Our travels went well and we were very happy how well the kids did! The only snags we had was that on the long flight Corbin woke up when his diaper leaked.... all over Clint's leg. :( Woops! But it could have been worse though. At least he slept for quite a while before that happened. Of course, Clint and I didn't sleep as much as the kids so we were and still are a little tired. Overall though, we are doing well with the time change and the kids are really doing great considering all the changes and how busy we have been.
Day 1: Monday-
I guess I'm going to call Monday Day 1 since that is the day we arrived in Germany. The last flight was from Frankfurt to Leipzig. It was supposed to arrive in Leipzig about 6 p.m. but we had a delay in Frankfurt and probably didn't arrive until at least 7. That is about 12 p.m. central time so we were exhausted from such a long trip without a lot of sleep. (AKA little to no sleep for Clint and I for 30 hours straight). Then our friend Karen picked us up and drove us to Neukirchen, a village outside of Chemnitz. This took about an hour or so. By the time we got there, ate some dinner, got a little bit settled and found our pajamas and got the kids to bed it was at least 10 p.m. and then it ended up being another couple of hours before I actually went to bed. Even though I was exhausted it also didn't feel like the right time to go to bed. It's hard to explain, but I was finally able to go to sleep around midnight (5 p.m. central time). I basically went 48 hours with very little sleep. Thankfully we all slept well and everyone seemed to be a little refreshed in the morning.
We are staying at our friend Kerstin's apartment. She offered us a place to stay because she had room. She uses the apartment for a Day Care and it really works well because the kids have everything they need and Heidi has loved playing with the kids here. She pretty much wants to do whatever they are doing when we are here. I took some pictures of the kids eating their afternoon snacks on Day 2. Corbin looked so big sitting at the kids table. :)
Day 2: Tuesday-
It was set aside for rest and sleeping in to try to get back in the right time zone. We spent most of the day at Kerstin's and then went to dinner with Karen and went to the Church building in Chemnitz for the evening Bible Study. It was great to people there! One of my former readers was there to see me and it was so nice to see the church members as well. It feels really nice to be back!
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| Before dinner, Heidi rode this carousel |
Day 3: Wednesday-
While we are here, the church members have signed up for certain days and mealtimes to provide us a meal at the church building. This was something we were not expecting, but are so thankful for! Not only is it yummy food they are providing us with, but wonderful time to talk and catch up on each others' lives. On Wednesday, Barbara and Alex Bartsch made lunch for us and their son Achim was there to play with Heidi. Their son Ruben was at Kindergarten. We had a great time talking with them. Heidi and Achim had a wonderful time playing. :)
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| Achim and Heidi playing with rocks and jumping into the rocks |
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| Chemnitz church building |
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| Just some nice views on our drive from Chemnitz to Neukirchen |
Also on Wednesday afternoon after nap time and snack for the kids (our kids plus the day care kids) , we went outside to the garden and the kids played and we sat down and had coffee and cake with Kerstin's family. This is something that we really miss about Germany. What a wonderful way to come together as family and friends and find communion and fellowship. We really enjoyed it and hope to enjoy many more experiences like it before we leave. The only thing that was missing, was our dear friend, Janine, Kerstin's daughter. She is studying in Dresden so we will hopefully see her this weekend.
Wednesday evening there was an EFG (English for Germany) Party. There is a team of 4 students from OSU who are doing free English lessons using the Bible here in Chemnitz right now. Every week, they plan a party at the church building and invite all their readers to join. It was a fun party. The theme was "Minute to win it". We broke up into 4 teams and tried to accomplish different tasks in under a minute. Our team didn't finish a lot of the tasks in time, but we still had a fun time trying. :) This was also a great time to see old friends and readers and meet some new friends. The whole purpose of this program is basically to build relationships, show Christ to them, and of course to bring the Word of God to them.
Thank you for your thoughts and prayers! I will update more when I have the chance!
One prayer request that I have is that the same weekend we had storms and flooding started in OKC, it had started flooding here in Germany too. It appears like the floods went down quickly in Chemnitz, but Dresden is still under flood waters and there is going to be a huge mess to clean up as well as expensive damage to repair. Please pray for everyone who has experienced/ or is experiencing floods here in Germany.
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1 comment:
Glad the trip started out well. I didn't know about the flooding in Germany. I'll be praying!
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