People sometimes ask me, “Raul, how did you end up living in Liechtenstein?” Well, here’s the story of how that happened. 

I wanted to work for BMW. BMW is a German company and I figured learning to speak German would give me a leg up. So, in college I majored in German, and I remember that one chilly fall afternoon I was walking out of class with a classmate. We were having a conversation practicing our German and I told him, “Can you imagine living in Germany one day, and going out of your apartment and there’s the Rhine river in front of you?” He was like “Dude! Heck yeah! I can’t wait!” He was just as excited as I was to make that dream a reality. 

Well, for one reason or another, the possibility of studying abroad just never worked out for me. I ended up graduating from the University of Arkansas with my German degree, but having never been to Germany. So, in 2019 I took a trip through Europe to take revenge on my pretty sucky college experience, but also because I wanted to learn to speak German. Little did I know that on that trip, something unexpected and completely amazing would happen. 

Couch Surfing in Liechtenstein

The bulk of my 2019 trip consisted of me doing workaways in Germany, but I started in Italy with my family. After they went back to the USA, I made my way north from Milan to Lake Como. Then I took a Flix Bus to Zurich where I spent two days. My first Workaway was in Bavaria, Germany. There is a direct train from Zurich to Munich which would get me close to my first Workaway. However, I wanted to go through Liechtenstein, because I wanted to see it. I knew that it was one of the smallest countries in the world, and I thought, how cool would it be to visit it? So I bought the ticket, and I took the train to Liechtenstein. 

After an hour and 15 minutes of the most beautiful train ride of my life, I ended up at the Buchs St. Gallen train station. It was a beautiful sunny day in March. The day was warm and the air was crisp. I hoisted my backpacks and I walked across the bridge from Switzerland into Liechtenstein. When one walks from Switzerland to Liechtenstein the view is dominated by the Drei Schwestern mountain, a towering wall of granite and evergreens that spans the northern half of the country. I walked the two kilometers all the way to downtown Schaan passing horses, fields and cute houses. At the end of the road is the beautiful church of St. Laurentius perched on a hill. 

I don’t know what I expected about Liechtenstein. I thought it was going to be a bustling city-state like Monaco or Singapore. After my two kilometer walk it became very obvious that this country of only 37,000 people is mostly made up of farmland. I thought I was going to have a lot of options of where to stay, but there were no hostels for me to check into, no cheap places to sleep, and even fewer couch surfing hosts to welcome me. I needed some lunch so I found a restaurant called Vibes, where I ordered a burger, logged on to the wifi and started requesting for people to let me stay with them. There were only 4 hosts that were active in Liechtenstein. I waited for three hours to see if any of them would respond. Thankfully, a guy named Nikolaus responded. 

Nikolaus was an American from South Carolina working in Liechtenstein. He said that it was okay for me to stay with him. He sent me the address to his apartment, and he said that I could just walk in. He said that he would be home at around 5 PM, and that I could just wait for him there. Since he was the only option I had, I took him at his word. I started walking towards his apartment and after walking about 10 minutes, I made it to Im Besch 24. I awkwardly waited for somebody to open the door to the apartment building so that I could walk in after them. When I did, I sheepishly walked up the stairs and found the apartment number. Cautiously, I opened the door, and sure enough, it opened into a small studio apartment with a bed, a couch, a lamp and an incredible view. 

Nikolaus’s apartment was on the 3rd floor, and he had a balcony that looked over a courtyard. There were beautiful flowers blooming in the spring air, and every shrubbery was the brightest green I had ever experienced. There was a road farther back where I could see cars driving by and beyond that was the Drei Schwestern mountain. I sat on the balcony just taking in the view and after about an hour, I saw a tall, handsome man with long, dark, flowing hair and a big smile walking in my direction. He waved at me and said, “Raul! Que pasa amigo!” I knew right away that I was gonna like this guy. 

My Host Nikolaus

Soon we were chatting and getting to know each other. He told me that he was part of the national Liechtenstein rugby team, which, to this day, I find very impressive. At some point, he lit a cigarette, and I asked him, “So, Nikolaus, what do you do for fun?” He said, “I mostly hang out with people from work. We’re hanging out tonight. Do you want to come?” and I said “Yeah, absolutely!” It was a Thursday night and, since I was backpacking, I had got nothing else going on. So of course, I joined him and his friends. 

The hangout was happening in the nearby town of Feldkirch, on the border of Liechtenstein and Austria. Since we were in Liechtenstein, we took a bus just over the border where some of his friends picked us up in a car. They were not at all taken aback by the stranger that just climbed in their car and they just went on playing reggaeton and chatting all the way to the dinner spot. It was a burger joint where we sat at a long table because a bunch of people were going to be there. 

In the end there were about 15 people that joined. We were all hanging out and getting to know each other. The atmosphere was full of energy and I was on a high. They all worked for a company called Hilti and everyone seemed to know Nikolaus, so everyone was intrigued as to how we knew each other. After all, he brought me to hang out with everyone. When I told them that we’d just met they were like, “What? How is it that you just met? Are you guys both American?” – “Yes, we are both American, but we just met, we met each other through Couch Surfing!” – “What even is that? No way!” The conversation over dinner went on and it was a ton of fun. Eventually we moved on to the bar. 

The bar that we went to was built underground in what used to be a cellar. The ceilings were low, and they were arched and made entirely of stone. It was underneath a castle in the Old Town area of Felkirch. It was about 11 pm when we got there. There were even more people already hanging out at the bar. Nikolaus disappeared in the crowd and I was left alone. Bars have never been my scene, and by this time, the tiredness of my trip started to catch up to me. The place was loud and busy, my social battery was running low, and my conversation was definitely waning. 

