Couldn't refresh

I was scrolling down my instagram feed, when an error showed up- "Couldnt refresh".
And as I was wondering what was wrong with my internet again, I suddenly found myself pausing.
"Couldn't refresh", it said.
And I heard Holy Spirit's quiet voice in my heart: "Couldn't refresh".
Last week, I was translating a DTS week and we were practicing what it means to live with Holy Spirit in our every day life. We were encouraging each other by listening to what he had to say, we ventured into new ways of interacting with him, activated our spirits.
After my DTS- this intense 5 months time carved out solely to focus on my relationship with God- I had gotten somewhat back into the old routine of neglecting spending time with him.
But whereas before my DTS my frustration about that habit had a lot to do with trying to "accomplish" living life as a Christian, striving to make it happen and constantly failing at it, now I've found myself simply not being able to sustain the life I needed without time spent with God.

After a week of being back to a scheduled experience, teaching, and interaction, I felt refreshed, whereas the the freedom of post-DTS life gave me too much opportunity to revisit old habits of distracting myself with my phone and computer and wasting time online.

But it couldn't refresh.

There's zero life flowing from it, because real life- rivers of it- (our DTS theme from Ezekiel 47) flows from the presence of God.
His presence is refreshing, healing.
It grows me.
It nourishes and bears fruit.
It cleanses from bitterness and the residual waste one tends to collect from living on this planet.


Instagram never does that...
Scrolling down Facebook never does that...
Messaging friends rarely even contributes to that...

"Where would we go?!" Jesus' disciples said. "Only you have the words of eternal life."
"We know what's out there and it couldn't refresh!"

I need fresh water every single day.
The stuff that doesn't leave me thirsty.
Nothing else could refresh me.
I want the fullness, the real deal.

Nacht in Brüssel- und in meinem Herzen.

Einkaufs- und Partymeile von Brüssel.

Ein sehr spontaner Prayerwalk mit Marie (Namen geändert). Eigentlich waren wir eben noch beim Grillen mit BHOP.
„Öhm, dürfen wir mitkommen?“, 

auch wenn ich nur so halb wollte. Aber ich wollte es wollen.

Und so ziehen wir um 11 Uhr los, während sich so langsam die Dunkelheit auf Brüssel legt und die Fußballfans weitestgehend Richtung nach Hause schwanken, hupen und jubeln.

Und wir gehen die Straße ein Stück weiter. Wo zwischen abendlichen Spaziergängern, Partymeute und Fans alle paar hundert Meter eine Frau steht.
Eine Frau in High-Heels. Viel zu high Heels.
Sie steht dort und verkauft ihren Körper.
Und hier stehen wir.

Sie kennen Marie, die hier seit 5 Jahren jeden Freitag herkommt, um zu beten und für die Frauen da zu sein.
Manche sind distanziert, manche freuen sich, sie zu sehen und begrüßen sie mit einem Strahlen.
Sarah, eine der Frauen, nennt sie „Meine zweite Mama“.
Manche klagen ihr Leid, erzählen, was ihnen Sorgen macht, manche wissen nicht so recht, was sie sagen sollen.
„Ça va?“
Marie fragt, wie es ihnen geht; sie fragen, wie es Marie geht.
Sie sind witzig, freudig, mitfühlend. Frauen, mit denen man einen Kaffee trinken gehen würde.

Vanessa, heute in Zivil, weil sie nicht auf Fußballfanvideo erkannt werden möchte.
Sie wirkt wie die Frau, die jede langweilige Geburtstagsparty mit ihrem Humor retten kann.
Sie macht Scherze, sie lacht.

Sarah, ausgemergelt, dünn, kantig, sie wirkt kaputt.
Aber sie ist mitfühlend, sie fragt mich, ob es mir gut geht, weil ich so müde bin und angestrengt- mit womöglich sehr verkrampftem Gesichtsausdruck- versuche, Französisch zu verstehen.  
Sie fragt zweimal.

