Pfingsten

Well the German school system is good for giving us a lot of random days of school off. So sometimes it feels like I'm not in school as consistently as I was in the USA. We had a 4-day weekend for Berlin for Christi Himmelfahrt (when Jesus rose back up to heaven), and now we have a 5-day weekend for Pfingsten (Pentecost). In Religion class we spoke about Pentecost (in German Pfingsten). A quick summary of Pentecost is (from Wikipedia): "On the day of Pentecost all the Lord’s followers were together in one place. Suddenly there was a noise from heaven like the sound of a mighty wind. It filled the house where they were meeting. Then they saw what looked like fiery tongues moving in all directions, and a tongue came and settled on each person there. The Holy Spirit took control of everyone, and they began speaking whatever languages the Spirit let them speak. Many religious Jews from every country in the world were living in Jerusalem ... they were hearing everything in their own languages."

So when we were discussing Pentecost, I kinda realized that AFS works in a similar way. Thinking about my first camp in Germany where they brought a group of teenagers, who all have different native languages, into the youth hostel in Möchengladbach, I knew what it felt like to hear all these different languages. Overall, English was the main language spoken at the camp in our discussions, and German was encouraged but wasn't really spoken. We all stuck with the language we knew best. And so a spirit didn't come through and allow us to understand every language. I did learn how to curse in at least five languages. But that won't take me very far in life to insult everyone and not understand their replies.

Moreover, this group of about twenty exchange students from four different continents has learned to, more or less, fluently converse in German. In that time, we developed strong friendships and are still there for each other. Looking back on how our conversational skills have progressed, I can't really imagine how we communicated with each other at the beginning...especially in German?! I find it really cool just to think that as our German improved, so did our bonds and friendships with each other. And even though we all miss speaking our native languages, one could say that a spirit helped us to understand each other in (at least) one language: German! Wednesday was the 250th day that I've been in Germany. I find it astounding that so much could happen is what seems like a relatively small window of time. It takes about the same amount of time to create a child.

Möchengladbach. October 2009


Berlin. May 2010



Happy Pfingsten/Pentecost everyone!

Bis dann,
Matt

P.S. I had a little visitor when I wrote this blog post.