Inspirations from Kerstin Hack

Category: Joy (Page 2 of 7)

Beauty for the Soul

2014-02-27 16.41.49Never pass by the opportunity to see something beautiful – because beauty is God”s handwriting. – Unknown

For the last few days, I”ve been tired and discouraged. As I prayed this morning and talked with God about it, it became clear to me: in the last few months, I have planned and organized a lot and worked very hard on the ship. This is good, but it does not make me come alive. My soul blooms when it sees beauty.

It will still be a while before the beautiful things on the ship will be visible – even when it”s nice that the roof is now painted and the floor is in. But the really pretty, artistic things usually don”t come until the end – so that will still take a while. But when my soul needs to create beauty Aber keine Sorge, denn der online slot Gladiators ist nicht ganz so lebensgefahrlich wie die thematische Vorlage. and there is nothing beautiful to create, I feel drained.

John Raux2014

I wouldn”t be me if I didn”t do anything once something became clear to me.

  • Right before the market closed, I bought 30 colorful tulips to bring beauty into my apartment.
  • I”m going to put plants on my balcony soon.
  • I spent a couple of hours just cleaning up on the ship – this is also beauty.
  • I gave a few containers of trash to my friends who were there with their car…
  • Over Easter, I want to go for 4 days with a friend to the sea – to take a break and to refuel on beauty.
  • I”m going to listen to and enjoy beautiful music.
  • Here and there, I want to do a little beauty-care… even when my ship-builder hands are not restorable.
  • I hung up this picture that my artist friend, John Raux, lent me and that I like a lot. Unknown title or tides unknown?
  • I hope that I can continue to sell more things on Ebay and Amazon . Having more free space is also beautiful to me.

– See more at: http://kerstinpur.de/besser-leben/schoenheit-fuer-die-seele/#sthash.NN3LHAhS.dpuf

Growing in Trust: Even When it Takes a While

2014-03-15 13.39.22Today, a team from the Lukas Church in Berlin was on board. They glued insulation, derusted the anchor locker and rudder locker, sawed wood, painted… in short, they accomplished a ton. Yesterday, Anne and Friedrich helped and with their united strength, the water tank for drinkwater was balanced in its place. Last week, a team of men from Treptow insulated the bilge in the seminar room – and  brought the tank off board to the boat manufacturer to shorten and weld it.

In addition, we derusted and sanded the roof, laid the floor in the seminar room, painted the tank lid for the dirty water tank, and did 1000 other small things.

I am unimaginably thankful for the help from one-time helpers but also for the loyal souls and strong supporters who regularly help for a few or many hours. I am also thankful that we can give some tasks to the boat manufacturer, like welding high-grade steel, when we don”t have the expertise and tools for them.

Despite all of the support, it is still going to be a little while before the ship is fit for action. I had hoped and prayed that we”d be finished by my birthday on April 24th. This is not likely to happen safely. One reason is because of the many delays caused by a previous boatbuilder not doing things or doing them poorly. In many places, a layer of lacquer was simply sprayed on top of rust, which then came back up, and we had to redo all of the work. This was pretty frustrating and cost a lot of time – at least four, probably closer to six, weeks.

On the other hand, because it”s just the way things are, many tasks are built on one another and are interconnected. So, the compost toilet had to first be ordered so that we knew the exact measurements for the foundation so that we could begin to weld. Then the corresponding water tank needed to be shortened and welded and it had to go in before the toilet, which sits over the tank, could be put in. The water tank had to be taken off board, which required 6 strong carriers. Then it had to be put back in (5 were enough). Then the steel foundation for the toilet had to be welded, then painted… now the big compost toilet cabinet can come onto the ship – when we have 6 people again who can carry it together… When the requirements are not being met – having 6 people who are there at the same time – things go more slowly.

I am very thankful… and a little bit impatient… I would have liked to be further… and sometimes I worry… a woman and a team of helpers signed up for April – but not until the end of April – and I still need one or more carpenters and sanitary engineers, electricians, ventilation engineers… and many who want to lend a hand with derusting and painting the exterior…

I will continue to trust. Day by day.