„Of course I miss my family!“ - Wir wissen nicht so richtig, was wir fragen könnten.
Wir verkneifen uns ein „Was machst du so?“ – unsere Gedanken schleichen um den Elefanten im Raum: Sie verkauft Sex an Kerle von der Straße, die grinsend aus Autofenstern lehnen.
Ich hasse diese Männer ein bisschen. Aber es bleibt keine Zeit, über sie nachzudenken.
Ich hasse mich selbst ein bisschen. Wie ich in dieser Welt wohnen und das alles ignorieren kann.

Ich sehe sie an, diese kostbare Frau, und versuche, zu verdrängen, warum sie hier steht, nachts um 00:30 Uhr.
Ich versuche, zu ignorieren, dass direkt unter ihrem Kinn ein Meer von Brüsten schwimmt.
Ich denke nie darüber nach, was meine Freunde wohl machen, wenn sie auf der Arbeit sind.
Es beschäftigt mich nicht, wie viele Akten sie wohl pro Tag wälzen, wer wohl ihr Chef ist, wieviel sie verdienen.
Aber wir, wir kreisen um den Elefanten. Wir beide wissen, was sie tut. Sie mehr als ich.

„Wenn ich heimkomme, dusche ich, bin noch am Computer. Irgendwann schlafe ich. Dann telefoniere ich mit meiner Familie.“
Das klingt auf einmal so anders als das „Nach der Arbeit gehe ich heim, dusche, Netflix und dann schlaf ich“ eines Freundes.

Ich frag mich, ob sich so das Herz von Jesus anfühlt: Die Schönheit, die Freude, den Humor, die Einfühlsamkeit in ihren Gesichtern zu sehen, und doch der grausamen Realität gegenüber zu stehen, dass jede Nacht ein Laster bremst, anhält, schaut und dann trotzdem losfährt. Und die Schönheit Gottes liegt auf der Straße und wird plattgefahren.
Aber es ist nicht nur die Schönheit Gottes. Nicht nur ein schöner Baum oder Regenwald.
Es ist ein Teil des Herzens Gottes selbst, der da unter den Reifen ächzt.

Eine der Mädels- sie sieht abgesehen von ihren Schuhen aus wie eine Studentin, die gerade aus einem Café kommt- zeigt uns Bilder von ihrer Ausbildung. Sie ist Makeup-Artist und würde sich gerne selbständig machen.
Sie ist nicht nur komplett enthusiastisch über ihre Arbeit, sie ist auch noch extrem gut.
Für einen Zombiefilm hat sie klaffende Armwunden geschminkt und ich kann die Fotos keine Sekunde länger angucken, weil sie viel zu real aussehen.
Viel zu real ist auch die Tatsache, dass sie tagsüber eine talentierte Künstlerin ist und dennoch grade hier steht.
Ich höre keinen Enthusiasmus.

Wenn ich demnächst heiraten würde, wäre ich versucht, sie zu fragen, ob sie mein Makeup machen würde.
„Natural“, würde sie sagen, passt zu mir, meinem Stil, meiner Gesichtsform.
„Künstlerin“, würde ich sagen, „passt zu dir“, und die Realität lässt mich verstummen und treibt mir Tränen in die Augen.

Ich bin versucht, die ganze Nacht Frauen zum Geschminkt-Werden vorbei zu schicken.
Sie freizukaufen aus dieser Sklaverei.
„You weren’t made for this!“ will ich ihnen sagen, aber das wissen sie längst.
Und trotzdem sehen sie sich gezwungen, hier zu stehen.

Sie lügen ihre Familien zuhause in Albanien an, was sie hier tun. Sind ihre Familien zu naiv oder wollen sie’s einfach nicht wissen?
Wie sitzt ihre Mutter zuhause und geht mit dem Geld aus Belgien einkaufen, ohne den leisesten Zweifel, womit ihre Tochter das wohl verdient hat?
Bricht es ihr auch das Herz?
Liegt sie manchmal nachts wach und macht sich Vorwürfe?
Hasst sie sich auch ein bisschen dafür, dass sie das zulässt?

