Arrival in Berlin

...And so we begin again.  We have arrived in Germany and are off to the races.  We got here on Friday and were met by a heat wave.  We are staying in the 6th floor of an apartment without air conditioning and it must be 100+ every second of the day.  Not exactly the cool, maritime climate we were hoping for, but Germany is sweltering in the summer of 2010.

We flew from Indianapolis to Chicago to Warsaw, Poland.  A special thanks to Jen and her 3 year old husband Randy for coming out with the kids to see us off.  The flight to Poland was just under 9 hours and all three of us slept for about 90% of the flight.  We're used to 24 hour flights with 16 hour stretches, so this seemed incredibly easy.  "A little too short," Jamie says.

We were met at the airport by Jael Tang who is the first Gateway Berlin intern--and probably the last since we are changing the name.  The important point is that Jael is an Anderson School of Theology student who is in the process of getting her Master's degree.  She is interested in missions so she joined a group from Anderson University and the SOT in Berlin to learn about urban, post-Christendom ministry.  She then stayed on for the full summer.

The Philips and the Varners (more on them later) have been in the USA, so Jael has held down the fort on her own.  Good job, Jael.  Well, Jael is a global person.  She's from Singapore and very self-sufficient.  We've known Jael for a while, so it's been like being reunited with our little Jeh-jeh (sister) here on the other side of the world.

You'll learn more about Jael later.

In fact, over the course of the next few weeks, I'll be introducing you to our team, telling you about our new role, and you'll be hearing all about our Three-Worlds strategy.  But for now, let's start slow---mainly because it's 130 degrees right now and I'm dying.  I thought we left all this hot weather behind??? I'm going to sue.  If I moved to Antartica they would probably have a heat wave.

This is not our first time to Berlin.  I've been here about 5 times and even stayed in this neighborhood twice before, so it's all quite familiar to us--even Marco.  We know the neighborhood where we want to live and know our way around to a decent extent.  Berlin has always felt like Portland and Seattle to us.  We love both places.  The culture is environmentally-conscious, bicycles have right-of-way, parks are everywhere, arts, books, and beer are high values, and the weather is usually gray and cool.

Today we started visiting potential future homes and we will need to go to the government offices soon, as well as get our phones set up and everything else.  The Philips will be back in 2 days and it will be fun to have them back.

Well, we start slow and hot, but it will pick up around here with lots of new info and cool stuff.  Thanks for making the switch from Chinatimes to Three Worlds.

And just like the old days, there will be complaining about how much I hate blue skies and the sun.  Some things never change.

Photos of Australia

Two Koalas on display.

Marco holding a butterfly in Sydney in 2007.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Downtown Sydney.

The bridge on a sunny day.

The Taronga Zoo is my favorite zoo, and these views are one of the reason.

My favorite animal--the Kangaroo.

I adore Sydney.  I'd love to live there one day.  So would Marco.

Marco looking cute.

Me and my little HK Koala.

Only in super sunny Australia do my pictures look decent...sometimes.  This is in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales.

Blue Mountains.

The Three Sisters.

Amazing views.

Jamie and I celebrated our 10th Anniversary with a 2nd trip to Australia together.  Here we are in Hunter Valley part of Australia's wine country.

We spent a wonderful time staying in Port Stephens on the New South Wales Coast.

One of my favorite photos of Marco.  We were at an Australian animal farm.

Beautiful wildlife in Port Stephens.

Port Stephens.

This was the most relaxing trip in about 5 years.

We went looking for Whales.

Another one of my favorite Marco photos---eating Bubble Gum ice cream in Port Stephens.

Marco playing Bob the Builder in Sydney.

Marco feeds a Kangaroo.

Brisbane, Queensland.

Suburban homes in Gold Coast.

The fast growing skyline of Australia's Gold Coast.

Me with the Pacific at my back on the East Coast of Australia.  A few weeks earlier I had been at the West Coast of Chile across the Ocean.

A third trip to Australia in 2009.

The Famous Sydney Opera House.

Thank you Australia.

Photos of Africa

Downtown Nairobi. I absolutely love Nairobi.  I spent a week here getting to know it.

The flat dry land outside of Nairobi.

Visiting a dynamic church outside of Nairobi.  Best worship band ever---it was like Kool & the Gang.  Best bass line in a church service---ever!

It's hot under the tin roof, but the music makes you forget all that.

The hills outside of Kisumu.

The road to the Kima International School of Theology.

It's a beautiful campus.

I love contextualized Gospel art like this.

I got to teach these students for a class session.  That was very enjoyable.  I hope to get that chance again.

On the road toward Uganda with my good buddy John Walters.

A CHOG in rural Uganda.

Uganda.

Crossing the Nile in Southern Uganda.

Beats the roads we had in Costa Rica through much of the 70's and 80's.  Perhaps 90's :)

Entering into Kampala, Uganda.

Speaking to some Ugandan students about my adoption story.

Some children in one of the schools the Stevenson's built.

Lake Victoria at my back.

What a cutie!

The road to Emusire where my father was the Principal of a Secondary School which is still running today and doing very well.

Arriving at the school where Mom and Dad worked.

Retracing my Father's steps.  That's what sons do.

My dad is listed as the 2nd Principal

A photo of my Father remains on the wall.  He was the Principal that transitioned the school to local African leadership.

This is the home where my dad Harry, my mother Jene, and my sister Marcel lived.