I posted up in a corner making small talk with people. Suddenly, Nikolaus handed me a tall glass of beer. It must have been a half-liter worth of some type of lager. I was tired and I didn’t feel like drinking anything, but at the same time, I didn’t want to be rude. So I decided to sip on my drink slowly. When I looked around, I noticed that Nikolaus was already a few drinks deep and very much in his element, and I knew we were gonna be there for a while. 

Fast forward to 3 AM that morning, and somebody drove us back to the apartment in Liechtenstein. Nikolaus and I made it up to his studio. I was exhausted. In spite of how late it was, and in spite of the alcohol, Nikolaus continued to want to know me. He asked me about my family, my dreams and he also shared things about his life and about his family. And then he said something that I never expected him to say. He said, “Raul, I like you. You’re a cool guy. You should do the job that I’m doing right now.”

It was so unexpected that I didn’t take him seriously. How could anyone qualify me for a job based on one night of interaction? Still, I got his contact information, and we went to bed. I woke up the next morning to an empty apartment. He texted me letting me know that he had gone to work and that I could walk out and that the door would lock behind me. That night was my only experience with Nikolaus, and that would be the last time that I saw him. 

I Got a Job Working for Hilti

A few days after my time in Liechtenstein I arrived at my first Workaway in Biebersbach, Germany, where I was living with a family in a 300 year old house and taking care of 16 chickens and four donkeys. Once I got all settled, curiosity peeked my interest. Could it really be that Nikolaus could get me a job for his company? So I followed up. I messaged him saying  “Hey, Nikolaus, this is Raul. We met in Liechtenstein. You said something about a job. Is that true?” He quickly replied and said “Oh yes! Email such and such person. Tell them I sent you, and tell them that you are applying for the Martin Hilti Foundation internship.” 

In September of 2019 I applied for the position. Soon afterwards I received a call from the personnel, I had an interview in English, and a month later I had an interview with my future boss, all in German. I passed both interviews, and in the Spring of 2020, in spite of everything going on, I was granted a visa to go live and work in Liechtenstein. How cool is that?! 

But, wait! There is more!

The internship traditionally started in March, but because of the pandemic, it needed to be delayed. I checked in with them every month until one day in June 2020 I received an email asking me for my personal information so that plane tickets could be booked for me. So, in July, in the middle of everything going on in the world, I ended up moving from Arkansas, to Cologne, Germany, for a month and a half of intensive language schooling before I could start my job in Liechtenstein. 

The Coolest Thing Ever

When I arrived in Cologne I was given an address to a hotel in the middle of the city and instructions on how to get there with as little human contact as possible. My instructions were to spend two weeks in quarantine there while taking German classes online. As soon as I got there I was greeted by a young girl who gave me a quick welcome, she politely reminded me of the rules and then left. That was the only human interaction I had for my first two weeks in Germany.

However, after those lackluster two weeks I was cleared to start attending regular school in a classroom and I was relocated to live with a host family. Actually, it was a single lady in her 80’s named Hildi, who only spoke German and French. She was feisty and sassy, and had wild stories to tell of when she and her now deceased husband would travel. Her apartment was on the southern end of the city, and since the school was on the northern end I had to commute back and forth taking the metro. My commute consisted of walking out of Hildi’s apartment, past the courtyard, down a street, past a park, over to the train station and then riding the train for about 25 minutes to the school. 

One sunny August morning I left my house and walked to the metro station. This morning I arrived a bit too early. The train line went along the river before it turned towards the city center, so to pass the time I took a short stroll along the river and looked at the boats floating up and down on the water. It was in this beautiful moment that I became aware of the river that I was looking at. This was the Rhine river. 

Hold on. You’re telling me I live next to the Rhine river? The one that 6 years before I had talked about with my classmate? You’re telling me that the Rhine river had been part of my commute for a few weeks now, and that I had walked out of my apartment and walked to it every day? Right then and there I decided to record a video on my phone to share my excitement. The coolest thing of my life up to that point had just happened. 

So what exactly is the coolest thing that ever happened to me? It was that God fulfilled my desire. He listened to me.

Many times as a student I prayed for God to allow me to go and live abroad, and it never happened. I simply didn’t have the means to make it happen. During that time I had a car with no heater. I couldn’t afford to fix it and I hated it. Many times I would sit in my car in the middle of winter, at 5 am after clocking out of my graveyard shift at IHOP tired, cold and broke and I often thought that God wasn’t listening to my prayers. I thought he didn’t care. It turns out that he does care, and he always listens, and he listens very well. At that moment, when I was waiting for the train and standing next to the Rhine, I experienced clarity. God showed me that he is always listening to even the smallest desires that we have. 

In John 16 Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will always be with those who follow him. Often, following Jesus is frustrating because of situations like the ones I experienced in college. I had not been able to experience living abroad before because I could not afford it, yet here I was, living in Germany, and getting paid for it! Heck, when I was talking with my friend about the Rhine river I wasn’t even praying! But it was a big desire of my heart, and God made it happen. God listens to me. The Creator of everything listens to me. How cool is that? 

• P.S. From the bottom of my heart, thank you Nikolaus, for opening up your home and for letting me sleep on your couch. And thank you for the gig in Liechtenstein. 

I hope this story is encouraging to you. If you know somebody that you think this might be encouraging to as well go ahead and share it with them!