Sweet Fellowship
After two years in Germany, attending Ktown church of Christ, we were finally able to host a home fellowship. Our living room comfortably (snugly) held 32 people, ranging in age from three months to 71 years. Our third-floor apartment is acoustically sound (pun intended), making for exceptional singing. Peter...
Bittersweet October
October is a big month for our family. On October 6, 2011, we arrived in Germany as a family of three with one on the way. Weeks later, expectation turned to disappointment and grief when life ended in miscarriage. That first month presented us with the challenges of living...
The Artist at Work
Autumn is captivatingly beautiful here in Germany. The changing colors reveal our Lord’s creative artistry. The back and forth weather serves as a reminder that God has a sense of humor and that He alone is in control. (You’ve planned a park day only to be foiled by the...
Military Life: Saying Goodbye… Again
Last week Dietrich said goodbye (again). In the past several months, we’ve said goodbye to over 30 people with whom we’ve developed deeprelationships. Last week, however, in his little five-year-old mind, “moving” and its definition hit Dietrich hard. He realized all at once that he couldn’t go back to Miss Jana’s house,...
Life in Germany: Kerwe, September 2013
First of all, the obvious question: What is Kerwe? Simply put, Kerwe (Care VAY), is a festival or funfair. This looks different from village to village, even within the same region of Germany, but varies even more throughout other regions and even other European Countries. Most of our German...
July Adventures: Sesame Street, Koln, and Going Barefoot
We packed so much fun into the month of July. The sun came out and we enjoyed some park dates with friends (Dietrich has friends of all ages, this particular friend is a teenage boy). Madilynn discovered park swings are fun. For the Fourth of July four-day weekend, we...
Life in Germany: Detours, Traffic Jams, and Speed Traps
When we first moved to Germany, we learned a couple of words very quickly. The first “Umleitung” meaning “detour”. The first option to get to our house on the GPS took us straight to an impassable hole in the road and construction. We followed the “umleitung” signs, until we...
April: the month of the Military Child.
I’m often amazed at how much Dietrich has faced/endured. He is four years and nine months – give or take a few days – or 57 months. Of that time, Peter has been deployed 29 months (this is only deployments, not extended training or classes that take two to...
Beyond Easter
A friend of mine had two “way back time machine” status updates this past weekend, focusing on the Story behind Easter. Each of these posts created vivid images with overwhelming emotions. Some of these thoughts I’ve had myself, but not as eloquently stated. Here is the first, fixing one’s...
4 Lessons from Dark Days
The most shocking thing no one told me before moving to Germany is that it’s dark in winter and the sun is “up” until 10-11 PM during the summer. The winter now drawing to a close is the darkest in recorded history. Maybe simply because I had a new...