Adjusting

From left: Dani (my roommate), Kerstin (pronounced CARE-stin, from Germany), and Kate (from Ottawa) as we walked through town this afternoon.

Today we had our first lecture on the book of Revealation.  It's quite the adjustment to sit in class, but the teacher, Hans Peter Royer, did well keeping our attention though a careful explanation of the first several chapters.  And it's an adjustment to meet so many people and try to remember their names.  I've met and talked with many of the 68 students here. But I can't remember all of their names.  When then meet me, some  ask how old I am and usually think that I am 30-years-old.  Being the oldest student does have it's advantages, though.  While everyone received a daily duty, like cleaning bathrooms, floors, and cleaning the kitchen, I received the duty of being the one that the students will see if they have questions about the washer and the dryer.  Julia, who gave me the duty, said that the younger students needed the discipline of working, and that she gave me this role just so that I would have a duty.  I think I have it down -- washing soap on the left in the drawer, turn to 40 degrees, close the door and then insert the coin. I can handle this.

The other adjustment is being with many people 24x7.  But it's so interesting talking to the students because many of them when to other bible schools before coming to Tauernhof, so they have these interesting stories of their travel through Europe between semesters (most had 4 weeks to travel).  My roommate, Dani, came from Germany on "holiday" since she graduated in December.  Her husband could not get away from his job, but they liked this arrangement just fine.  I enjoy spending time with her and we get along quite nicely.  She is glad to be here to practice her English for her training to be an English and Italian language teacher.  So she asked me to help her get better.  At night, I practice some German with her and she helps me get better.  Boy, German is tough.  She says to me, "it's not very beautiful sounds."  I'm learning to place my tongue on the roof of my mouth and utter more air-like sounds.

There's even small adjustments like the beds.  I looked for the top sheet my first night, but there was none.  I thought that maybe the school was trying to save money.  So I finally commented about this to Dani. And she said that in Germany and Austria, they just have a blanket covered by a duvet.  She said that when she has visited Italy she noticed that she had a top sheet, but she doesn't always like it because she said that she feels trapped when the sheet is tucked in to tight at the bottom; she likes the freedom of just a duvet on the top.  We laughed for a bit because I knew what she was talking about (several American hotels are like this!).

It's even an adjustment with the computer being in German.  The operating system and the pages default to German.  You should have seen me trying to uploadthe pictures that I have.  I finally had to ask Dani to help me because I couldn't figure out how to open them in Picture Viewer.  Even signing on to enter this blog is in German.  And the strangest is the key board -- the z and the y are reversed in location, and things like the delete key and end key are in German so you have to figure it out.  And much of the punctuation keys are in a different spot.  So as I tzpe this it would look like this if I tzpe the waz that I tzpe at home.

While there have been many differences, what is the same, and comforting, is very genuine people who love God, who want to learn how to know Him better and serve Him more.