is constantly using new words and has a lot of humor (I know I am bragging). Well, of course there are also those typical "terrible twos" moments from time to time and sometimes we are dealing well with them and other times not. It has been hard for us to go 100% bilingual since Junia mostly speaks German (understands both languages)  she does use a few Croatian words though, just to throw off her dad. :-) Anyway, I hope our long stay in Croatia this summer will motivate her to talk Croatian with me and grandma and myself to only talk Croatian with her. If you are planning to raise your child bilingually beware: at first it all sounds totally cool and hipster-like but it takes one truckload piece of work and determination!

Of course, we are all in European soccer cup fever right now!!! Go Germany - or a country who has not won yet!!!

See ya next time folks!
Big hugs, greetings and love from your Muellers in Berlin :-)