Happy April

For the past 5 days I’ve been trying to get a blog update out, but every night something would come up or I would be too tired and it just hasn’t happened. Hopefully today (Monday) ok now today (Tuesday) will be the day. We have a bunch of exciting things that have been happening so we’d like to bring you up to speed.

The first thing that has happened is that we finally feel like we’ve settled. A couple of weeks ago now (Wednesday, March 21st) we were formally made members of our church here in Weimar. That evening we had another teacher babysit our kids. This is also her first year at Thuringia International School, but not her first year teaching at international schools. During dinner we were talking with her about settling in and how it just happens at some point and sometimes in the least likely circumstances. That night at church we shared our testimony and how we came to Weimar. Another couple from work were also there to officially become members. Afterwards we were able to talk to several people (in their limited English or our really limited Deutsch), and when we got home we really felt at peace in where we are at in life.

Sharing our testimony at church. Susanne did a wonderful job translating for us.

The next Sunday at church we were again recognized along with the other new members and those being baptized. After church we had a church potluck and many people came up to say hi to us. We had previously just been the non-German speaking family with the large stroller (gross Kinderwagen). Now they knew who we were and they felt comfortable reaching out to us. Our German readers can correct me on this, but from our experience in Eastern European countries is that people will have a harder exterior and be less friendly up front, but once you get to know them or they get to know you they are really friendly and welcoming. We feel that happened at church. Now they know who we are and a piece of our story, we are now family. Heather literally had three girls sitting on the blanket with her and Holly during the potluck. So since then we have been in a sweeter space emotionally and feeling more settled in our life in Germany.

My morning routine with the kids is that they help me make my lunch.

Riding bikes is a common part of life in Weimar. On this day we were riding through the park to see the 12th grade art show at my work. We also like to bike to church when the weather is nicer.

Along those lines I (Scott) have also decided to let go of the drama happening back in the Gresham-Barlow School District. In my last post that drama was starting to consume me. Heather in her wisdom suggested to let it go and not keep up on the drama. When it’s time to make a decision we’ll look at where things are at. In the meantime we will be content where we are at and not worry about the whole job situation in Oregon. Doesn’t the Bible say something about that?

Matthew 6:25-34 (New Living Translation) Bold emphasis mine

"No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

I know the first part was talking about God and money, but I can’t be working in both Germany and Oregon. I need to focus my time and attention on one or the other. None of my worrying will make anything better in either place it will just stress me out. God knows our needs and we believe He brought us here for a purpose. It’s not our place to worry about what will come next. In the meantime we need to seek His kingdom, do His work, and walk in a manner worthy of the calling. Tomorrow will come when it comes, but for today we will walk by faith and trust in Him. I was just reading to Stanley tonight the story of Jesus asleep on the boat as the storm raged around them. The disciples woke Jesus up screaming, “Don’t you care that we’re about to die!” Jesus’ response was simple, “Why were you afraid? Don’t you trust me?” (Mark 4:35-41 my paraphrase) So we will trust Him and wait and see what will happen.

Holly says it best on our what our attitude should be.

Still on the theme of being more settled in, Stanley had a huge compliment from his Kindergarten teacher that same week. She had been out for almost a month (in Germany if you are sick or going through something extra hard you can easily get a note from your doctor to take time off work) and she returned that week. She was telling Heather how impressed she was of Stanley’s progress. He is much more comfortable at school, learning German very well, and making friends. Yes he still has issues to work through, and yes we expect him to behave properly even when we’re not around (really Stanley pushing your classmates is not good), but he is doing better. Give him a couple more months and his German will continue to take off. He is already correcting us on some of our pronunciations.

A fun European thing to do is go out for Eis (Ice Cream) on a nice day which is just what we did on this day.

New life in spring. Getting to hold our neighbor's baby bunnies.

