Memories and Traditions

I want to share about some traditions/memories from our family. I grew up in a German family where we had certain traditions that were distinctly German. In keeping with German traditions and their growing faith in Jesus, much of our celebrating had a simplicity that focused more on celebrating the birth of Jesus than on acquisition of material possessions. This had to do in part also with my parents growing up during war times. I have enclosed a letter from my father (Opa) to his grandkids about what Christmas was like for him when he was in 4th grade.

My husband and I have struggled over the years at how to celebrate Christmas in a way that brings glory and joy to Christ and not to ourselves. It sure is difficult to figure out! I have had the kids put a letter in their stockings in the past in which they write to Jesus what gifts they would like to give Him in the coming year ("Happy Birthday, Jesus. I would like to love my sister better for you, Lord") and this year I am going to surprise them with a little carton of yummy baby food fruit in their stocking to remind them of how little Jesus was, and what an amazing thing that God would make himself a human baby. Maybe that's the start of a new tradition. A tradition we've done every Christmas Eve is to have the children (including neighbor children) reenact the Christmas story as my husband reads it from the Bible. Friends that don't have family or a place to go join us as well. The children really enjoy taking on the parts of Mary, Joseph, shepherds, and angels. Such fun!

I hope that you all have a really enjoyable and memorable Christmas celebration this year!
Because of Jesus,

K

My dad and I

Opa with 4 of his 14 grandchildren

Dear Grandchildren,

When Opa was 7 years old, that was in 1943, we had been sent to East Germany to escape the bombardment in my hometown Bochum in the West. As 1944 went by, the eastern front of the German army against Russia had collapsed and the war zone came closer and closer to where we lived. I do not remember anything about Christmas that year, 1944, because we lived in steady fear.

On January 27, 1945 the authorities allowed us finally to flee Neustettin on a train. We sat on flat bed cars, no walls, which had loaded railcar axles. In winter weather with a temperature of -17degrees Fahrenheit, we rolled west. It was so bitter cold that many people froze to death. After 5 days we arrived in Berlin. During that year we hopped around like rabbits chased by dogs, fighter planes and bombs. We literally jumped into ditches next to the road when fighter planes appeared in the sky shooting with machine guns at us.

In the fall of 1945 we finally arrived back in Bochum. In the meantime we had been overtaken by the British army. Bochum was totally flattened, there were no buildings standing. Everything was devastated and burned out, nothing but Trümmerhaufen, mountain of burnt out building material. We stayed with friends somewhere in the suburbs and I went out all day long picking up branches and pieces of wood so that we could cook some greens which we found in the woods and on the graveyard which nobody ate normally.

Before Christmas in 1946, we finally found an apartment under a roof with tilted walls. The walls had been newly plastered and because of the cold and the damp, there was a ½ inch layer of ice on the inside of the walls mixed with mildew. We had no furniture and we slept on bunk beds out of steel which we got from somewhere. We had a cast iron oven, but nothing to burn. We literally sat on the floor in front of the cold oven, held hands and shivered. It was the coldest winter I can remember.

After quite some time without school, school had just opened again. We were shivering in class with coats, caps and gloves on, because there was no heat and nothing to heat with. I came home and complained to my mother and she said: “But the other children are cold too.” When I told her that the other children possibly came to school warm, while I came already cold, she started to cry. When I came to America one of the first things I did is buy warm Eddie Bauer goose down sleeping bags that all of my children would be warm at least when they slept.

I do not think there was anything around us which reminded us of Christmas, except scenes of cold, hunger and scarcity of every thing. We were waiting in long queues in front of bakeries in the morning to get a loaf of bread until the bakery ran out. If you did not get bread, the family went hungry. My sister went by train to the farm country and begged for potatoes and bread with cigarettes and nylons from America.

The only surprise was when grandma sent a package from America. Besides other good things inside, there were cigarettes which were like money. With cigarettes you could buy something you could not get otherwise. We had no fat, no butter or margarine. Grandma went from house to house in Washington DC and collected bacon fat which she put in Maxwell coffee cans and sent them over to us for cocking. She also sent peanut butter which I did not like. Since there was no jelly, the bread with the peanut butter would get stuck in my throat and I had great difficulty to get it back up or down. Even cold water did not help. We had no coffee or tea.

This was when I was in fourth grade, there was nothing Christmassy about Christmas. It was very similar to Joseph and Mary when they came to Bethlehem and had to stay in a stable without bed and heat. We did not even have an ox, donkey of sheep to keep warm with. There were also no shepherds and if there were angels, I did not see them. But God let us persevere.

In love, Opa

A place for ME!

I must confess that I struggle with feeling like there is no true home here. This is not wrong thinking, as my true Home is in Heaven with Jesus. But I think I feel it more keenly because I do not have a mom who takes me in at times, unabashedly loving my husband and my children. She would have toys for my little ones when they visit, praising their antics and encouraging me in parenting. She would be thrilled to have us visit.

As I was feeling a bit sad lately, I was reminded of what Jesus says in John 14:2-3:
In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

Jesus is excited about my coming--He is getting the place ready and wants to be with me. He is the one with whom I will truly be at home. And it is an added wonder that my mother will be there too! There is this eternal hope--and the apostle Paul struggled with where he wanted to be in Philippians 1:21. "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." Right now I am here, and I want to be living here for Christ.

Fact Vs. Feeling (or He is Able...)

I definitely struggle with the conundrum of fact versus feeling in my walk of faith in Jesus. I KNOW whom I have believed and that He is able to do what He says (2 Tim. 1:12), but sometimes I don't feel like much. I guess that is why FAITH is such a big thing. To believe what cannot be seen or, at times, felt.

