Back to translations

Last winter, when I was in desperate need of money, God sent me a fantastic opportunity. For about 3-4 months  I made some translations for Saddleback Church in Berlin and got paid very well.

Unfortunately they decided to stop the translations and my contract expired in May.

Last week I received an email that made me really happy. They asked me if I was available for a translation. Of course I am!

I'm still waiting for the reniewed contract (What will it say?) but I've just finished the first draft. About ten hours work and I'll have to go through it at least one more time.

This is fulfilling work. This is how I would love to spend all of my days.
I don't only love translating, but doing it for the church I feel that I'm part of something bigger, I'm working for God's Kingdom. These texts have purpose and depth.

It's not that easy either. Sometimes there's just not the right German translation for a bibel verse they are quoting because they emphasize on a distinct word in the verse that doesn't exist in any of the German versions. I'm trying hard to do my best.

I want to thank the Lord for this opportunity. He knows my heart, he gave me my talents, he knows my needs and he'll provide for me.

Random thoughts about this blog

What is it all good for

all this reading

all this writing

whom do I want to reach

and whom do I reach

Obviously nobody

Friends took a look just once

Authors read what's about their books

if they do

Some searching machine

allways at night

allways at the same time

A guestbook with no entries at all

Discouraging

Asking myself why, what's wrong with my blog, I have a look at successful blogs. What do I find?

Ok, some of them have a lot of interviews with authors, but I guess successful authors will talk only to successful bloggers.

Some are offering beta-reading. Thinking about that one. Yes, I'd like to do that, but I suppose on goodreads I'll reach more authors than here.

But most bloggers just post the same reviews they post on amazon and goodreads. So what? Why should this draw readers on my site? I don't get it. For them it seems to work.

Discussing the topic on goodreads I learn that a review will only be listed by google if it is over 600 words. Mine never are. Seriously, who reads these reviews? I don't want to know that much about a book before reading it myself. When I want to know whether a book is worth reading I'll read the blurb and 3-4 short reviews, preferably a 5-stars and a 2-stars. Instead of reading such long reviews they'd better read the book itself.

There's the concept of blog tours. I haven't really understood how it works and what it's good for.

So, my reviews are too short, my view too personal, the choice of books not “mainstream”, no bestseller authors answering my questions (they've already answered elsewhere).

Why am I doing this?

Is there anybody out there reading this? Is anybody willing to encourage me?

Stockholm Syndrome

Do you like to feel what you read? Do you like to emerge deeply into someone's mind, even if it's a dark and evil place or working totally different from your own?
I love that.

My review on goodreads

The Second Captive is one of those books that grip you and take you in not only by an interesting story but because it makes you feel what the characters feel and understand how they think.

Of course I had heard about the Stockholm Syndrome. But for me it got a new dimension and became believable by reading this book.

Beth experiences all sorts of emotions while she is help captive for two years. There's horror, fear, despair, depression, but also hope, relief, even happiness. The total dependence from Dominic creates slowly a kind of bond weaved by contradicting feelings, that keeps her captive even after her escape.

Dominic on the other side is obsessed by the idea to restitute his mother who died when he was only seven years old and a women his father rape and killed in the basement. He is determined to mold Beth into a life companion and to teach her to love him.

I know that this book will stay in my mind.

Choosing songs for a funeral

On Saturday, 1st of August, my father reached his destination and left this world and his body after 92 years.
One of his last sentences was: "I'm not alone. Jesus is with me."

Knowing that he is now where he'd always wanted to go, in the presence of the Lord, makes it easier for us to let him go.

Nonetheless it wasn't easy to organize the funeral ceremony. My father had chosen some years ago the verses he wanted to be read:

If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,11 neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

                                                                                                                    (Romans 8:31-34+38-39)

Years ago he had declared that he wanted Christoph, my former pastor and friend, to preach the gospel at his funeral. God made it possible.

What he hadn't decided were the hymns. No easy task for my sister and me. We wanted them to have meaning, to be German, so my mother would understand the words, and to be somehow related to my father. The first that came to my mind was Mein Erlöser lebt (My redeemer lives).

But Chrstoph and Martina, my friend who postponed her holidays to play the piano, said this was too difficult for those who don't know it.

So we chose Anker in der Zeit and So nimm denn meine Hände, two wellknown hymns, one very old the other modern. But we were searching a third one until my sister remembered a song I hadn't heard for about 35 years and I knew immediately that my father would have loved it: Wenn nach der Erde Leid, Arbeit und Pein. I then found this English version of the song that really touched my heart.

Yes, it was a sad and difficult day - but I know, that my redeemer lives and that I'll see my father and all the others again when I'll meet my Lord Jesus in eternity.