That same week we also decided to step out and go somewhere. We asked our friends the Meichsners and Erik suggested we go to Gotha (Go-Tah). So on Saturday we bought a hopper ticket and hopped on a train to Gotha. It was a fun outing to see another city and to have the confidence that we can do this. We can travel around Thuringia and see the different cities and sites. We got to see the Gotha Castle (more of a palace estate) and see the old town. It is hard not being able to really do museums with two squirrely kids. But it was still a fun outing. On the way home however our train was stopped for over 30 minutes. Apparently there was a medical emergency (some security guy went running down the train asking if there was a doctor aboard). That didn’t help the kids squirreliness. We finally did make it home with good memories and a sense of accomplishment.

Here is a video of us on the train getting ready to head to Gotha

Watching the countryside go by.

In old town Gotha.

Seven and a half years of marriage and still going strong.

Last week we got to celebrate Holly’s second birthday. It’s crazy to think that Holly is already two. She is using more and more words and they are becoming more and more clear. I think we’ve mentioned before that her vocabulary is quite bilingual. Her birthday was not terribly exciting because I had staff meetings and Heather had manual therapy (massage). We were able to skype with some family and friends that evening as well. But over the week we got to make it a special week doing special things. Our Saturday trip to Gotha (pre birthday) was part of it. Holly has been wanting to go on a Train for awhile now. (side note here on how we’re starting to think more in German, all nouns are capitalized, as I unintentionally just capitalized Train.) Our big present for Holly was a toy stroller for her doll. She had been wanting one for awhile and whenever she would see one she would call out “Baby” and want to play with it. Heather picked out a great one and it has been a hit. We also got her a stuffed animal horse that she absolutely loves. She got a great Hello Kitty gift set from Aunt Beth (Hello Kitty is another thing Holly is into right now “Meow! Meow!”). Boz and Baby Beethoven DVDs from Grandma Sue and Grandpa Steve. An Eeyore and bear stuffed animals from Grandma Bettie. And don’t forget this incredible laptop from the Overbys, Tilgners, and Russells.

Holly's new Kinderwagen for her Baby.

Now, in Germany it is considered bad luck to celebrate a birthday before the birthday. So Holly’s birthday was Monday and we had to wait until Saturday to have a birthday party. We had a nice party with the Meichsners, Uli, Rolph and their daughter Elin, and our friend Doerte. So there were 5 kids which was a perfect number. Heather’s theme was candy shop, lollipop shoppe, and Holly Lolly. (Lollipops are just called Lollys). Heather had incredible arrangements of candy and cupcakes, which was way more then we could all eat and guests to take home so we’ll be having lots of candy at HausKreis for awhile. But the party was a perfect size and a perfect mix. Susanne brought Balloons for the kids which brought tons of laughter and entertainment. We played a little cake walk game. Sang happy birthday (in English) and ate cupcakes and Flamkuchen. After that we hung out and let the kids play. A sweet time with some sweet friends. It was really neat to have Doerte there as she now works more than full time as a doctor and she was able to take time out of her busy schedule to be there for Holly’s birthday.

Heather's amazing candy display.

The balloons were a hit.

Our kids with the the Meichsner kids.

Here is a glimpse of Holly's Birthday Party.

The crazy thing for us and Birthdays right now is that we have two more birthdays next week! Stanley’s is Thursday April 12th and mine is the 14th! So in 19 days we have 3 birthdays, and then Heather’s is a month later. Heather is already talking about a Knight theme for Stanley’s. More on that later.

Now for the really great news! On Holly’s birthday she also received another gift that will take 9 months to prepare. I mentioned that she has really been excited about Baby strollers and always shouting out “Baby!” She also does this whenever she sees another baby, even if the baby is older and/or bigger then her. Well we found out on Holly’s birthday, March 26th, that we’re going to have another baby! Heather had been feeling a little off, but I wouldn’t let her take a pregnancy test until Holly’s birthday. She obliged, and the test came out positive. We’re really excited. We have been hoping to add another child to our family for a couple of months now, but waiting on God’s timing and not worrying about it in the process. The baby should arrive in November.

She sure looks good. You can't even tell she's pregnant!

