Bitte gehen Sie weiter, es gibt nichts zu sehen.

God's land for sale

In the next weeks, Barbara needs to raise something like 9000 € for the piece of land. They were able to buy it last april with the help of some people who lent them a part of the total price for the duration of one year. This is almost over now and so it is time to pay the money back. In this first year more than 100 people spent time at the Mount of Oaks and found peace, community, support, healing, friendship, inspiration and love; just like I did. And there is much more to come in the future. I want to encourage you to be a partaker of what God is doing there and to consider giving a little amount for this community that will be a blessing for many people. You can find more information and the bank details here. Unfortunately I deleted all my Portugal pictures by accident, so I have been using the ones from Ton's and Baba's blogs.

Welcome home

My first night in Portugal I spend with the Hurst family in Lissabon. Denny picked me up directly from the airport together with Ben from the Portugese punk rockers Triplet. They just moved to Lissabon a few weeks ago after 22 years in Italy, where among other things they established the Rock on the Rock Festival. Together with them and some other guests they hosted I had a great evening before I travelled to the Mount of Oaks.

My travelling companions Eddy, a carpenter on the road and Jared, a hippie disciple from Carolina walked with me along the railroad tracks when I spotted the first sign. The green meadows with the blooming fruittrees reminded me of childhood fantasies, and when we reached the big cork oaks I felt an urge to put off my combat boots and continue barefoot as I was approaching holy land. Over the fields we continued, the others were singing loudly, and then in the distance we saw a girl waving at us and screaming: Welcome home! I cannot tell how much I longed to hear those words. They have a special meaning for me at the moment with all the changes and travels that lie behind me now.

The girl was Marieluise, a 22 year old German who had just regained her life after eating a poisonous root she found in the forest. She spent some days in the intensive care and almost died. You can find her full story here on Barbara's blog. Amazing!

Pilgrimage to Portugal

In about 12 hours I am leaving towards Lissabon. From there I will travel to the Mount of Oaks, to the place where my dear friend Barbara is living. In 2005 we initiated together a kind of "outreach" (don't like the word) with the Jesus Freaks to the European Rainbow Gathering and became sort of family members to each other. Tomorrow, when I will leave early from my coaching course I will say that I am attending a family meeting.

It will be my first time to Portugal - I can add a new country to my list! I am very much looking forward to get there, not only because I am very happy to meet Barbara again, but also because another old friend, Ton, is there right now as well. There are very few people who made such a strong impact on my life like him. Nine years ago I went to India to work with him on the streets of Delhi and in his Ashram. I learned so much about life (and death) in this place! Later on he was conducting our marriage in 2000. Ton's words always challenge and inspire me and I love his poetic way of writing.
The trip is not just a visit for me but more like a pilgrimage. I have many questions and uncertainties at this point of my life. My heart is heavy and my head is full of doubts. Hopefully I can calm down for a few days and can look at my life with a little distance. During the time there I will read a book about the Desert Fathers, write in my diary, talk things through with good friends and work and pray. As a little tuning in I visited an exhibition of paintings about the temptation of St. Anthony. I feel like living in a hostile world for 3 years now and I want to get out of the desert now. I hope that God, friends, nature and books will speak to my heart.

weekend

The days I am not at work are usually very busy with friends, at least these last two days were. I love to spend time with people, to talk, share life and dream (and eat :-) together. I feel very rich to have so many wonderful inspiring, caring and loving people around me. For the last days there were Julia and Basti from Köln who stayed with us; in the afternoon we met with friends from Hamburg to try figure out what to do think about the upcoming elections in the city; Salome and Henning came over for dinner and in the evening my brother Kristov arrived and Janna came round for a cup of late-night tea... Beautiful.
Yesterday Kristov, his woman-for-life Katharina, Janna and us took a ferry to Finkenwerder. It was one of the first sunny days after long grey rainy weeks, much needed! And here's what we found...
The arab ship doesn't want to be turned around, so you'll have to watch it like this I'm afraid.

home

A long time since our last post... All our boxes are unpacked and it feels good to have a new home base. My dear friend Catrin gave us this picture of the Hamburg harbour with a hook to hang our keys on... Now we are ships in a harbour - ... sometimes I feel more like a piece of driftwood though. But that's only those messy emotional girl-moods I guess.


Anyway, we are really amazed by our new flat, it's really big!! You can run through the corridor to gain momentum and then slide into the living room - right into the cupboard :-). Yes. And we have done some serious painting (after long diplomatic discussions about the right type of green). And this is the picture that hung in my grandmother's living room as long as I can remember. It's now in our sleeping room. Yes, we have a living room, a sleeping room, a bathroom, a corridor, a kitchen, a small store room and a room with which we don't know what to do. It's crazy.