Second week of Advent

This first photo has nothing to do with the topic, but I liked it. :-) On the Saturday before the first Sunday in Advent, while Jörn, Mom, and the boys were at the art workshop, Dad and the little girls and I went for a long walk in the Salt Lake park. We were looking for flamingos, and did see them, but so far away that I didn't bother taking a photograph of them.

Later in the afternoon, just my dad and Helen and Elisabeth and I went over to the Salt Lake park to get pine cones for the Advent wreath. As I was starting to drill holes in them (the Advent wreath has four spikes on it, on which Jörn's family used to put apples, but I prefer pine cones and have a feeling that apples would get eaten anyway...), a waytoobigandscary spider came crawling out of one. So I ended up taking all the pinecones outside and spraying them with Biokill (an insecticide that is supposed to be harmless to mammals, and yes, I know that spiders are not insects, but it also kills spiders, and no, I don't ususally kill spiders, but I also don't willingly provide homes for them in the middle of my eating table), leaving them to dry.

On Sunday, my parents and all the girls and I went to Larnaca Community Church (where they did have an Advent wreath and lit the first two candles), then went home and played a game until Jörn called from the house church to say that it was time for lunch, then the three younger girls and my parents and I joined them for lunch there. In the afternoon/evening we were at Sue's and Richard's house to play games and have a meal, so we never did have a meal together at home, so the fact that we didn't have any candles yet wasn't really that relevant. I did drill holes in the pinecones and put them on the wreath either Saturday night or Sunday morning, though.

Monday morning Jörn had to work and Marie didn't want to go out, so the other eight of us squeezed into our seven-seater car and tried to go see a free museum that had been closed on Friday, and turned out to be closed on Monday, too. It was just across the road from Rizoelia National Park, though, so we went with plan B and drove up there, playing on the playground for awhile.

We did have my dad on the see-saw too. In fact, at one point all eight of us were on it at once. :-)

After the park we stopped at home to let Jacob out, then went to see the mosque across the Salt Lake from where we live, but the only photos I took were blurry.

When we got home, we realized that we didn't have much in the house for lunch, so Jacob rode his bike to the grocery store. While he was there I called him and asked him to look for candles, so along with lunch supplies, he brought home four gold-colored candles, which we added to our still-not-green Advent wreath. In the center I put our wedding candle, being a large white candle. That's something that my German husband still finds a bit strange. In fact, in German there's even a rhyme that says "In Advent first the first candle burns, then the second, then the third, then the fourth. If the fifth candle is burning, you slept through Christmas." We call the fifth candle the Christ candle, and we light it on Christmas Day.

Although not the most flattering photo of any of the people involved, here's a photo of our Advent wreath, finally with candles and two of them lit, on the second Monday in Advent:

My parents left Monday afternoon. They wouldn't have minded at all joining us in an Advent study, I'm sure, but their visit was so short and we were so busy, that I never got organized for it. So it was on the second Tuesday in Advent that we finally started a family Bible study, something we've thought of doing during Advent for many years and never had. In that respect, I guess starting over a week late is better than we've done before! There were pictures to color in, which most of the children helped with, and we hung them up on the kitchen door:

The top left is the cover page, then comes the theme verse for the entire study, John 8:12: "Jesus said to the people, 'I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won't be sumbling through the darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.' ". Underneath is the cover page for the first week, about the prophecies around Jesus' birth, as well as a drawing of Samuel annointing David, and some sheep to go along with David, I guess. We took two days to do week one, and on Thursday started week two, about angels. Katie and Helen did color in some pictures, but I'm not exactly sure where they disappeared to. We'll finish week two today, putting us on track for week three, which we'll probably start on Monday, as we again won't have any meals at home together tomorrow.

First Wednesday in Advent

So, off to a slow start...but Advent DID start the very earliest possible date this year, with Christmas Day being on a Sunday, so that's my excuse. :-)

My parents arrived on the Tuesday, late in the evening. The next afternoon/evening was the first day of the prophetic workshop that Jörn had organized, in which Jacob, Lukas, and my mother also took part. While it might have been nice to have had a nice, festive, family activity, putting up the nativity scenes (yes, plural--it's a bit out of hand) and decorating the Advent wreath, etc., the idea of actually getting all ten of us (or even eight of us) together at once didn't seem likely, so I didn't even try.

So: the first Wednesday in Advent, I hung up the stockings...

