As we look back over our 6 months of travelling we see that we have been blessed to have so many great experiences. Every time we look back on the last thing we did and think “We’ll never top that”! Well I think our time in Leipzig will remain at the top for a long time.

Our main goal in Leipzig was to support the mission work at Die Brücke by helping to organize a community festival. Die Brücke in English means The Bridge. They work through St. Luke’s church to support the community around it. Little did we know that in going to help this little community we would experience the city of Leipzig in all of its glory.

The Music

Leipzig is a town rich with music history and that hasn’t slowed down in the modern age. In the first few evenings in Leipzig we were able to attend free concerts put on by The Kammer Musik Akademie. My favourite performance was on September 6th. The Grande Tango with cello and accordion! I still get excited when I think of the energy and skill they poured into that song. I’m also trying to convince Madeline to play her cello like a guitar (see middle pictures below).

We also had a chance to go to a Bach Motette at ThomasKirche. This is the church where Bach was the choir master from 1723- 1750.

On the 9th we went to St. Peter’s church in Leipzig to enjoy a concert of Persian music!

The Food

One of the great gems of Leipzig’s food scene is Auerbach’s Keller. It is one of the settings of the German writer Goethe’s novel Faust. They have a large wine cask with Faust and Mephistopheles riding atop it. While I wouldn’t call the food there innovative the quality is high and they have a great beer selection. It seems almost an obligation to go for lunch. Make sure you have reservations, it is booked up far in advance.

Tacos! You wouldn’t think you would come to Germany to level up your taco skills but we did. Kim introduced us to this taco-riffic idea. It is something I feel we should have known about. I’m sure many readers will be rolling their eyes about this. Here is how you make a better taco. You take a fajita shell (soft taco) and slather it with refried beans then layer that on the outside of a hard-shelled taco. The beans are the glue. Fill up the hard shell with ingredients of your choice. Then eat it. The soft taco outside helps support the inevitable snap and crack of the hard taco. This will save you from making a mess and get more taco ingredients into your taco hole (mouth).

Outside of homemade tacos and ancient restaurants Leipzig has a great food scene. There were many vegetarian choices throughout the city. We loved the food here!

The Hosts

We were blessed to have two homes that opened their doors to us. Lydia and Madeline partied stayed with the Deaconesses. Heather, Desmond and I stayed with Pastor Hugo and his wife. Pastor Hugo loves to bike and we caught that bug. I will be tuning up my bike when we return to Canada so I can do more commuiting that way. We used Pastor’s bikes and the local rent-a-bike-app (NextBike) to make out way around the city. Travelling by bike through Leipzig to get to and from the church and concerts will be one of my favourite memories.

Heather and I even had an adventure with the tandem bike. Once. Never again. It was too stressful for me. That is all I need write about that.

The Work

To prepare for the Festival the first order of business was to communicate the event. We did this three ways . The first was with a giant banner that we strung across the front entrance of the Lukaskirche. Heather took four sheets and sewed them together to make the big white banner. Then we set about painting the banner. The buildins painted on the sign mimic the logo of DieBrücker. The next things we did was post a program of the major events (below left). Kaffee und Kuchen was my favourite activity. Finally we went around the neighbourhood distributing fliers. We needed people to know both what was going to happen and why one of the streets would be blocked off.

Some of the mailboxes were inside buildings so I had to buzz the apartments to get in. I also had to do my best German “I have mail to deliver” over the intercoms and pray they didn’t ask questions simple German questions that required only simple German responses.

The Festival

To finish off the work of the week we actually had to run the festival. Kim, Rachel, and Pastor had organized many volunteers, baked the cakes, and choreographed dances so well that there wasn’t much to do.

The Festival started with an outdoor church service. This was a lovely way to welcome the community to the church. Anyone could walk by and hear the service. There was a brass band from the neighbouring congregation in Chemnitz. Our daughters and another girl did an interpretive dance about the lessons of the day.

Once the service was done we packed up the chairs and brought out the activities. Madeline and Lydia painted faces all day long. There were juggling lessons and Bike Taxi Rides (I mentioned that Pastor likes bikes right?). We MIGHT have inadvertently abandoned Rachel to do bouncy house child-supervision. Even with the language barrier we still connected with the people there through the joy and excitement of the day.

We walked around and encouraged people to eat the vast quantity of cake and drink coffee. We danced, mingled and did our best to make people from the community feel welcome. Many of the community members were the same people coming in and out of the doors of Die Brücker all week long for visits or support. Heather demonstrated the organ to people during the church tour and our kids played their violins and cellos as well. Pastor Hugo gave tours to of the church, including taking people way up to see the bell tower.

The community members had been so gracious to us on the streets and had chatted with us despite our broken German. It was lovely to see the love of Die Brücke‘s staff reflected in the community member’s eyes. It was inspiring to see them, some of them not Christians, experience the word of God and the welcoming embrace of St. Lukaskirche.

Seeing a church active and healthy in this community is inspiring. I know that it has reshaped my giving and how I view evangelism in our home church. This short term service was such a blessing to us and our children.

Thank you Kim, Rachel, Pastor, Utah, Phillip, Elliot and Silvia!