Just A Regular Ol’ Week in Berlin: Meeting the Bishop, a Visit from India, a Conference on Healthcare, and Dancing the Night Away at an Arab Wedding

This past week has been anything but quiet and ‘regular!’

On Monday we were honored to host the German United Methodist Bishop, Rosemarie Wenner, at the Kindertreff. She stopped by the church for a few hours in the afternoon so that we could meet one another and to take pictures and shoot a video of me, my supervisor, and the kids. The photos and the film will be used as part of the General Board of Global Ministries’ upcoming Ten-Fold Campaign, an interactive global gathering that features United Methodist projects around the world supported by Global Ministries and the United Methodist Committee On Relief. Ten-Fold will last 10 days, with each day having a specific focus. On October 14th, the focus will be on Youth and Young Adults, and the Kindertreff, as well as other youth and young adult programs, will be highlighted. Visit http://www.10-fold.org/index.html for the day’s overview, and mark on your calendars: at 12:30pm EST on October 14th, the Kindertreff will be highlighted through a LIVE webcast direct from Berlin! It would be great to know that you will be there along with me!

The visits, picture taking, and excitement at the Kindertreff continued on Wednesday, when we received visitors from India! Four individuals who are part of the Gossener Mission ministry in India came to visit us as part of a three week stay in Germany where they have been learning about religious life here and simply exploring the city. After a brief presentation, we gave them a tour of the building and the playground and let them observe some of the homework help going on in the afternoon. The highlight of their time here was, however, participating in the music group. Not only were the children thrilled to perform a canon that they have been learning, but we also played a rhythmic cup game together and learned a traditional folk dance and song from India. Our visitors seemed to love it, and I think that the kids will be talking about it for weeks to come!

Thursday and Friday this week I had the opportunity to attend a conference on Undocumented Persons and Healthcare in Europe. Although the conference will not be directly applicable to the work that I am doing with the children and youth here, it was helpful to receive a foundational understanding of the rights of individuals with different residency and visa qualifications here in Europe. It is particularly complicated within the European Union countries since citizens from Bulgaria and Romania, for example, have a right to live and work here in Germany, but are not eligible for German healthcare and often do not have healthcare in their home countries. Additionally, undocumented persons often lack access and information about healthcare and moreover are afraid to seek out the treatment they need as receiving such help may reveal that they are in the country without documents, which often leads to deportation. Although we at the Kindertreff never ask the kids about their residence and visa status here in Germany, the information was great for me to have and may be helpful if at some point any of the families need to access free and safe healthcare here in Berlin. Moreover, it was great to see that the American campaign to drop the ‘I’-word is not only isolated to the United States! No person is illegal!

The highlight of the week was, by far, the wedding that my supervisor and I attended on Thursday evening. The older brother of one of the girls who comes to the Kindertreff was getting married and my supervisor, myself and a few other coworkers were invited to attend! Neither my supervisor nor I had previously attended an Arab wedding, so we were both excited to be invited! The wedding ‘officially’ began at 6pm and we arrived at 8pm when the dancing and festivities were beginning. The dancing reminded me of the dancing group that I had seen in Bethlehem last fall, and the wedding as a whole reminded me a lot of the weddings that I had attended in Turkey. My supervisor and I knew about three or four families at the wedding since their children come to the Kindertreff and they explained some of what was going on to us, since everything was announced in Arabic (and despite my three-weeks of Arabic lessons, I wasn’t able to understand most of what was going on!). After about two hours of organized dancing, dinner was served, after which all of the men lined up to give their gifts and their family’s gifts of money to the married couple. After some more dancing, a five-tiered cake was brought out to the center of the dance floor and the married couple was given a sword with Arabic inscription to hold together and cut each layer of the cake! It was impressive! Afterwards, the bride and groom transferred one another’s wedding rings from the right-hand to the left-hand, and then the dancing continued! We left at 11:30pm in order to catch the train home, even though the dancing was still going strong! It was a great new cultural experience for me and I look forward to possibly attending a few more weddings during my stay here!