The main part of my job was in the area they call Guest Services. I worked with a team of ladies from Iowa and South Dakota. We basically performed the duties of a maid for the rooms the students occupied. This was not the most enjoyable part of my service at the Haus, but it was a privilege to be able to serve these dear brothers and sisters by keeping their areas clean and pleasant.
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| The team I served with |
My favorite part of my duties was serving as a table host. During each meal the table host made sure the food was passed around the table and served coffee, tea and dessert, and cleaned up after the meal. But the best part of being a table host was keeping the conversation going. Every meal I was able to sit with different people (although some became my favorites and showed up at my table more often) and find out about their lives back home.
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| The beautiful table I hosted |
These men and women ranged in age from 24 to 65 and had a passion for the Lord and for His Word. They loved to talk about the ministries they were leading back in their own countries. One day I sat by two men who were discussing how they were being asked to become the senior pastor at their church, but they both felt they were better at being the assistant. Another man told me about having a child who had died and now he and his wife have adopted a 9-year-old boy from an orphanage in Romania. I talked to a woman who had felt God calling her into teaching, and she was praising Him for the doors He had opened to give her a job teaching math. She ministered in her church by teaching the youth in Sunday School, and she was taking classes so she would be better prepared to teach.
A man from Ukraine spoke passionately about the fighting in his home country. He and others go to the front lines and speak to the soldiers. They tell the soldiers that there is an honorable way to fight a war. They say that you can fight to defend but not for revenge or hatred, and they urge the soldiers to consider what they are doing every time they must pull the trigger. He and the others are trying to be peacemakers.
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| Some of the student and workers preparing to leave |
I sat with one of the professors who was teaching Old Testament. I was able to find out about the how the Old Testament canon was formed and why the Bible contains the books it does. It's not every day you get to sit down with an expert and discuss these kinds of things.
The man who lead our devotions each morning was another Ukrainian who was fleeing the fighting in his country. He spoke with great power and knowledge. Every morning we all just got up saying, "Wow!" I was able to serve at the table with his whole family who were now part of the ministry of TCMI. He had gotten a degree from Denver Seminary and another degree from the University of Wales.
All the students spoke several languages. In that part of the world it is a necessity to know more than one language. Imagine if every state in the U.S. spoke a different language, but the official language was still English. If you traveled very much you would need to know the languages of the states which you most commonly visited. That's what it's like in Europe--lots of countries about the size of our states with different languages. I asked a couple of students how many languages they spoke, and they would answer that they spoke four or five and the last language they would list was Spanish. I said, "When are you ever going to use Spanish in your part of the world?" They responded, "I just love the sound of the Spanish language. It is beautiful, like music."
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| These two were so entertaining. |
So you can see, even though I went to serve, I was enriched and I was blessed by the time I got to spend with these dear brothers and sisters in Christ. I am so thankful for my time at Haus Edelweiss.
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