– See more at: http://kerstinpur.de/allgemein/vertrauen-lernen-auch-wenn-es-laenger-dauert/#sthash.CvVfSbV0.dpuf

Growing in Trust: Loved First

the-father_s-loveA sentence that Joshua Lupbema, one of the chairmen at Gemeinsam für Berlin at the Transforum, said really moved me. The gist was this:

Peter bragged about how much he loved Jesus. Yet, when it came down to it, he betrayed Him.

John bragged about how much Jesus loved him. John remained by Jesus” side until His death on the cross.

You can”t construct a theology out of this, but what I became aware of was that it”s not our great or even weak love for Jesus that carries us… rather it”s the awareness of His deep love for us.

On this theme: the inspirational booklet, The Father”s Love, that personally formulates the loving affirmation of God, is going into its fourth print today. I can warmly recommend it for anyone who would like to be touched more deeply by God”s love.

And I am glad and thankful that, with this inspirational booklet, we can contribute a little bit to people being touched by God”s love.

– See more at: http://kerstinpur.de/glaube/vertrauen-lernen-zuerst-geliebt

LEA – A Course with Impact

LEA Header QuadratA few days ago, I received a note from a woman who currently has a lot of stress at work because her coworkers have been absent: “Daily, I use many small things from LEA. It has been so good for me.”

I think it”s wonderful that LEA has such ongoing effects. When developing the course, my goal was to help people gain more

  • Life
  • Energy
  • Appeal

And I am glad to know that this is apparently happening, as can be seen in the Feedback of participants. For many, the model of receiving a coaching email with inspirations and questions Help Ali Baba find the seven lost jewels with every free slots spin!Hollywood fame is just a free spin away for Betsy Chiffon. for reflection 2 x per week is exactly right. And the many book and media tips are helpful as well.

The courses always start at the beginning of a quarter (January 1, April 1, July 1, October 1). You are cordially invited to participate in the next course! You can register directly on the LEA sign-up page.

– See more at: http://kerstinpur.de/allgemein/lea-ein-kurs-zieht-kreise-2/#sthash.c1tji4iS.dpuf

March 2014 – A Splendid Month

2014-03-01-16.34.42

This month has already begun splendidly with a day in Potsdam to reflect and pray – with many wonderful small encounters in between.

I am excited for everything that this month will bring. Of course, we never know what will happen and whether we’ll sprain our ankle or if something bad will occur. But, if everything goes according to plan, this will be a good, full month.

– Fitness program: In our world in general and when rebuilding a ship from the 50’s specifically, our livers often have to work very hard. For this reason, I am going to do a liver-cleanse (first a classic one with Glauber salt + grapefruit and oil, then later with milk thistle) and do a whole-body detox of a garlic-lemon tincture (sounds terrible, but it’s not so bad – and it’s antiviral and energizing).

– Learning new things: I wanted to participate in a class at the Kingly Garden Academy about how to create pots for plant seeding. I will need this in the future because I would like to grow as much food as possible myself on the ship. I misunderstood it – it was more like a vending event. But I still learned some things.

– Receiving inspiration: Transforum is taking place in Berlin on the 6-8 of March. This is a conference that occurs every two years and deals with the question of how we as Christians can positively shape our society. I am still thinking about many of the inspirations from the last Transforum. I am thankful for this inspiring conference – participation is free, by the way, in order for people who can’t afford it to participate. And people can decide to come last minute as well.

– Giving inspiration: After the women’s pamper days were so nice for both participants and speakers, we planned two sequels. On March 14 and May 9, the theme is “Spring into Abundant Life” at 8pm in the Gemeindehaus des SV.  I am already excited to see the wonderful ladies again. In the afternoon, we are offering the option to book a coaching session with me – a special service for those for whom Berlin is too far away and telephone coaching is not a good option. At the end of March, there is another women’s cafe in Britz with me and the theme is SWING.

– Writing. There are several things laying on my desk. In addition to all of the organizational tasks that come with running the publishing company and building the ship, I’m writing two more inspirational booklets: Friendship and Grief. I would also like to begin work on the new online course, IDA – In deinen Armen.

