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!