Week of September 26th Part 1

Wow, what a week. This week has surely been one to remember. We got a new apartment, made a trip to the ER, had too many late nights, and more. Here’s a run down on what’s up with the Overbys.

Trip to the ER.

It was Tuesday night after German class and we were having dinner with our friends the Meichsners. As we were finishing up dinner and getting ready to leave we heard a loud “THUD” from the other room followed by a scream from Stanley. We immediately ran to the kids' room and found Stanley on the floor at the base of the bunk bed. He was screaming, and there was a spot of blood on the floor next to him. Heather picked him up and tried to console him and figure out what happened. Stanley started gagging, which is not unusual for him when he is crying really hard, but when he started throwing up blood we knew this was not his normal vomit. This was throwing up his life type vomit. Eric raced to get something to catch it in, Susanne got some paper towels, and I took the other three kids into the kitchen to stay out of the way.

What happened after that was a whirlwind. Eric and Susanne came in and out of the kitchen a couple of times. One time when Eric came in there was a buzz, and Eric immediately left not closing the door to the kitchen. Next thing I know, a bunch of paramedics come into the house towards where Stanley was. I was praying with the kids, not knowing what is going on. Last thing I saw was Stanley throwing up blood. During all this I was praying with the other kids and trying to keep them happy and distracted. They all wanted to go see what was going on, but I knew that I needed to keep them out of the way. Soon Eric came back, and we were able to pray together, and then I was summoned to the back room. When I got there it did not seem to be any immediate panic. Heather told me that Stanley was doing fine, but they wanted to take him to the ER to get an ultrasound and checked out. I thought that sounded like a good idea. Fortunately, I had my health card with me, so the paramedics were able to take that. Heather took Stanley out to the ambulance, and off she went with our son to the hospital.

Susanne took me home with Holly, and then took Stanley’s blankets and a change of clothes for him, and met Heather at the hospital. As you can imagine, I was a little out of it, but was able to get Holly to bed, and then I called Heather. She was waiting at the hospital, but Stanley was bouncing around like his normal three year old self. Heather and Susanne stayed at the hospital until about 11 pm. Stanley was checked out, and the doctor said he wanted to keep Stanley there for 48 hours to observe him and make sure there wasn’t anything more serious going on that hadn’t shown up yet. Sometimes with head injuries, the damage doesn’t become visible immediately. We decided against staying at the hospital, but instead get Stanley into his own bed and in a comfortable place.

In the process of all this, I also made the decision to stay home from work on Wednesday. I wanted to be home in case he had to stay in the hospital, or to be home incase something did happen during the next 24 hours. I am so glad I made that decision. I did have some extra work to do to prepare my lesson plans, but it was the right choice. Susanne brought Heather and Stanley home, we put Stanley to bed, and then we finally had a moment together. We didn’t get to bed until 12:30 or 1 am. Fortunately, the kids slept in until 8 the next morning, and I didn’t have to get off to work.

Over the next 48 hours, Stanley showed no signs of series damage. During lunch on Wednesday, he did suddenly say, “My head hurts.” Heather, Susanne, and myself all paused and looked at each other. “What do you mean Stanley?” “Well…” then he began to do his typical three year old rabbit trail which included “No, actually my head doesn’t hurt.” He definitely scared us at that moment. He had a follow up appointment on Thursday, and the pediatrician said we shouldn’t be worried, but he is fine.

Thank you to everyone who was praying. We definitely knew they helped and it was so encouraging to know you all care. This will probably not be Stanley’s last trip to the ER so we'll probably be calling on our prayer warriors again. We will continue to have grace with him, and teach him to not jump off high things. At some point Tuesday night, Stanley told Heather that he was ready to jump off a building. “No Stanley, no jumping off buildings.” He must be three.

Well, right now it is 11:20 pm, and I am falling asleep as I type. So I am going to bed. So I’ll have to tell you another time about our new apartment, Kindergarten, running, late nights, German class and other things going on in our life. If I wait to post this until I have everything written, then this will all be old news and not very interesting. So here is what I have, enjoy, and thank you for your support as we begin this new life in Germany.

Until Next Time,

Scott & Heather Overby and Family.

Week of September 19th

This week has been different. I had a class field trip to Berlin, while Heather and the kids stayed home. It was a great field trip, and I think I learned more about Berlin and Germany then the students did. We visited the Bundestag (the Parliament Building), a guided walking tour by a man who escaped from East Berlin, the DDR museum about life in the Socialist society, and an Amazing Race style activity where we got to walk past many landmarks.