Two lines means positive! Happy Day!

Here is our 6 week ultrasound pictures. It is amazing what modern technology can do. We even got to see the heart beat!

One last final note before I call it a night. While writing this, Heather has been asleep in Stanley and Holly’s room (although Holly has been sleeping in the large half room next to our bedroom). We have an extra mattress in the kid's room as well and Heather fell asleep as I was tucking Stanley in around 7:15pm. She just got up at 9:15pm. She was telling me that after I left Stanley got up and went to her and said, “Let me pray for you Mommy.” Then he prayed for Heather in his sweet Stanley voice, tucked her in and went back to bed himself. Today has been an especially draining day with Stanley and Holly both being sick. Holly had a fever of 104 F and Stanley has had an ear ache. So having a moment like that is especially touching.

A sweet brother and sister moment on Holly's Birthday.

Ok, one more thing. During our HausKreis on Friday evening we got to watch “Courageous.” It was just us and the Meichsners. WOW, what a movie. It was an early birthday present and I am so glad to have seen it. What a great call to men. I can’t wait to watch it again and then to watch it with the commentary, and then to watch it with other men. If you haven’t seen the movie, you need to.

Really, that’s all. Thank you for reading this novel of a post. I hope you enjoyed it and it was encouraging for you as well. Feel free to leave a comment or send us an email.

If you haven't spent enough time on our blog you can check out our March web album here.

Fruhe Oster! (Happy Easter)

Scott, Heather, Stanley, Holly, and Baby #3!

He has risen! He has risen indeed!

This video is just really awesome and a great way to remember the celebration of Easter! It also struck a special chord with us being in Eastern Europe.

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Germany

It is always interesting to find what holidays are different in Germany compared to the United States. I worked on Labor Day, Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, MLK day (although Germany celebrates the original Martin Luther!) and President's day. And Valentine's Day isn't that big of a deal in Germany. Well St Patrick's Day is also not celebrated in Germany. Makes sense though, it is an Irish holiday. We only celebrate it in the USA because so many Americans have Irish heritage. So today we dressed in Green, had waffles with a green white chocolate topping Heather creation, did a green scavenger hunt, went out for green ice cream, and other fun green themed things.

In preparation Heather did some research on who St. Patrick really was. For those of you who don't know, he was a missionary to Ireland. He was not Irish but was British and was captured by the Irish and brought to Ireland as a slave. He found Christ in Ireland, and later escaped back to his home. He then became a priest and felt it was his calling to return to Ireland as a missionary. He did return and successfully converted many Irish people to Christianity. It is said that he used the Shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity to the Irish. St. Patrick died on March 17th around 460 AD. So we had a fun day talking about the trinity, missionaries, enjoying the color green and the beautiful weather!

Here's a little slideshow of our fun day. (Sorry there is no music. iTunes converted all our songs to m4a files which don't work with Picasa. If any of you know how to get around this please let us know!)

In other news...we had a visitor two weeks ago. Our dear friend Elizabeth Reese (Auntie Lizzy to the kids) took her one vacation week to come to Germany to visit us! Wow, what a blessing! Heather and Elizabeth and the kids had a great time together while I had to work. Elizabeth got to experience the sights, sounds, and flavors of Weimar and we even were able to get out to the zoo the last day she was here. She also was able to bring many treats from America including a new laptop from our families. The laptop we got before we came to Germany died so we were in need of a new computer. We didn't want one with a German keyboard and German operating system so my dad picked one out for us in America. It is a huge blessing, and my dad said it was partially selfish to get us this new computer because it has a great webcam for Skype. :-)

Now we are in the general flow of life. We are healthy (my foot is not broken for those who remember out last post), and life marches on. I have spring break in a couple of weeks. Spring break here is the week before and after Easter. That's right, two weeks! Hopefully we can work on studying to get our German driver's license during that time.

