On December
15, 1998 the kids and I finally joined Brian in Munich, Germany. For the past three months, Brian had diligently
worked at Berlitz Language School, making the money needed to see his family
join him. In addition he was in a
constant search for the perfect place to call “home”. After many attempts at getting a place, he had
finally found an old pre-WWI building on Schaeftlarnstrasse
near the Munich Zoo.
My friends Darja
and Louisa volunteered to drive us and our very few possessions through the snow-capped
Austrian mountains to our new home. Early
in the morning the kids and I loaded Muca, our cat into Darja’s little blue
Opel. Then we filled the van with thirty
boxes and some additional bedding. I’m
sure you could have lit a house with the electricity that was felt in the
car. Finally after three longs months of
being separated, we were joining Brian.
“Kids, we
are finally going to Munich. We are like
the Israelites crossing the Red Sea into the promise land. We heard a word from God, remember, that we
would one day live in Munich, and now we are on the way!”
Six and a
half years earlier, God gave Brian, Amanda and I each a vision that we would
one day live and minister in Munich. Often
the vision tried to die, but God kept leaving breadcrumbs of encouragement
along the way lest we felt it were a mere fantasy.
“Mommy,
look there’s daddy!” The kids started
shouting.
“Oh boy, I
bet he’ll be happy to get home cooked meals again.”
Darja
stopped the car in front of the pre-WWI gray flat. As I looked around the outside of the
building I noticed that each door had a very old flagpole mount. After living there a while we were told that
our building was part of the twenty percent of the structures that did not get
hit during the hundred bombing raids on the city during WWII. At that time, the streets had been filled eight
stories high with rubble from the bombings. Daily when I walked home I imagined the red
and black “twisted cross” hanging from the building during that dark time in
Munich’s history.
“Hey you
guys made it on time.” Brain said as he gave each of the kids a huge daddy bear
hug and me a long-awaited kiss.
Darja smiled,
“We were lucky to arrive to the train tunnel when it was loading. Do you remember how the car tunnel caught on
fire last year? Well, they have not
finished re-building the new one so all traffic must board the train and
disembark on the other side. Just ten minutes more and we’d have been hours later.”
Brian
opened the very old front door of our building.
The entry way carried a strong hint of years gone by and a bit of
mold. Our apartment was located on the
main floor. In the front of the building
it was above ground, while in the back it was half way underground. My imagination started running wild thinking
about all the events that might have taken place in our building. It was a piece of history. If walls could talk, I am sure we would have learned
a lot about the families that lived and died there.
“Now
Dorothy, I am going to let you guys inside the apartment. Please remember our greater mission and not
what you first see. I am sure that you
can make it a pleasant home in no time.
Your cooking alone will help a lot. Remember, this is the best place I could find
for the price that we can pay. You
should have seen the other places; they really needed a lot of work.”
“Are you
telling me that they rent homes without fixing them up here?”
“Here in
Germany they do not even provide kitchen counters and appliances in
rental. From what I understand everyone
brings their own, just like they move their furniture.”
“Wow, that
is really strange!”
“Foreign,
rather than strange, but yes it is.
Regardless, that is the way they do it, so when you see your kitchen, be
happy you have a place to cook at all.”
As I looked
at our little cave-like apartment, I gulped back tears. Not tears of joy, but of frustration at our
new “home”. Brian noticed my frustration
and my attempts to not cry, and held me.
“It is O.K., we are together now. Remember Miza
za pet.” That is what we called
ourselves, “Table for Five” after an American show that we watched in Slovenia. This little saying brought comfort to our family.
We knew that as long as we had each
other, everything would be just fine.
As I walked into the front hall way
I noticed a very strange unpleasant scent.
After a bit of investigation I realized that it came from the toilet,
which didn’t have enough water in the bowl. I adjusted the water flow and fixed the first
of many irritations that this place presented.
Looking around all I could do is think of the wonderful large two story
raised ranch that we rented in Slovenia.