Meanwhile in Weimar, Heather and the kids survived a door being constructed in our small apartment/hotel room. The kids finally have a door to their room. It just took nearly 2 months. So Heather had to take the kids out a lot. It's kind of hard keep curious and active kids away from wet caulking or a bucket of paint. By the grace of God she was able to make it, and now I am back safe and sound.

Good news is that things are being finalized for our new apartment! Hopefully we'll get the keys October 1st. We are buying almost everything from the lady moving out, so we will have practically everything we need. That includes silverware, dishes, vacuum, shelves, couches, etc. We will want to repaint some walls (part of the deal was that she would not repaint things), and hopefully the owner will also replace the carpets before we move in.

I need to get to bed now, but I wanted to fill you in on what is going on in our lives here. It's crazy hard, but God is gracious and we're enjoying it more and more. Thanks for reading.

6.9.2011 Settling in

A lot has been happening here recently. We are starting to get more and more settled in. We are still in the small apartment/hotel room, but we are more at peace and getting around pretty well here. Part of that has been our amazing network of friends here in Weimar. We are connecting more and more with the people in the church, and that has been a huge help in our transition. Our closest friends have been Susanne and Erik and their two young daughters. They have been so amazing in helping us and reaching out to us with everything from finding bikes for us to use (Erik fixing them up himself), to having an extra rolling pin to give me, sharing meals with us and now even watching our kids. We don't even know how we could thank them for all they have done and been for us in this time. I believe we’ve already written about them inviting us to their garten a couple of Fridays ago. Yesterday they helped us look at a few apartments. Actually Susanne helped us, while Erik helped by watching Stanley at the park. Stanley got to play with Erik and Susanne’s daughters. After we looked at the apartments they offered to order Pizza and we had an impromptu picnic in the park with them! We had Texas, Mexican, and Hawaiian pizza and they were all very yummy! Today our language classes began and those dear friends offered to watch Stanley and Holly so we could go to class! They even fed our kids and then fed us dinner afterwards! Heather and Susanne have been able to hang out often in the mornings with the kids, and last Friday night after the kids went to bed, Heather went to their house, and Erik came to ours. Erik and I watched "Facing the Giants". The ladies just chatted in front of the fireplace at Susanne's. It was fun explaining the game of American Football to Erik and pausing throughout the movie to look more intensively into the Biblical themes of the film and read about them in the Bible. So great to have such amazing friends!

At church, Heather got to take part in Doerte’s Baptism. Because the church is Baptist in it’s roots, baptism is a very important deal. It is a big celebration and it is part of your membership in the church. Doerte asked Heather to pray for her at the baptism because they connected so quickly and deeply, and also because Doerte came to Christ as a foreign exchange student in America. (For those of you who host foreign exchange students, make sure you take every opportunity to plant the seeds while they are with you because God can use you to create something amazing!) Heather stood on the stage and spoke about her relationship with Doerte and said some words for Doerte before the baptism, then was there to greet her with a towel and a hug as she came out of the pool, and finally prayed for her at the end of the service. It was a really neat and powerful experience and Heather was very honored to be chosen for that role in Doerte's life. Heather is so thankful for that friendship and we look forward to spending more time with "Aunt Doerte" in the future.

Our apartment hunt is also going well. We have a couple of options now. Neither of them are available until the middle to end of Oktober, but we like the choices. We looked at one last night that is actually owned by someone from the church. It has two bedrooms, two half rooms, living room, bathroom and kitchen. It’s in the center of town, and it seems like a great option for us. We have another option as well which has two rooms, two large living room/dining rooms, large bathroom, small kitchen, huge terrace and guest bathroom as well. Last night we were weighing the pros and cons of the two options. Now we need to wait and see which one God will open up the right doors for. We pray that He will make very clear which one is the place He wants us in.

Heather writing here: Our first German class tonight was intense! It was super overwhelming and very challenging. It was a full immersion class format and the instructor did not use English at all. Everything she said to us was in German and she wanted us to answer questions and follow many directions. But I didn't understand what she was saying! We're used to classes where they say "this word means this" with mostly English being spoken and then learning the foreign language that way. (Heather-Spanish, Scott-German) I definitely think we will learn much more by immersion and that is what we're doing every day at the store and in out daily lives. It is going to be hard work though and I hope my head doesn't explode! The instructor is great and was really patient with our questions and frustrations and we can already see that she is an excellent teacher. We know that we will learn a lot if we decide to put a lot into it. Which we will.

More later and we'll try to add pics tomorrow. God Bless you all!