As I write this today, we are grieving the loss of Pete’s
mom Ceil. She passed away on Thursday
evening. It’s only been six weeks since
his dad passed. They were both quite ill
and we are at peace that they are no longer suffering. We ask for continued prayers for Pete’s
sisters as they make all the final arrangements. Once again, Pete will not be going to the
states for the services.
So, we are just over two months in our time in Germany. We are settling nicely. Routine is wonderful! We are getting used to our new home. It’s smaller than we have ever had, but it is just
what we need. The location is wonderful;
close to everything in town. We walk
everywhere, which is good since we still don’t have a car. We have purchased a car, however, it is still
being worked on and we still have to do all the appropriate legal paperwork for
it. We are praying that it might be in
our possession by the end of this week.
Will you pray with us?
Pete and I are in German Language School five days a week,
four hours a day. It’s tough! It’s been a long month and we still have two
more to go. We leave our house about 12:20 pm, and
typically are not back home until 5:50 pm.
At which point I still have to be a mom, wife, sister, daughter, friend,
etc. We are finishing up level A 1.1 and
will start into level A 1.2 next week.
Our Lord has been faithful through it all. Just when I think I can’t absorb any more, “it
clicks”. So many language things are
different here. Numbers are tricky and
so is telling time. You think, how could
telling time be so different? Instead of
saying that it is 30 minutes after something, they say that it is 30 minutes to
something. So, in the states you say it’s
5:30 or it is half-past five; you don’t say it is 30 minutes till 6:00. In Germany, they say that 5:30 is 30 minutes
till 6:00. Your thinking has to
completely change! Hopefully no one will
be stopping me in the street to ask what time it is!
I will say that I think that it’s better to do an immersion
school like this than the way we learned Spanish in Honduras. We are learning much more at a much faster
rate. German is the only language spoken
in class. I made comment to Pete one day
that I wish the teacher would say something in German, explain it in English, and
then repeat in German. That way I have
context to what she is teaching.
However, this is not possible since not every one of the 18 students in
class speak English. We have students
from Spain, Poland, the Ukraine, Russia and China. It’s amazing how you all learn to communicate
through a language that no one knows, yet it is the only common language.
The kids are doing very well in school. They are actually on their Jr Class trip
right now on the beaches of Normandy, France.
Nick was of course thrilled to go to a place so rich in history. They hope to find some information on Pete’s
dad since he served in WWII. It will be
interesting to see what they can find.
They left at 9:00 pm on Thursday night and drove through the night. They will return early on Monday morning
after once again driving through the night on Sunday. We ask that you pray for them and all that
are on the trip.
I have joined a Mom’s Prayer Time group that meets at the
high school every Tuesday morning. We
pray for the staff and students throughout the year. We have cards with all the kid’s names on
them and we write a small note to them after we have prayed. We have similar cards for all the staff as
well as the middle school students.
Throughout the year we get to visit the dorms and pray with the staff
and residents. Last week Tuesday I had the privilege of doing just that. What an amazing experience! Walking down a hallway praying for each boy (it was a boy's dorm) by name. The warfare that these kids are facing is incredible. I can only hope that by standing in the gap for them it makes their school year just a little bit easier. I look forward to the next dorm visit. I have to say though, prayer intercessors have got to be exhausted. I was wiped after a solid two hours of intense prayer. Very cool to see how my prayer partner and I "saw" very similar things with each boy we prayed for. The Spirit was with us.
And last, a copy from our newsletter regarding donations: As we get to the end of September, one important item might need to be
taken care of. By now most of our ministry partners have received an
email and letter from GEM regarding the change of the credit/debit card company
that will take place by Sept 30th. We are now near that deadline and have
noticed that some have not made the transfer as of yet, or it has not been
recorded at this time. If you could take a few minutes over the next
couple of days to check and make sure that your donation was deducted from the
proper place (that you had specified) we would greatly appreciate it.
Please continue to pray for the following:
Our vehicle to arrive within a timely manner;
Pete’s family on the death of his parents;
Nick and Lily and their classmates on their class trip;
Pete and I for our language training;
Mom’s Prayer Time on Tuesday mornings