– Ship: Of course: continue building with all my strength and as much wisdom as possible!

– Men-Teams on board: On March 14 (Treptow Church) and on March 22 (Lukas Church) a whole bunch of men are going to energetically help with the ship. I am looking forward to showing the ship to the “guys” and making an impact with them! In addition, a “mixed” team (1 man/1 woman) is coming for two days – also wonderful!

– Women in Paris. This is probably the biggest surprise. For months, I’ve been occupying myself with the life of Coco Chanel, probably the first modern woman who out of her own strength – she came from bitterly-poor circumstances – built a worldwide undertaking. The wish awoke in me to visit the places of her work, but it was more of an idea than a plan. With the ship, I have more than enough to do and to pay for. It was just a silly idea until I began to research pictures for the inspirational booklet. The pictures cost 180 Euros each! This is way over the budget. But we still need 3-4 expressive pictures. A plane ticket to Paris only costs 120 Euros – much cheaper. In addition, I haven’t taken a real vacation in over a year – if you don’t count the moving of the ship (4 days) and Antwerp (3 days during which I was ill!).

So, I asked a friend if she was interested in coming to Paris with me (she’d pay for herself). She wrote back, “For the past few weeks, I have been working on cleaning, organizing, and clearing out the house of my recently deceased great-aunt. I really need a change! And I have friends who have an apartment in Paris. They live in the middle of the city – only a 15 minute walk from the Chanel head office!”

Accordingly, I am looking forward to this exciting month!

– See more at: http://kerstinpur.de/allgemein/maerz-2014-ein-glaenzender-monat/#sthash.TQksvmSF.dpuf

Miracles Take a Little Longer

2014-02-05 16.23.55“Miracles take a little longer!” This is so easy to say when you aren’t waiting for one… yet it is wonderful when something occurs about which we can wonder…

One side of shipbuilding: Hard work

Building a ship is a lot of work. I putter around on the ship on any given 3 afternoons and on Saturdays. It also takes work to earn money. I do what I can to bring the required finances together. I rent out my guestroom, recycle bottles, sell used items and books, coach, hold seminars, and much more in order to earn money. Hard work is one side of the coin.

The other side of shipbuilding: Miracles that occur

A friend of mine who identifies as an atheist mentioned recently that as he noticed how often things that I prayed for happened, he began to wonder: “Until now, I have always just believed in coincidence, but in your case, it’s pushing the limits!”

A few miracles from the last couple of days:

– The money that I have earned, borrowed, and received as a gift has sufficed so far. Sometimes, like with the high wharf rent, it was really tight, but it has always been enough. I am so thankful for all of the big and small donations that have made this possible.

– I’ve been praying for several months that God would send me a ventilation engineer who can help me with the ventilation plans. A man from Ghana who studied ventilation in Spain and just came to Berlin looking for a job has contacted me and is now going to make the calculations and plans for me…

– On my list of things that I still need for the ship is “espresso machine for seminar operation.” At the birthday party of my father, I told one of his friends about the ship without revealing any details about the needs. Suddenly, he asked, “Do you need an espresso machine?” And he gave me a fancy, barely-used unit.

– Friends were telling a young woman about my ship. She has visited the sea for many years, loves ships, and currently has more free time than she’d prefer, and now, she’s getting involved with the ship…

Someone – was it Luther? – once said: “Pray as though you cannot work. And work as though you cannot pray.” Absolutely!

– See more at: http://kerstinpur.de/erlebnisse/wunder-dauern-etwas-laenger/#sthash.IcpAcJd1.dpuf

Finishing the Ship: 10 More Weeks?!

2014-02-08 14.07.23There are only 10 or 11 weeks until the planned deadline at the end of April. It is ambitious but not impossible. Whether it’s possible I can’t yet say; it’s hard to tell exactly with construction projects. One thing is clear: we’ve made a lot of progress over the last weeks and months, despite some adversity. The whole ship is finally derusted and painted and the seminar room is almost finished. We’ve started with the substructure for the walls and the window frames under the deck. We’re making headway.

