Nice Valentine’s Day surprise

This morning we were treated to a surprise breakfast by the girls.  Omelets, fruit and walnuts (and a salad?) were waiting for Robin, Ryan and me when we woke up this morning.

They cooked and wrote us a sweet poem.  What great kids we have!

The gorgeous Black Forest!

It’s been amazingly beautiful here over the past few days, even though it’s been COLD!  We’ve had snow for the past three days… and it’s remained!

The sun came out for a few minutes today… it was absolutely beautiful, so I thought I’d share a photo or two.

You can also see the famous Black Forest fog in this picture… it’s just over the next ridge from our house.  It’s a unique phenomenon for this area (and other mountainous areas) in winter.  Oftentimes it’s so thick that visibility is only a few feet, but above it is crystal clear.

We’re thankful that God has called us to live in such a beautiful place!

Who we’re reaching…

Check out Robin’s blog post about who Watermark Church is reaching: http://bit.ly/cJXVYs

Our first baptism!!!

We baptized one of our Launch Team members yesterday.  Here’s the video of Stefy’s baptism (see the Watermark Freiburg Church Planting Blog for the story)…

Stefy's baptism (on her 20th birthday!)

Coburg, Germany

We were in Coburg visiting some church planters this past weekend.  we got to spend some time with them on Sat eve and Sun afternoon asking questions and learning…

We also took some time on Sat to visit the Veste Coburg Citadel, one of the largest fortresses in Germany.  It was amazing!  It just kept going and going and going…

One of the most interesting things about the castle is that Martin Luther spent 6 months here in hiding so he wouldn’t be burned at the stake as a heretic.  While he was here he continued translating the Bible into German so the common man could read it.  Actually, after the Reformation, Coburg became Protestant resulting in all Catholics being persecuted.

More pictures to follow…

My brave little girl!

On Saturday we had a day at the pool.  The kids absolutely love it there!  And Emma’s friend talked her into going off the high dive. 

At first she wouldn’t jump off towards the middle of the pool (see the picture), but we were eventually able to convince her to do so.  What a great kid!

Thumbprint ID-(grocery store payment)

Just thought I would share something that is becoming more popular in Germany.  The photo below is a thumbprint scanner at our local grocery store.  You simply put your thumb in this scanner and your grocery total is automatically taken out of your bank account. 

For all those Christian “conspiracy theorists”…could this be the beginning of the MARK OF THE BEAST?  :)

A Series of Unfortunate Events...

Emma was having a birthday party the other day. I had spent a long time decorating a birthday cake that I made for her. So, Jon knew how important this cake was. (There aren't decorated cakes here like there are in the States in the grocery stores)

So, I was taking care of getting the girls' swimsuits on for the pool party while Jon was in charge of getting everything out of the van. He had the cake in one hand and a basket of goodies in another hand while he was trying to close the trunk. Well, the cake wobbled and to save the cake, Jon sacrificed his finger in the hatchback door.

The nail immediately turned reddish purple and we think it actually broke the tip of the finger. So, after a weekend of pain, Jon decided to go to the Dr. where the nail was lanced and drained to relieve the pressure.

I just had to include the photo of the bandage that the Dr. put on his finger. It gave me a good laugh!

Google Maps

Yesterday the girls had some friends over for a end of school movie night/party/sleep-over.  As I (Jon) was walking out of the Pizza/Doener restaurant with five pizzas, the Google Maps car drove by with four cameras mounted on it's roof... and I just started laughing.  I know I'm going to get some comments from friends that see the picture.

So if you look at a street view of downtown Kandern, Germany and see me carrying 5 pizzas, you can be certain that they weren't all for me!

Living on the Front Lines

I just found out yesterday that my 3rd grade daughter's teacher was kidnapped and held at gunpoint in the Philippines a couple of years ago.  She was teaching in an American school and some armed gunmen came and took her and a couple of her colleagues and held them for days. 

While this mild-mannered, soft spoken, non-pretentious women was held at gunpoint, she sang songs about Jesus!  It reminds me of Paul and Silas in prison!  Well, the locals took up a collection of money and paid off the gunmen to release them.  This is not exactly the best option as it encourages more kidnappings.

We lost a dear (young) friend a few weeks ago.  He took such risks for the gospel's sake, smuggling bibles into communist countries, teaching locals how to pastor, sharing the love of Jesus wherever he went.  He never even considered the difficulties of where he and his family had to live (which has been all over the world) in order to follow God's plan.  His focus was only on obedience to do whatever God asked....wherever that led him. 