My friend Logan looking like a real photographer.

Lake Victoria.

The Church of God in Lusaka, Zambia.

A  CHOG in Lusaka.

Taking the bus from Lusaka to Livingstone was fun.

Rural Zambia.

Victoria Falls near the border with Zimbabwe.

Check out how small that canoe is.  Victoria Falls is enormous.

Me canoeing....not really.

An elephant staring our jeep down.

The missionary Stan Hoffman.

Johannesburg, South Africa.

Jo'berg, South Africa from the air.

Photos from China

Some kids in Guangx Province.

Guangxi.

A typical street in China.  Chinese cities tend to look alike. All built in the last 30 years at the speed of sound.

Shaouguan, Guangdong Province.

On the Li River in Guangxi.

Rural Guangxi.

Jade Dragon Mountain in the background.  Lijiang, Yunnan Province.

The more developed side of Lijiang, China.  It was a dream of mine to go to Lijiang.

Some ethnic minority children in Yunnan.

Marco being passed around a Chinese train.  It was always a big deal to see the cute foreign baby.

Marco enduring the cold in Kunming, Yunnan.

Street children in Kunming.

Yunnan has the highest percentage of ethnic minorities.  It was my favorite Province.

The Chinese flag flying over Tianannmen Square.

The Forbidden City, Beijing.

First trip to the Great Wall of China.  An unusually uncrowded winter day.  I went alone.  I had the whole wall to myself and tried to take a picture of me with nothing but the  people-less wall behind me, but I messed up the picture trying to get the tripod set up and took it too late.  A few minutes later a large Korean tour group showed up and messed up the shot.

"It is a wall, and it is great." - Patrick Nachtigall

My favorite Chinese mountain, Jade Dragon in Yunnan Province.

Carrying Marco through old town Lijiang.

Walking with my "adopted son" A-Yat to visit a Leper Colony in rural Guangxi.  It was a long hike and very isolated.

Jiman, A-yat, Grace, and Thomas join me in visiting the Lepers.  Those were great trips.

We passed by beautiful scenery on the walk.

It is still a very poor province, Guangxi.

About midway through the long walk.

Jiman, A-yat and me in Guangxi.

Perched on the very edge of a cliff 2000 feet high, this pagoda offers amazing views of Kunming, Yunnan.

The Stone Forest in Yunnan Province was one of my favorite places in China, because it seemed genuinely clean and green.  Very relaxing.

It is a maze of stone rocks that is fun to get lost in.

Such a beautiful place.

It's always fun when Uncle Alan the China expert comes to visit--especially for Marco.

Despite the crowds, once in the Forest, you can have moments when you are all alone.

Looks like the set of Star Wars or something.

Too bad someone doesn't really know how to operate his camera.

"Neon, futuristic Shanghai" doesn't impress me nearly as much as Tokyo.

Marco on the fastest train in the world which goes from Shanghai's Pudong airport to downtown in about 9 minutes at more than 300 mph.  Nice photography skills Patrick.

Downtown Shanghai.

Floating down a canal in Zhenjiang.

She's singing to us as we go down the canal.

The rare family photo because we all loathe having our picture taken.

More Zhenjiang.

Giving a lecture to students at a Chinese University on "the Role Religion Plays in American Civil Society."  That was a dream come true.

Photos of South America (Chile, Peru, Bolivia)

Nice homes in Santiago, Chile.

Downtown Santiago.

Barranco in Lima, Peru.  I loved this place.

A house in the lovely Miraflores district.

The Presidential Palace in Lima, I think.

Walking around downtown.

One of the CHOG's in Northern Lima.  What great people.  I was ready to just move there on the spot.

Some of the awesome kids of the Lima youth group.

The beautiful Miraflores district. My Peruvian friend Stefan said it was awesome and he was right.

So interesting to see such dryness in a Latin American metropolis.

A nice street in Lima.

Lima from the air.

La Paz, Bolivia at 13,000 feet above sea level.

Another view. I spent a week here.

It's a city of hills.

A little town on the flat Altiplano at 14,000 feet.

The Bolivian CHOG has their annual junta in this barren, mountainous landscape at 14,000 feet.  The annual Junta draws up to as many as 8,000 people camping out under the stars in what I call "CHOG Woodstock."

Look at all the people.  It's a truly amazing experience.  Too bad I was in crippling, mind-numbing, pain.

Two indigenous Bolivian women.  They are not Latin people.  They are Quechua or some other indigenous people group.

Is that Joan Baez on stage?  Probably not.

Crowds gather to watch the baptism.

A different view of La Paz.

In the very isolated town of Iquique, Northern Chile by the Atacama Desert which is the driest place in the world.  In some places, they have never had rain.

Walking along the shore in Iquique thousands of miles away from home.

Is this the wine country of Northern California?  No, it's the wine country of Southern Chile.

Heading to the Oregon Coast?  No, heading to the cool, gray Chilean Coast.  What great diversity Chile has in its different regions.

The coastal city of Valparaiso felt like coastal Oregon.  The weather too.

One of the most inspiring figures I met on my two year journey writing my third book "Mosaic" was Pastor Martinez in Valparaiso.  This is his church in a tough part of town.

Isla de Maipo in Chile's Central Valley was a gorgeous little town that reminded me of Australia's wine country.  Similar latitude and vegetation.  Very delightful.