Und ich sitze hier wach in Brüssel.
Eine Nacht, in der mich ungefähr 15 Prostituierte mit dem „bise“, Küsschen links und rechts, wie hier in Belgien üblich, begrüßen und verabschieden.
Nein, sie passen nicht mehr hinter eine Berufsbezeichnung.
Ich kenne ihre Namen. Sarah. Vanessa.

Und ich frage mich, wie er das aushält.
Er, der diese Frauen je und je geliebt hat, seit dem ersten Gedanken, den er über sie hatte, der sie ganz genau kennt und alles Kostbare, was er in sie gelegt hat. Und die Welt tritt seinen Schatz mit Füßen, benutzt ihn und wirft ihn dann wie Abfall zurück an den Straßenrand.

Läuft Jesus jede Nacht durch dieses Viertel und steht weinend neben ihnen? Wie zerbrochen muss sein Herz sein- und das ist nur eine Nacht in einer der Millionen Straßen in dieser kaputten Welt.

What are you sowing?

Lately my thoughts rarely have made it onto the vast lands of public blog posts, but I thought it was time for changing that every once in a while again…Ya know, new season of life and all ;) So there you go ;)
 

The Bible often talks about the principle of sowing and reaping. I was thinking about how basically everything we do could be considered sowing.
We are constantly sowing with our time, our words, our thoughts, our actions and our reactions, our decisions. In time, we will see various fruit growing in the fields depending on what we sowed.
We sow time to develop friendships, we sow as we study for our education, we sow money into creating beautiful homes.

As I was riding my bike home that night, I felt God asking me: “What are you sowing?”

Am I just randomly sowing whatever I find at hand to throw out?

So many times when I evaluate my bags of seed I find myself reaching for the wrong one. I so often don’t get that I use seeds that won’t end up producing the harvest I was hoping for. If you want to have a field full of corn you shouldn’t throw sunflower seeds on it. 

Man, how many times do I find myself sowing whatever I feel will give me a harvest of love and acceptance, but the desperate stuff I sow is like sowing grass seeds to see a tree growing. 

So I’m really pondering this question these days:
What am I sowing? And is that what I want to see growing on that field?

Am I sowing thankfulness to reap a harvest of trust?
Am I sowing time into my relationship with God to reap a harvest of a strong bond with him?
Am I sowing time to listen to the right voices and trust in God’s promises to receive that love and acceptance I’m seeking?
Am I sowing encouragement into the people around me?
Am I sowing love and life into the fields of dry hearts?
Am I sowing words of faith into the field of my own heart?
Am I sowing God’s word into my thoughts which will result into a fruit of transformation of both my mind and then my words?

Am I investing in buying the right seeds with what I have?

I’m pretty sure you don’t need to have been raised on a farm to know that seed is won from the fruit of the previous harvest. Remember how Jesus told the story of the sower who sows into the field and all the different places the seeds fall to? Like on the rocks, into the thorns, on the street and on good soil? Jesus is the first sower. He plants the potential for fruit into our hearts and oh man, I don’t wanna be the one dying of world thorn asphyxia. I crave to be a part of his field bringing good fruit. I want to be a multiplier, so that I can be the sower of the next harvest’s fruit. I want to pass on the seed that’s been sown into me to see the second generation of harvest.
Open wide, heart, to let his seed sink in deep!

I have this rude passion about challenging people, whether they want it or not, so I’m passing on the questions to you:

What harvest are you looking for?
What are you sowing?

Lover of the process.

As I was preparing to lead a worship session for my Campus Cru Group, I came across these "mini sagas" (which means you can only use 50 words including caption) that I wrote when I was in Pakistan when I attended my friend KTs ESL classes for fun.

I was thinking that I could post these earlier today, but then I got caught up in preparing and ended up just leaving them opened on my computer.
Now that I'm back from the meeting I feel it's got so much more meaning now.

It's exactly how I feel these days... And just these last days, also during the service, it's been a reoccuring theme- not just in my song selection but also in the sermon.
And so tonight I'll share these "poems"with you, as a statement mostly to myself to remind me that my God is a lover of the process, of my process, my metamorphosis- enjoying growth, not the end result.
And that he is always making beautiful things out of the dust.