...cleared off the top of the piano and set up the nativity scenes...

...and tried to keep Katie and Helen out of the box of stuff, somewhat unsuccessfully. Helen pulled out this wall-hanging, and not knowing what to do with it (I never know what to do with it, either), she put it on Elisabeth, who was asleep on the couch.

Later that night after consulation with Jörn, I put a blue tablecloth on the piano, underneath the nativity scenes, and also put the globe on the piano, but haven't taken a photo, and if I wait until I have, then I never will post this.

I also realized that this photo doesn't even have all of the nativity scenes in it--at least half a dozen more have been added, and all have been re-arranged numerous times by every child except Elisabeth. And it's not for lack of trying that Elisabeth hasn't gotten to them, she just can't reach, even from the piano bench, and we've managed to foil her every time she's actually tried to climb ONTO the piano.
I also got out the Advent wreath things, but having no greenery and no candles, didn't bother taking a photo. That's for the next post...

First Sunday in Advent

Last Sunday our family of only eight people managed to be in five different churches. Marie went to LCC (Larnaca Community church), where she's been active for almost a year now, and Jacob went to the house church, which we as a family started attending regularly two and a half years ago. For nearly a year, I have been more often than not staying home with the three younger girls, but occasionally attend LCC, the house church, Grace Church, or St. Helena's. Last Sunday we went to Grace Church. Jörn and Lukas were in Germany, and Lukas went to church with the friends with whom he spent the weekend, and Jörn went to our home church in Düsseldorf, where he also had the opportunity to make a small presentation about what he does here in Cyprus.

This Sunday was more back to usual, in that Marie went to LCC and Jörn and the boys went to the house church, except that Katie also joined them at the house church, as a new Sunday school has been started there. (While I don't think there's anything at all wrong with children staying in a regular church service, nor do I like it when children are not welcome in a church service, three hours or more was simply too long, in my opinion, to expect any child to sit still AND to not resent being forced to be there. Or at least, it was too long for me...) So it was just Helen and Elisabeth who went with me this morning to yet another local congregation, the Greek Evangelical Church, for the first time.

I enjoyed the singing very much, being familiar with a couple of songs from the house fellowship (which is bilingual, but most of the singing is in Greek), and at least knowing the tunes of some of the others, although I hadn't heard them in Greek before. Only one or two were totally new to me, but not difficult to follow, and I understood almost everything. I understood a great deal of the talking from the front, as well, although it would have been difficult for me to translate, because my energy was going into understanding the gist of things and there wasn't any energy left to look for English words. The man who did the children's talk asked me if the children speak Greek, and when I said no, he asked someone else to simultaneously interpret. Although that was thoughtful of them, I really don't think my 17-month-old and three-year-old got much out of it anyway, being about persecuted Christians in Egypt, and then comparing it to how we might feel at school as compared to home. As I find simultaneous interpreting extremely distracting when I understand both of the languages, even as limited as my Greek still is, I probably understood less of it myself than if it had just been in Greek.

After that, "the children" were released for Sunday school. The children consisted of Helen, Elisabeth, a baby who's about six or eight months old, and one girl who I'm guessing was around 12 or 14. The baby didn't go out and I didn't plan to go out with mine, but when someone else suggested it, I figured I might as well, as they were getting a bit restless anyway. However, we never did find that one girl (and I don't think she went to "Sunday school", as when she came back towards the end, she had a drink cup from the bakery with her...), and eventually went back in for the sermon after all. The sermon was actually mostly in English, by someone who is visiting Cyprus for three months, from Philadelphia. (I spoke very briefly with his wife afterwards, which is how I know that.) As it was consecutively interpreted, rather than simultaneously, it was easy to follow and good for my Greek, as well. The talk around communion was all in Greek again, and the final song.

And then we came home and had lunch. Marie put in a brief appearance before heading off to basketball, and Jörn, Lukas, and Katie just arrived home. (Jacob is also at basketball now.) We'll be leaving in a few minutes to go to Richard and Sue's house, where we spend every other Sunday afternoon and have dinner. Marie and Jacob will join us there after basketball, so we'll finally all be together as a family then for the first time today. And tomorrow we might get around to making an Advent wreath.

Edited: Actually, Jacob didn't go to basketball today, but I hadn't seen him come in, because he went straight to his room to work on a card he was making. I was rather startled to see him when we left the house. 8:20 p.m. now, everyone home, four children heading for bed imminently...