It had four bedrooms, two full bathrooms, a large family room, good size
kitchen, laundry room and a garage. Now
we had exactly three, count them, t-h-r-e-e
rooms, not including the bathroom and toilet room. I did not even have a kitchen, and the only
way to cook was the two small burners at the end of the hallway on the tiniest
stove ever. I guess the landlord decided
to create a kitchen by adding an efficiency stove and apartment refrigerator to
the flat. The kitchen sink was so small
that I could barely wash out my frying pan.
“Brian, where
is my kitchen? How do you expect me to
cook on only two burners? I don’t even
have a stove! Where are we going to
store our food? We do not have any
cupboards? Look at that refrigerator, I
believe a college dorm has a larger one.”
Once again tears started rolling down my cheeks.
“Don’t
worry Dor, let us get settled in and we will figure out a kitchen for you.”
“But where
will we even put a kitchen? There is not any room!”
“I guess we
will have to make the hallway by the bathrooms into a small kitchen. Look, there is enough room for a stove,
cupboards and a refrigerator.”
“Ok, I
choose to have vision and a good attitude and make this fun, even if it is worse
than camping.”
I daydreamed about our place in
Slovenia with its many different types of fruit trees: apple, pear, peach, cherry, and Japanese
apple. The back yard was filled with colorful
flowers that bloomed in new stages every two weeks; the garden was a real work
of art. Our new backyard contained a
clothing line, a few bikes and a very small place for the kids to play. It did have a forlorn rosehips tree; it was nothing
like out place that we called “home” in Slovenia. The flooring in our new place was the
strangest of all. It was brown rubber
covering with raised circles. The three
rooms had outdoor brown carpet, the kind you put on a balcony. It was very scratchy stuff. For the last year and a half I’d been living
in a home with parquet and Italian tile floors.
Now I could not even imagine where one would buy what was on our floors,
or why.
“Brian, are the floors really
rubber?”
“Yep, I guess they really are
rubber. It’s strange.”
Looking out our bedroom window I
watched traffic racing past our place.
We lived just off one of the main highways in Munich, called Mittlerer Ring. Immediately I knew I would miss
the deer running around on the hills across the street next to my neighbor’s
house in Slovenia.
That evening we walked to the
grocery store to buy food for dinner. Brian pointed out some special weisswurst, and semmels. When we got home we
found my favorite cast iron frying pan, and made dinner on the tiny two burner
stove. While I cooked dinner, Brian and
the kids spread out a couple of towels and set the floor as if it were a table. We all sat Indian-style on the floor and had
our dinner. If we were still in Ex-Yugoslavia
our family would be sitting on wooden chairs at a table underneath a dining
room chandelier, overlooking peach trees and grape vines. Our kitchen wouldn’t be freezing, like this
cold place. I could see that these three
foot thick stone walls were not going to warm up over a single night. As for our first night, we shivered under
blankets while eating dinner.
After dinner, the kids grabbed their bedding and made three little nests
in the smallest bedroom, crawling into them after their long journey, snuggling
down to listen to Brian read James Michener’s Hawaii. We did not need a
television, our family loved listening to Brian read, especially when he changed
his voice for different characters. Darja grabbed her sleeping bag and snuggled
into the nest where the kids lay. One by
one, everyone fell asleep. When only the
deep-breathing sounds of our kids were heard, Brian and I left the room to make
our nest for the night.
“Well Dor, I am so happy to have
you and the kids with me. It has really
been a very long three months without my family. I know we do not have anything, but we are
together.”
“You know Bri, for the last six
years we desired to move to Munich Germany.
Remember how in the very first month we lived in Slovenia, God brought six
young men from that Munich church group to stay with us for a week? We always said that they were bread crumbs
leading us to where God really wanted us to be.
And when we hosted those boys, Mark let you stay in his home for three
months. If it weren’t for Mark’s help I
don’t know how you would have found work or a place to live. I say it does not matter that we are sleeping
on the floor, or that we do not have any house hold furniture, even that we
don’t have a decent kitchen. All that matters
is that we are in the center of God’s plan.
He said that he would always carry us in his palm and never drop
us. I am sorry for crying earlier today. The kids and I are here with you and that is
all that matters.”
Brian appreciated my supportive
attitude. Other wives might demand all
their worldly belonging where ever they go, but not Dorothy. She was “have suitcase, will travel” all the
way, that is, with a few tears here and there.
God would provide.
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