You

The crayons carved their way into the heart of the paper.

Oh, nice, I like red.

Blood?

Grey?? Sure about that?

And sparkles of yellow, green for hope.

Title: Beautiful things out of the dust.

No eraser needed.

Your skillful lines and curves gave way to my bigger picture.

A rough creator

Held firmly.

Kicking.

Who do you think you are? Who gave you permission?

Glass shatters.

Don’t you mess with my life! I want it my way!

Why?

Put together.

It just doesn’t seem to make sense.

“Look down.”

And then I can see it. A beautiful mosaic.

Sie dürfen im Wartezimmer Platz nehmen // The waiting room

Es sitzen mehrere Leute in einem Raum. Links von mir sitzt eine jüngere Frau in irgendwelche Dokumente vertieft. Ein paar andere Menschen. Auf der anderen Seite des Raumes sitzt eine andere Frau. Diese muss husten. Schon beim ersten Husten, rümpft die jüngere Frau nahezu unmerkbar die Nase.
Die Frau hustet erneut. Und während in Abständen von 10 bis 20 Sekunden die arme erkältete Frau immer mal wieder kurz hustet, beobachte ich sie- zunächst leicht amüsiert, bald eher entrüstet: Zunächst blickt sie ein wenig genervt, schaut mit jedem Husten wieder auf in die Richtung der hustenden Frau. Mit wiederholten Malen versteift sie sich, sie macht sich immer kleiner, als wolle sie gar nicht da sein, als wolle sie weg und möglichst viel Abstand zwischen sich und die Quelle des Hustens bringen. Es wird sehr klar, was sie von dieser "gefährlichen" Störung hält. Sie blickt jedes Mal wieder unempathisch, aber vorwurfsvoll auf. Als sei es verboten, in ihrer Gegenwart zu husten.

Aber wir sind hier in einer Arztpraxis. Nicht die Gesunden brauchen eine Arzt, sondern die Kranken.

Und in meinem Herzen sehe ich die Situation auf einmal in einem neuen Licht.
Ich höre diese leise Stimme und was sie sagt, will ich der armen, mit strafenden Blicken bedachten Frau zusichern. Unsere Blicke treffen sich und mit einem Lächeln sagt mein Herz zu ihrem:

"Du darfst krank sein in dieser Arztpraxis. 
Du darfst husten, du darfst verletzt sein. 
Und ich wünschte, alle würden dich auch so behandeln.
Ich wünschte, du müsstest die anklagenden Blicke nicht ertragen. Die Blicke, die deine Anwesenheitsberechtigung in Frage stellen, die dir Vorwürfe machen, weil sie Angst haben, sich anzustecken.
Dabei sind sie doch selbst beim Arzt. Und tun so, als bräuchten sie nichts."

Und auf einmal ist meine Wahrnehmung dieser Situation soviel tiefer. Und ich erkenne, an was mich diese Stimme in meinem Herzen erinnern will.
Auf einmal hab ich das dringende Bedürfnis meinen Rucksack nach einem Stift zu durchsuchen und fange an, auf die Rückseite eines Briefumschlags zu schreiben. Ich schreibe -einen Mischmasch aus Sorge und Trauer und Bedauern verspürend:

"Vergiss nicht, Kirche, dass du auch im Wartezimmer sitzt und kränkelst.
Strafe nicht die anderen mit angewiderten Blicken, als hätten sie die Pest.
Du sitzt im selben Wartezimmer.



Und du darfst krank sein und zum Arzt kommen, der dir helfen will."