Since August, over 1000 hours of work have been put into the ship!!! About 90% was from people who gave a couple hours, days, or even weeks to help. The many motivated helpers have been a huge blessing and a large portion of the work doesn’t require technical knowledge or it can be learned quickly when someone explains things well. For the next phase (until finishing at the end of April), I will continue to need people who simply want to tackle it with me, although I will also need specialists for different things (ventilation, heating, electric, sanitation, etc.).

Including specialists, I still have about 800-1000 hours of work until the ship is finished. I myself work, when I am not travelling, about 30 hours per week on the ship: 5-10 hours of planning and the rest on-board. A carpenter friend who currently has free time and knows how to do everything (wood, welding, etc.) offered to work for me whenever he can for the next while. Of course, he still needs money to live on – 10 Euros per hour with legal receipts. I would love to hire him for 100 hours per month through the end of April.

I am searching for people who will help finance one or more of his work hours so that the progress on the ship continues. If you would like to contribute, you can donate via Betterplace, Paypal, or bank transfer. This would really help with my burden – and increase the chances of finishing soon.

Of course, just like before, helpers are warmly welcome and will be utilized.

– See more at: http://kerstinpur.de/hausboot-heart-of-berlin/zieleinlauf-schiff-noch-10-wochen/#sthash.dfYPvK1t.dpuf

Growing in Trust: Professionalism

Kerstin HackA short while ago, Birgit-Cathrin Duval was on board my ship. She interviewed me and took photographs for a report about my ship project.Despite the cold, I felt totally well. She didn’t ask me to make unnatural poses that are supposedly potent – I’ve experienced that before. Rather, she understood how to see me. Once in a while, she made small comments like “Head a little more down,” when I had overstretched my neck. Otherwise, she worked calmly and professionally. And the pictures… here is one of them… speak for themselves. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a pretty picture of me that radiates power as well as reflecting my dreams. I find it simply wonderful… almost better than the original… (and I wasn’t even wearing make-up… it’s all real!). Spree-SonnenuntergangI myself am not photographically untalented, but her picture of the ice floes on the Spree uniquely expresses the mood that reigned there last week. It was calm, but at the same time always funny, when we heard knocking on board and we asked ourselves: who’s there? And then we remembered… no, that was just an ice floe that had smacked against the keel. SteuerhausYou can see in her pictures that Birgit is a professional. Because I am currently thinking a lot about trust, I realized that this is also an aspect of trust: the professionalism with which a person goes to work. There are a few very well trained coaches whom I would more easily trust than someone who means well but doesn’t have command of the required tools. And I myself go to yearly trainings in order to broaden my knowledge and abilities. Wenn ich gerade so über Gott nachdenke, dann wird mir klar Er ist der professionellste von allen: Der bestausgebildetes Coach, der kreativste Künstler, der erfahrenste Arzt, der begabteste Zimmmermann, der umfassennds gebildete Lehrer, der Meister aller Meister… Ich nehme mir das mal vor: Wenn ich Gott wegen etwas vertrauen will, dann überlege ich mir, auf welche Art und Weise er in dem Bereich Experte ist. Ich denke, das könnte beim Vertrauen helfen. Ein Beispiel: Aktuell belastet es mich, dass ich an Bord so viele Dinge habe, die wertvoll sind, die ich aber nicht mehr brauche und die im Weg rumstehen. Ich wünche mir, dass ich all die Sachen an die richtigen Menschen und zu möglichst guten Preisen – loswerde. Wenn ich dafür bete, dass Gott mich dabei unterstützt, dann tut es mir gut, mich daran zu erinnern, dass er Aufräumprofi ist. Er schafft es im Riesenchaos, wo es wüst und leer war, Ordnung zu schaffen und eine kreative neue Welt zu gestalten. Da dürfte es ja kein so großes Problem für ihn sein, mir zu helfen, ein so kleines Schiff zu organisieren….
Impulsheft Fotografieren Down to Earth VerlagSprung zurück zu Birgit. Weitere Fotos und einen Kurzbericht über ihren Besuch an Bord sowie einen Podcast mit einem Interview zum Schiffsprojekt gibt es auf ihrem Blog. Und: Birgit behält ihr Wissen nicht für sich. Allen, die gern von ihr lernen möchten, empfehle ich ihr Impulsheft “Fotografieren! mit richtig guten Tipps von einer Meisterin. Fotografieren gibt es auch als Ebook. Und ihren Blog Takkiwrites für weitere wunderschöne Bilder und spannende Reoprtagen.

