Seriously, I feel like Julia Roberts in the movie Eat, Pray, Love. I've just come back from visiting my 2nd country this year which was Germany and I have a deep hunger to travel a lot more.
Some of you do not know much about my past in Germany and all the things that I encountered whilst there. My parents moved to Germany in 2000 from my beloved homeland England, we moved to a little town called Dietzenbach just outside the city of Frankfurt. I did not take the move so well, partly due to the fact that I was 12 years old and I could not speak a word of the language. It was difficult living in a foreign country but I soon learnt the language and began to fit in with the locals. My ultimate desire was to fit in and not to be different. Well, my skin colour wasn't helping. Not to go into much detail but my life was filled with substance abuse, multiple relationships and basically anything ungodly that I could get my hands on.
I left Germany in 2004.
Last weekend was the first time I had been back in 6 years. This time I went back as a Christian.
To be honest, I really enjoyed myself. It brought back memories; both good and bad but I'm really glad I went. It was time to relax, eat good German pork, practice my linguistic skills (which by the way are impeccable) and catch up with old friends.
One of the friends I was able to meet was Rachel. We we're friends from the age of 14 back in Germany and let's just say "skiving school" was one of our fondest past times. NOT! To cut a long story short, we were bad teenagers at the rebelling stage.Anyway, seeing Rachel for the first time really had an affect on me. She was a beautiful as ever (that's what you get when you are of part Togolese/Jewish/German ancestry) but you could definetly see a change in both of our maturity.
What touched me the most was when Rachel began telling me that she had begun attending church and she had been reading through the bible step by step. I almost fell off the chair when I heard this. Here we are 6 years later and for the first time in all of our friendship we are talking about God and religion. I couldn't believe it that she was on the search for God. She was also very curious to know what had caused me to become a Christian (I was wild and crazy back then) all of sudden. This was an awesome opportunity to share my testimony and so there we were both in a bar and I was sharing my experiences with God over the past few years.
If that's the only reason I went to Germany then I am more than satisfied.
Going back to Germany as a Christian really gave me a different perspective. I no longer needed to bare the burden of my shame and reproach, I could walk through the streets of Frankfurt with a "Garment of Praise".
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