Ich sitze im Wartezimmer. Mit Menschen, die husten, die ihren Arm in einer Schlinge tragen und die sehr schwach aussehen. Und mit Menschen, die ganz normal, ja gesund aussehen, aber trotzdem einen Arzt brauchen.
Diese Tatsache haben wir gemeinsam.
Wir sitzen im selben Wartezimmer.
Und der Arzt selbst, der seine Praxis natürlich nicht für die Gesunden, sondern für die Kranken eingerichtet hat, tritt herein und in das Husten und Leiden und das Urteilen spricht er sowohl zur älteren als auch zur jüngeren Frau, sowohl zu jenen, denen jeder ansieht, wie krank sie sind, als auch zu jenen, deren Leiden nicht so sehr offensichtlich ist:

Du darfst hier sein. Und du darfst krank sein und zu mir kommen. Ich will dir dabei helfen, wieder gesund zu werden.

Und ein bisschen stell ich mir vor, dass er noch mit einem Schmunzeln zur jüngeren Frau sagt, dass man sich von Husten über 2 Meter Distanz doch nicht so leicht ansteckt, wie sie denkt.

Und man müsste sich gar nicht mehr jeweils mit mindestens zwei Stühlen Abstand im Wartezimmer hinsetzen. Und man könnte einfach akzeptieren, dass wir alle krank sind, und uns deswegen nicht verurteilen müssen. Weil wir an nem sicheren Ort sind, um krank zu sein.
Denn hier dürfen wir krank sein. Im Wartezimmer des Arztes.


//


I am sitting in a room. There are a couple of people sitting there with me. A couple of chairs to my left there's a young woman reading. On the other side of the room there's an older woman. At one point this woman starts coughing. Every 10 to 20 seconds she coughs once or twice. And I see the younger woman getting a little uncomfortable with this.
At first, she just looks up to make out the source of unwelcomed noise, but with its reoccurrence I see her cringing. With every cough she looks up from her paper getting more and more annoyed. The looks grow from annoyance to complaint to disgust to revulsion. She gets uncomfortable in her seat, trying to escape, to bring as much distance as possible between her and the threat of contagion.
Every glance is a silent reproach of the other woman. An accusation, as if it was illegal to cough here.

But we are in a doctor's waiting room. And not the healthy need a doctor, but the sick.

In this moment I hear that silent voice in my heart telling me there's a much bigger thing happening right now than what meets the eye.
That voice reassures me, saying-what I would like to pass on to that coughing woman by meeting her helpless look with a smile with the following message:

"You are allowed to be sick here in this waiting room.
You are allowed to cough, you can be hurt.
And I wished, all would treat you like that as well.
I wish, you wouldn't need to bear those accusing glances that question if your mere presence is even authorized in here.
I wish, you wouldn't need to bear those who reproach you, because they are afraid to catch whatever you have.
Even though, they themselves are at the doctor's.... And they act like they don't need a thing."

Don't forget, Church, that you also sit in the waiting room and you are sick!

Don't punish others with disgusted glances, as if they carried the plague.
You are sitting in the same waiting room.
And you also are allowed to be sick and to come see the doctor, who wants to help you.

 And as I sit in that waiting room with both people obviously looking or acting like they are sick and hurting and people who looks just fine (but obviously need a doctor, too, cause otherwise they wouldn't be sitting here), I realize that this is what we all have in common. A need for the doctor. And he, who came for the sick, not the healthy, for the suffering and those trying to hide what's eating them away on the inside, enters into the coughing and suffering and judging and speaks to both the  younger and the older woman and to everyone else:

You are welcome here. And you can be sick and you can come to me. I wanna help you get well again.

And maybe the other person isn't so contagious after all and we don't have to keep our distance. And maybe we could accept the fact that we're all sick and that because of that we could just stop judging each other.

Because we're in a safe place to be sick.

Because here we are allowed to be sick. In the waiting room of the great doctor.

And whenever I am in a situation like this again, Jesus, let me be the one smiling at the person coughing assuring them: 

"It's okay. It's okay that you are sick here. It is okay to be sick at the doctor's.
And I'm sick, too, so we're in the same boat. But we are safe here!"
 

Sorry that most times we suck at being what we were meant to be

Don't expect something that has been well thought through. Don't expect something that is theologically sound nor universally true. Just take it as my rant, my processing of things that I feel in my heart after a rough time. I cant actually apologize for the church, I can only apologize for myself. But take it as my apology if any of those apply to you.

