The 1 Euro per Day Experiment

It is always impressive to see how much money is being given for charity when famous people appear in telethons and ask for donations. Suddenly people open their wallets which are closed most of the year – except when spending money for one’s own luxury.

In particular, many people seem to be unwilling to give on a regular basis, for example sponsoring a child in need – in spite of the fact that the monthly contributions for a sponsorship are ridiculously low compared to what the children are getting. For app. 25 to 35 Euros (33 to 47 USD / 21 to 29 GBP) the sponsorship organisations care for the basic needs of a child – food, clothing, medical care and school supplies.

If you are not sure whether you could afford a child sponsorship I invite you to take part in a little experiment. On each day for one or two (or more) months put the amount of one Euro ( the approximate equivalent in your currency) in a savings box and see whether by doing this you have to do without something which you are REALLY and URGENTLY in need of. If this is not the case, take the money and decide what to do with it. It’s entirely up to you!

Would Jesus have used Social Networks?

This question is difficult if not impossible to answer and so people like to answer this question according to their own preferences. I don’t know the answer either, but it is still funny to see what could have happened if social networks had already been there 2000 years ago :)

The Doctor's Lady by Jody Hedlund - Review

Obviously they existed even during the 19th century – the true Christian missionaries to the Native Americans. Those, who showed them the love of Christ without trying to convert them to their own “superior” Europeanism in the first place, a mistake many missionaries all over the world had made, even until well into the 20th century.

“The Doctor’s Lady” is a historical romance novel based on the story of a missionary couple who had lived with the Nez Percé tribe for several years. The novel describes the long and exhausting journey of the main (fictional) characters, Priscilla and Eli, across the North American continent during the first half of the 19th century. Apart from the strains of this journey, they also have to deal with the growing complications in their relationship which started as a marriage in name to make it possible for them to become missionaries.

It is one of those books you can hardly stop reading once you started and which makes you rejoice and suffer with the characters. It’s exciting from the first to the last page! Very highly recommended, just like Jody Hedlund’s previous novel “The Preacher’s Bride”.

It's getting cold

This is the time of year to switch on the heaters. However, we are still refusing to do so and only using the wood stove for as long as possible. This means that most of our current life at home takes place in the sitting room, as it is too cold in the other rooms to stay there for long. We also keep warm with warmer clothes and, if necessary, blankets. The reason why we are doing this is to save money.

A good side effect of it is that we get a little (though just a very little) impression of how it feels to have to live in a place without proper heating. Of course, we are still spoiled. Our home is well insulated, there is no draught, we have got windows instead of just plastic foil and it is not dripping through our roof when it rains. So despite our little retrenchment we are not nearly as bad off as for example the people who have to live in these huts in Gyumri in the north of Armenia:

By Gentle Powers

I did not know there was an English version of this song / poem as well. While listening to it, please keep in mind that Dietrich Bonhoeffer, when he wrote this poem for his family, fiancée and friends, was in a Nazi prison and already knew that they would kill him – which they eventually did in April 1945, just weeks before the war was over.

Today I dedicate this song to Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani who is waiting for his execution in an Iranian prison. His only “crime” is that he became a Christian.

10 Years Ago Today...

… at about 3pm CET my brother phoned my parents and me from work and told us to turn on the TV. A plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. We saw how the smoke came out of one of the towers and assumed it had been a horrible accident. Then we heard the screams of the people and the horror-stricken voice of the reporter when another plane crashed into the second tower. It was surreal to me and I had the feeling that this was not really happening, but at the same time I knew that it was something much worse than an accident. We saw the people waving from the windows, climbing alongside the façade of the building and jumping or falling in a desperate attempt to save their lives or even to die a quicker death. Eventually the towers collapsed and then we knew that it was over for all the many people who had still been inside. By and by we also heard about the other hijacked planes and more people killed.