That is why I love 2 Corinthians 4--a chapter that I read to my mother on her death bed, as she lay just on the brink of seeing the unseen.

2 Cor. 4:7-18
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;
persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

And God's Word further says about Jesus in Hebrews 7:25
Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

Imagine that FACT! He is able!

I have been tagged?

I just finished reading Melissa's blog and I think I was tagged...but was clueless to that fact until now!

10 years ago I ...
1. Was married and had baby Hanna
2. Graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary
3. Moved from Dallas, TX to Santa Rosa, CA
4. Flew to Germany with my baby and remember waking up the first night and there was this huge black spider on her face...
5. Was house-hunting....and here we are

5 Things on today's "to do" list...
1. Homeschool
2. Take kids to ice skating, ballet...
3. Curl up in bed during naptime now that I have my mongo period
4. Hug and kiss my love, Carl
5. Go to bed early!!!

5 things I would do if I were a millionaire...
1. Give money away to many, many missionaries
2. Invest money for my kids and retirement? I don't know...it sounds good.
3. Hire a helper from Germany so I can speak more German and my kids can too
4. Go to Germany and see my family there (but I can afford to rent a car, go on the train, stay in a hotel)
5. Travel to encourage missionary friends around the globe

5 places I have lived...
1. Ridley Park, PA
2. Media, PA
3. Skillman, NJ
4. New Brunswick, Piscataway, and Highland Park, NJ
5. Dallas, TX

5 jobs I have had...
1. Babysitter
2. Housesitter/Pet watcher/Grass mower

3. Lifeguard and Swim Instructor
4. Graphic Artist and Drafter
5. Teacher

Ok...now I am unsure how to tag people. So if you have read this and you would like to be tagged...you can do this too!

Check out more of my art...

I have more paintings to see at http://artbykasteen.blogspot.com

Some photos

This is my newest painting. It was fun to place the kids into a typical harvest scene from 15 minutes from our house.



Here is what the 4 "Fletchlings" look like now:


The girls love to dress like the olden days. Here they are holding our chickens, Chickety and Peck.

We love trying new things with our camera--like catching us in mid-air! This is near where our church is meeting right now.


We went to the mission at La Purisima in Coloma. It really has been restored to show what the California Missions were like. This trip brought us to Santa Barbara and Ventura, and this mission on the way home.

Latest Learnings

I was blessed with being able to attend a pastor's conference with my husband (wives were allowed to come too!) Anyway, I realized that this was the first thing like this that I had been at for the last 10 years, since Seminary. It was super encouraging.

There were lots of sermons all focusing on "Exalting Christ:"

One godly man spoke about what a privilege it is to be a proclaimer of the loveliness of Christ. The biggest struggle can be a satisfied heart. Isaiah 58:11 tells us that God satisfies. In the midst of the dessert, He makes us "like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail." Jesus waters our soul. He is our contentment (Ps. 84:1-7;Phil. 4:10-13). We need to obey--start in the little things. Once you've seen Him, nothing else matters. The pitfalls here are that there is something better, or having self-pity. But "He came to give abundant life" (John 10:10), "to know Him and power of resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings" (Phil. 3:10), "be imitators of Christ" (1 Pet. 2), and "He empowers us" (Phil. 4) speak to this. The heart satisfied in Him discovers persevering grace. Christ is all we need.

Another spoke about Jesus as the One who can give rest and refreshment--looking at Matt. 11:25-30. In the context of the passage in the Bible, Jesus has demonstrated authority over earth, sickness, sin, and demons. But His disciples are rejected, His prophet (John) is in prison, and no one is listening. This all doesn't change the message or discourage Jesus as He knows the outcome has been determined. His mindset is that things are going as the Father has planned. He recognizes God as the Father and praises Him, recognizes His Father is King of Everything--the sovereignty of God in all, He recognizes the Father has the prerogative to hide/reveal His truth, He recognizes that the way things are going please the Father (aside here: Be faithful in preaching Christ), and He recognizes that He is the key to everything with an exclusive, intimate relationship with the Father (only Jesus can reveal the Father). And Jesus preaches Himself, presenting Himself as the answer to every human burden--"Come to me all," everyday, for every need. Submission to Jesus is like rest.

Another spoke of suffering and how our suffering exalts Christ. He defined human suffering as something hurting us in a way that disrupts life's pleasantness to the point where in some sense and to some degree we want that hurt to cease. Passages of Scripture like Phil. 1:29, "granted not only to suffer," 1 Pet. 1:7, "faith tested in order to prove genuine," and John 16:33, "in this world you will have trouble," point to the inevitability and necessity of Christian suffering. There are so many contrasts in Scripture: peace in Christ//trouble in world. We almost have to switch our thought process (gestalt switch) to understand. We are born and live among a sinful human race. We are supposed to be tired at the end of the day. We are supposed to die. It is the quality of how we live out or sinful, short lives before our holy, eternal God that shows our submission. Christ's servant is not better than his Master--we are in submission to Christ with our bodies. In sin we are tempted by pleasure (try self-denial) or with the avoidance of pain as if Christians are supposed to live their best life now. But suffering is a wonderful gift which stops us from projecting us into a wrong hopeful future, instead placing the future in God's hands. It reminds me of my dependence on my Savior.

How encouraging and timely for me to hear these words! So much to ponder. So many questions to ask:

Do I lack confidence in Christ and His power?
Do I believe that God has done in me what the world claims it can but it never does?
What sin is making me stupid?