Sorry for all the times the church ever made you feel like a failure.

Sorry for all the times the church ever refused to be Jesus’ open arms to you.

Sorry for all the times the church did not reflect Jesus and what he would think and do at all.

Sorry for all the times you didn’t find the church to be a place for healing.

Sorry for all the times the church was the one making wounds worse instead of helping.

Sorry for all the times when people in the church judged you instead of reaching out.

Sorry for all the times when those “shepherds” didn’t come after you and told you everything would get better once you start coming again.

Sorry for all the times the church chased you out of the service with their glances.

Sorry for all the times when you didn’t even want to make it inside because of those.

Sorry for all the times the church caused you to hate God, to think he didn’t care.

Sorry for all the times the church told you wrong things about God.

Sorry for all the times the church presented a hateful, merciless, unloving God to you.

Sorry for all the times the church has pointed in the wrong direction and you hit a wall.

Sorry for all the times the church cared more about their precious little rights than about forgiving the wrongs.

Sorry for all the times the church looked down on you as if they never messed up before.

Sorry for all the times the church was trying to fix you rather than to listen.

Sorry for all the times the church locked grace away in a cupboard while you needed it most.

Sorry for all the times the church did not love you unconditionally.

Sorry for all the times the church failed you.

And I am so sorry for all the times that I have been that church to you.

I am so sorry for all the times that I am that church to you.

I am so sorry for all the times that I- even though I do not want to!- will be  that church to you.

I hope you won't turn away still, I hope you don't quit on God just because his people are a bunch of idiots sometimes. I hope you don't quit on God because you see my life and its inconsistencies. 

I hope that between all the nonsense that comes out of my mouth, there will also be hope. Because there is even hope for people like me. There is hope and love for people who aren't the least bit perfect.

I hope that while we mess up a lot, you will still find what we're really trying to get across. That as typical as that sounds: Jesus loves you.

And the same -cause we're freakin' lucky- counts for us. The church. The people of God who are mostly just as messed up as the rest of the world, but at least have hope.

And that brings me once more to a point where I get a glimpse of how big God really is. That while we keep messing things up, he forgives us.

End of the rant. 

“A church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.”

"The church is not a select circle of the immaculate, but a home where the outcast may come in. It is not a palace with gate attendants and challenging sentinels along the entrance-ways holding off at arm's-length the stranger, but rather a hospital where the broken-hearted may be healed, and where all the weary and troubled may find rest and take counsel together."

PS: Dear Church, please join me in trying harder! Please go after people and dont wait for them to come back! Please dont look down on people just because they sin differently than us!
Please represent the open arms of Christ again!

The legacy of a Kiwi

A year ago from today marked a horrible day.
And I told myself I would write today, one long overdue blog post- to honor a special man in my life.

On April 26th, 2012 Christian Egger, a man and friend who played such a big role in my life, died in an avalanche while - I bet- he was enjoying skiing on his beloved mountains, looking straight into the face of God and talking to him- as he seemingly did all the time.

And I can't help but cry while writing this post, because my heart is once again swamped with memories. SO many memories.
This might have been the most striking encounter with death so far in my personal life. I hate how it makes memories so bitter in a way. It's not what you remember that's bitter, it's the way how you do.

Well and this is why I'm gonna talk about kiwis now. and in case any NewZealand people are reading this: By kiwi I mean kiwi fruit.
It's kind of odd but maybe you'll understand when you read on:
One of the first memories- and I must have been around 10 or 11 years, maybe 12- was that I was sitting with him for lunch and it was kiwis for dessert. I was about to cut it in half and then eat it with a spoon just as I always had done, when he told me I could it the skin, too. I was kinda suspicous and doubted that this furry brown stuff was edible, but the impressed kid I was- cause this man, my ski instructor that week, and what he said, the way he said it, fascinated me so much- I thought it couldnt hurt to try. He even said it was possibly the best part of the fruit and he'd never eat it without the skin.

And yes, ever since that day I've eaten kiwis with the furry brown skin. Because it gives it a really intriguing flavor.