In the following years many more people – and many of them innocent - died in the attempt of the free world to defend its freedom against those who just abuse our liberty and tolerance to install cruel dictatorships. However justified this defence is, as it is the duty of a state to defend its people, we should not fall into the trap of wanting revenge – at least not those among us who are Christians!

“Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: It is mine to avenge; I will repay, says the Lord. On the contrary: If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” - Romans 12:17-21

End of Summer Break

This song goes well with the topic, I think… ;)

I can hardly believe I haven’t posted anything here for so long. However, taking a break from my blogs did not mean taking a break from life, of course. I have been busy with two novels – published one meanwhile, still busy with the second. This was okay, as we didn’t have much of a summer this year – or rather, we had the summer in spring, with a lot of sun and warm weather, but since June it has been more or less a mixture between autumn and spring. Sometimes cold humid weather, sometimes warm humid weather. I wouldn’t have cared so much, if this humid weather had not caused me pain. My head was aching often and so were the scars and adhesions inside my body. My body needs dry weather to function reasonably well, so this summer was not for me :(

Palaces and Calluses

This rather unusual combination of words is the title of the debut novel by Rebecca Woodhead. I will not tell you anything more about it, but rather let the author talk about herself and her book. I suppose what she has to tell you is much more interesting than anything I could write here ;)



You can buy the book – highly recommended by me :) - via Rebecca’s website!

As you probably have noticed, the video had originally been made for someone else’s blog, but I couldn’t find the URL for it.

Waiting for our BlackBerrys

After Hermann’s old Nokia had been dead for a few days and only awoke today and mine is having problems, too, we decided to make a huge step forward in technology and order smart phones. We opted for Curve 3G 9300.



One important reason why we decided to buy BlackBerrys is that they have got keypads on a regular basis. We didn’t want touch screens which become greasy as we have seen on other people’s devices. Another reason is that BlackBerrys are often used by companies to equip their leading personnel, and they wouldn’t buy cheap stuff, would they? So we feel safe with them quality-wise. A third reason is the “family connection” ;) One of my brothers is working for Research In Motion (RIM), the BlackBerry Company, as an engineer, so we had the luck to get very good advice on which ones of the BlackBerrys would be best for our particular purposes. Asking him saved us a lot of time searching the internet for information and reviews, as we would have had to do with smart phones by other companies. There is nothing worse than reviews contradicting each other by 100% which make things terribly confusing, and this is what happens often enough!

So now we are eagerly looking out for the e-mail telling us that the package is on the way and can hardly wait to have the BBs in our hands :)

40 Years Later

As I had mentioned before Hermann and I traveled to South Tyrol over Easter. For me it was a journey to my past as I had been there with my family for several vacations about 40 years ago. Hermann and I now stayed in the same village in the same hotel. Of course many things have changed, the village has grown much bigger and the hotel had been modernized. Not everything had changed completely, though, as you can see below :)

The place where I’m sitting on the photo was the one where my grandfather used to sit surrounded by the family during breakfast when he was a guest in the hotel; this table had always been reserved for him. The former breakfast room is now an adjoining room of the inn.


This is little me on my 5th birthday in 1971 sitting on the outside of the bay where my grandfather used to sit inside.


The same place 40 years later. Everything is looking more beautiful now, of course, but I was a little sad that the old letter box was gone which had been a relict from the times when the house used to be a coaching inn long ago.


Helene, the young woman on this photo of 1971, was the hotel keepers’ daughter; she and her younger brother were like friends for my brother and me when we were there.


Helene is now herself the hotel keeper and she was the one who modernized the hotel very beautifully; she has placed lots of flowers and decoration everywhere which makes the place cozy; the photo shows the two of us in the lovely new breakfast room which is designed like a winter garden.

I think it does not happen very often that the favourite places of one’s childhood are still attractive when one has grown up, especially after such a long absence. This was the case here, however. I have changed and the place has changed as well, but we are still fitting together ;) As Hermann liked it very much, too, we are planning to travel there soon again, maybe next year.