– See more at: http://kerstinpur.de/allgemein/vertrauen-lernen-professionalitaet/#sthash.KRIr6GFS.dpuf

Growing in Trust: The Substance is Invisible

030On the ship, there is much work that one later won’t see. First, the steel is derusted, then vacuumed and cleaned, then preserved with ship flooring oil, then painted with primer. Before each new layer, it has to dry well and be washed in order for the next layer to hold. 2014-01-24 18.04.55 Finally (again after washing!), two layers of insulation get laid down. Then the laths for the paneling, then the paneling. In the end, people only see the pretty wood on the wall. They don’t see the many hours of work that are behind making the ship safe and warm: the substance is invisible to the eye. 2014-02-03 16.54.30 Sometimes after going through a new process, I forget all the things that went into it, and I have to remind myself consciously: oh yea, first I had to derust, then… I only see the respective last layer. I also find it interesting that the word for “paneling” in German is the same word used for “costume.” I think it’s a pretty picture for the inner processes in our lives… that what is underneath is no longer visible to the eye in the end, and yet, it’s still substantial. The substance is invisible to the eye. – See more at: http://kerstinpur.de/allgemein/vertrauen-lernen-das-wesentliche-ist-unsichtbar/#sthash.jVkO4EpJ.dpuf

The Most Beautiful Moment

2014-01-25 15.08.37As I was walking home through the snow today, I asked myself what the most beautiful moment of the day was… and couldn’t decide. – Perhaps it was the moment when I woke up this morning and realized that I wasn’t feeling nauseous anymore – the evening before, I upset my stomach by eating food that was too fatty. – Perhaps it was the moment when an executive told me that he stumbled across the quadro “Learning to Forgive” through an article in ZEIT online… and through this, the whole association discovered me (How did ZEIT online find us? We didn’t do it!) – Perhaps it was the moments when I saw that around 30 pastors and responsible employees were intensively listening to me, taking notes, and taking in what I was saying about the treasures that I’ve discovered through coaching and psychological concepts. And how I could see through practical exercises for individual concepts how much they were innerly moved. – Perhaps it was the mid-day walk through the snow. – Perhaps it was the moment when the director found out that I thought it was a shame that there was no snowball fight and suggested sending me off with a snowball fight… – Perhaps it was the moments when the man who drove me an hour to the next train station answered my request, “Tell me something about yourself!” with a brief description of his career and then a detailed explanation of the seven months before the death of his wife – the most intense phase of their marriage. – Perhaps it was the time when I was sitting in the train and was reading a novel for relaxation in which a man struggled to rekindle the love between himself and his wife after a 30 year marriage that had fallen asleep – and while I read, a man in the next section played accordion… a live concert for me… – Perhaps it was the moment after I got out of the train in Berlin when I discovered that my cell phone was gone and a train conductor allowed me (although I didn’t have the appropriate ticket) to ride to the main station in the hopes of finding my previous train (it was actually still there) and tried to help me through his cellphone connections and network. And I – while he was searching – discovered the phone in the wrong pocket in my bag. – Perhaps it was the moment when I stopped bymy neighbor’s with whom I often pray, and I told her that everything went well and she rejoiced with me… – Or perhaps it’s the moment now… when, after a long, good day in which I gave and received much, I fall thankful and happy and dog-tired into bed… and look forward to sleeping like a rock. – See more at: http://kerstinpur.de/allgemein/der-schoenste-moment/#sthash.mi5vSfoF.dpuf

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