Strange memory, huh? Yes, it is. But a while back I discovered it was a good symbol for the impact Christian made in my life:
It was the same week as the kiwi incident, when Christian was my ski instructor. He started off the day by praying before we hit the slopes and he would always talk about his "Lord" Jesus with his Austrian accent (he was an Austrian living in Tasmania coming for the winter season to be a ski instructor at Tauernhof) and about many crazy stories about his life.
One thing that fascinated me was how there was no story without a line similar to this "...and then the Lord said: ..." or "then the Lord told me..." and it sounded so normal just as if he had said "then my wife told me" or "my friend said..."
Of course I had heard a bunch of stuff about praying before. Of course I knew it meant talking to God, but I had never really believed he speaks as well.
I made sure that week (and to be honest, pretty much all the following years until the last time I saw Christian at my sister's wedding) that I'd get to ride the lifts with him, specifically the really long two people ones so I could ask him all kind of questions and listen to him talking about God and life and asking him for another story. I sat (which I realized my brother does, too) at the bar when he was on Bistro duty in the afternoons and evenings, and then eventually grabbed a chair at his table at the wedding reception. Why was I so keen on getting as much time with him as I could?
Because of that first year.
The year when just as I was surprised that you could eat a kiwi in a different way, I was surprised to hear someone tell me you could pray to God in a different way, too. And that this was possibly the best way you could pray as well. That praying wasnt just telling God all about what you think he needs to fix in life, but that it was talking to him like you talk to a person, and that he would answer. That he even speaks without you having to say something first. The weird sensation that you can ask him a question and expect an answer instead of just letting your prayer bump into the ceiling of your room unnoticed.
And Christian dared to challenge that 12 year old girl to ask God for an answer- even to something as simple as "Which ski slope should we take next?" 
And this girl experienced that God took up the challenge. That this girl has a God who answers her- not always what I want to hear and not in a thunderous voice from heaven, but in a voice I recognize in my heart.
And even though there are many other things that Christian taught me, this is the most important one, and the most impacting for my life.
You know, I could have gone without ever having tasted the flavor of kiwi skin, but I dont know who and where I would be without ever having tasted the flavor of a God who is personal.
There is a lot to say about prayer and about hearing God speak, much more than would fit a blog post, but in case you are a suspicious with this whole God speaking idea as I was with eating the kiwi, let me encourage you to try it out. The God I know is not one to hold back when someone really tries to find him.

One of my fondest memories of Christian is when he was praying. I know you're supposed to close your eyes and all that so you dont get distracted by looking at the people around you- but I just have to sometimes. Because with Christian it was so fascinating. He never closed his eyes when he prayed.
He looked at Jesus, as if he was sitting right across on the couch. I wouldnt have been surprised to see his reflection mirrored in Christian's eyes.

I miss hearing and seeing him pray. I miss purposely trying to get onto the same lift with him at Mitterhausalm. I miss getting the next chance to ask him to tell another story from his life.
I miss his really direct, almost harsh way in the later years when I said something and his response was "Did you ask the Lord about it? Well, then what did he say? Why are you not doing it then?"

The last thing I remember- word for word- of what he said when I told him about I was going to Pakistan was: "If God says "Left!", you go left, and if he says "Right!", you go right. Whatever he says, you just do it."
It was like a circle of our friendship closing, when I look at it now. Because actually "Left" or "Right" was the first thing I ever asked of God, when Christian challenged me to try. At that time it was a very simple, almost unimportant thing to ask, it seemed to me. Now, facing the road of life, it's become one of the most challenging questions I ask God. And I hope I'll always keep Christian's voice in mind to remember that if God says "Left!", I gotta go left, and if he says "Right!", I gotta go right.

There's so much more I could write, but I'll leave it at that for now. I hope it challenged you in your view of prayer and that it might challenge you to talk to God and try if he answers.

Christian

Christian, I know you're where you longed to be with all your heart- with your Lord Jesus! But I'll sure miss you a heck of a lot in this life still!
That's why I bought kiwis today. And I'm eating them with skin.