View From Our Balcony

Listen to the Spring

Carnival Parade

Some impressions of this year's carnival parade in our village:

Guggenmusik

Guggenmusik is a special kind of music which is part of the carnival taking place in the Alemannic regions of Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Here are two of the many different bands (in the first video you will be able to recognize the song from around minute 2:15 ;) ):

Crime Time

I’m a great fan of criminal stories – both as books and films. One of my favourite crime series at the moment is “Criminal Minds”. This is mainly because of two special characters, Dr. Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler) and Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness). Both are hyper smart and have special gifts – Reid has got an eidetic memory, for example. Here are some scenes of the series with both of them:



There are other crime series with freaks and nerds (when I use these expressions, I always mean this in a positive sense), like Navy CIS (McGee and Abby), Psych (Shawn) and of course Numb3rs (Professor Charlie Eppes a.k.a. David Krumholtz):



I think I like them, because all of them – regardless how big the difference is – are closer to my own self than any of the “normal” characters :)

Everyday Blogging

I really admire those of you who are keeping up their blogs by writing about everyday happenings. For me this is difficult, because what I find interesting in other blogs I always think others will find boring in mine. I have just finished reading “Jane Austen’s Letters” and I’m astonished how she fills many pages just writing (usually to her sister Cassandra) about what she has done all day, who she met and of course the latest events among family and friends. Of course, personal letters are different than a blog which can be read by anyone. One cannot tell too many details, but I think my inability to write about everyday things is that I’m not a “small talker”. Or rather, I’m just learning to be one. Meanwhile I can talk quite a while about “the weather and the state of the roads”, as Jane Austen would put it ;)

When I think about last week I suppose my most interesting days have been Friday and Saturday. One reason was that from Tuesday till Thursday I suffered from low blood pressure and even had to cancel a dentist appointment. On Friday Hermann and I attended a birthday party and in the evening I released a book into the wild. This is the BookCrossing term for putting a book where other people can find it and hopefully take it home and register it at the BookCrossing site. So I left a book on a park bench (wrapped into a plastic bag, of course). Yesterday morning it had still been there, but I’m hoping for many passers-by today afternoon, especially as the weather is fine, and that one of them will take the book.

Yesterday we received the good news that one of the Armenian children we are sponsoring no longer needs our help, because the family is doing much better financially. We also received the request to support another child, which we agreed to. Astghik is 12 years old and suffering from cerebral palsy and eye problems. As if this wasn’t enough her father left the mother before the child’s birth, so the two have to get along by themselves. At least the girl is able to attend school despite her disabilities and via the sponsorship she can get some medical help, too, apart from other things like food and clothing.

This afternoon I hope to be able to go for a walk, but this depends on what Miss Migraine says.

Nostalgia Tour

I suppose it’s a sign of getting old when people start visiting the places of their childhood. I’m going do that in April of this year. Hermann and I will be travelling to Trens, a tiny village in South Tyrol where I spent several holidays with my family when I was a child. We will stay in the same hotel which is still a family business, now run by the daughter of the previous owners. She still remembered me when we wrote to her. She and her brothers were already young adults at that time. It always felt like home when we were there, everyone was kind and patient with us children. Of course I’m aware that this feeling will most likely not return when I visit again, because so much has changed. The old half-farm-half-hotel has turned into a modern place during the past years – it had to, I guess. Nonetheless I’m looking forward to seeing it all again. Here are some photos:

1970 at a festival parade; I (aged 4) sit on my father's shoulders, my younger brother (aged 2) on my mother's (so I believe); on the right is my father's mother

1970: I wasn't afraid of the cows ;) The cows wore bells round their necks which I loved; still like to hear cow bells and I guess it is because of these childhood memories

1970: with my mother and brother

1971: on my 5th birthday in front of the hotel (wonder whether the bench and table are still there or not)

1971: at a festival parade with the hotel owner's daughter (the current hotel owner)