It makes me consider all that we do and how important our friendships are.  It also reminds me that everything we have here is for just a short time.  So, live "on purpose" every day taking every opportunity to share the love of Jesus with whoever will listen!

This is what life is really about.  That's living on the front lines!

Easter

We are so privileged to be serving our Savior on the mission field!  This is my favorite day of the entire year.  I am so thankful that when Jesus died, He rose again. It makes our future so bright.  We will rise again one day too!  I like to picture the day that He rose again and how wild it must have been for all those that saw Him afterwards.  Have a great Easter!!!!

We celebrated Easter with an egg hunt for the kids' friends and neighbors

First visitor

Our new neighbor, Regina, saw us moving in and recognized Ryan.  She is one of the helpers of his Crunch Time (10-12 yr olds) class at church.  She decided to welcome us to the neighborhood (very un-German -- our first such experience in 7 1/2 yrs of living here) by bringing us a fruitcake.  It was actually quite yummy!

To all of the members of Grace Outreach Center (our former church), you know that fruitcake is one of Pastor Brook's mortal enemies, the bane of his existence.  So Robin and I enjoyed this in his honor.

We've moved!

As most of our friends and those that are on our email update list know, we just moved last weekend.  It was an interesting experience.  Since we only moved 3 km (2 mi) away, we decided to do it ourselves rather than pay someone else.  We haven't yet decided if that was a wise idea or not :)

Our new place is over 500 sq. ft (50 qm) bigger than our last house, with another full bathroom (important as our oldest becomes a teen in a few weeks) and is closer to the main campus of the school.  We'll miss the quiet country life, but already we've realized the joys of walking just a few minutes to get to the town square, the grocery store, the toy store and various bakeries.

We are still in the process of unpacking and setting everything up the way we want it.  But it's already starting to feel like home.  The only problem is that the kids are out on spring break, so we don't really have all the time we'd like to setup the new house.

Pictures coming soon (when we've unpacked some of the boxes)....

The Hills are Alive…

Jon and I were walking through the paths along the farmland near our house.   We haven’t seen the sun since November it seems.  The winters are dreary, dark and wet.  During the better part of winter, when we wake up it’s dark and by about 4:00 in the afternoon it’s dark again.  So, I was so happy because it was the first day that actually seemed like Spring.  The sun was out…the snow was melting and we were the only ones on this path out in a deserted field.  So, I began to sing very loud and twirl like Maria on The Sound of Music.  Then I started singing a song that I used to sing as a little girl that reminded me of Germany.  It goes, “I love to go a wandering along the mountain track and as I go I love to sing, my knapsack on my back”.  Then I broke out very loudly with…Valderi-valdera…only to see a man directly in front of me on a ladder in a tree.  I assume that he was doing some last minute tree pruning in his field.  I’m sure that he was thinking how odd “those Americans” are.  Wie peinlich!  (how embarrassing)

Emma and “Deb”

Emma decided to do her own hair today.  When I took this photo, all I could think of is the Napolean Dynamite girl…

In France, is this just called “bread”?

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Jon and I went to France this morning to go shopping.  (It’s just 25 mins away)  There are some things that you can get in France that you can’t find in Germany like canned soft drinks, real orange juice, Frubes yogurt, Pepperidge farms cookies (sadly not Milanos), Neutrogena face soap, Maybelline mascara.  I saw some French Bread and thought it would be a shame if I didn’t buy some “French” Bread while I was in France.  I should have found some “French” Fries, too. 

We really need to learn some French.  Every time we go there, we end up doing “charades” just to communicate.  Of course we know Merci, entree, sorti,  toilettes but I thought it was interesting that they actually say “Viola” when they hand you whatever you just purchased.  I always thought is was used for a magic trick or something.  But, it’s just like “here ya go”!

My liquid gold

I just read a blog from another missionary about what she missed from the States. Someone sent her some Coffee Mate powdered creamer and some cooking spray. I can relate with this so well. The things that you think you can’t live without…cooking spray, coffee creamer, peanut butter, mac-n-cheese. Well, Jon & I got a package in the mail the other day that had liquid gold! It was a box filled with different flavors of “liquid” coffee creamer. Nah, nah, nah-nah, nah... I got liquid creamer! You may not realize how amazing this is, it is impossible to get here unless you can have access to a base somewhere. How fun!