It's crazy to think that we have almost been here for 8 months (Holly's birthday will be the 8th month mark). In another 8 months we will be in the decision making process on whether to stay in Germany or return to Oregon in the summer of 2013. We were talking about that decision this afternoon and it is a hard one. We have a lot of very good reasons to stay in Germany and a lot of very good reasons to return to Oregon. Seeing how much our lives have changed from a year ago, who knows what will be happening in another year.

I think that is enough for now. Thank you for reading and please feel free to leave a comment or send us an email. We always appreciate your notes so much.

From Germany,

Scott, Heather, Stanley, and Holly

Welcome March

It's now March and our sub sub freezing Siberian temperatures are a memory of the past. Recently we've had temps between 5° and 15° Celsius. Which is between 40° and 60° Fahrenheit.

It was cold outside

Work has been really busy these past 3 weeks. These past weeks have also been fairly uneventful. In our last post we told you about Grandpa Dick going to be with Jesus. On Monday February 13^th we were able to attend his memorial service via skype. It was really neat to be able to “be there.” We are so thankful for modern technology. It was fun to also see some of you at the memorial service.

Last week we dealt with a nasty seasonal cold in our home. First Stanley was sick, then Holly got sick, and finally Heather. I was able to avoid it during that time, but then on Monday it began to get me too. Fortunately, with the help of some EmergenC, Gatoraide, and lots of water I was able to avoid getting sick. Now we are all well except for the occasional drippy nose.

Our sick King Stanley and Queen Holly.

Our sick kids about to enjoy a muffin tin lunch.

This week has been interesting in several ways. First, Stanley is beginning to get more comfortable at Kindergarten (Praise the Lord J ). We’re seeing him grow more comfortable with the German language. We recently rented some Caillou movies from the library, and Stanley has wanted to watch them auf Deutsch, and he has been singing more songs auf Deutsch as well! At home he is talking more about the other students at Kindergarten, and this last week he actually shook the assistant teacher’s hand when he left. Hopefully this continues and he becomes more and more comfortable in these situations. Three weeks ago at church he absolutely refused to go to Sunday School. Two weeks ago he went with me and he actually had a good time when I explained what was going on. No my German is not that good, but I recognized some of the songs, and our friend Erik was leading Stanley’s class and told me what the story was about ahead of time. This really made us think that his refusal tantrums are due primarily to the fact that he doesn’t understand what is going on and is therefore quite uncomfortable. When he knows what is happening he likes it. He didn’t go to Kindergarten or church at all last week because he was sick with fever. And going back to Kindergarten this whole past week was so much better.

Stanley focusing on an drawing. He's really into drawing pictures now. He even took it upon himself to redecorate our living room with his art work.

Stanley tracing the letters of his name.

This past week Heather has had some neat interactions with different ladies in Weimar. It is fun to see how God is bringing these ladies into Heather’s life, or bringing Heather into their lives. However you want to look at it. J She has had the privilege of praying with one friend on the bus and having others really open up their hearts to her.

For me, this past week has probably been the most exciting. It started off with me winning a pair of running shoes! I entered a contest on my favorite running website letsrun.com. The entry question was “why I should get a new pair of Puma FAAS running shoes.” I entered a few weeks ago, and then readers of letsrun.com were able to vote on the entries. This week I found out that I was one of the winners! How fun. You can read my entry here. I’m the third one down. Also this week I finally got back to running again. I wasn’t able to get out much in February due to the extreme cold and the family illnesses. I ran with the kids Saturday and Sunday, and then Tuesday through Friday after work. Now for the really weird news. I hurt my foot Friday afternoon. After all the good things happening regarding running I hurt my foot. Now here’s the real kicker. I hurt my foot while kicking the presenter at our staff meeting Friday afternoon. Yes that sounds strange but the meeting was on bullying and the presenter was focusing on physically bullying and it almost became a self defense class. I was the one that he chose to help show how to protect yourself in a physical conflict. So he first asked me to slap him harder and harder on the cheek. I got one slap in and then he showed how to deflect the slap. After that he asked me to kick him in the arm showing that a kick in the arm isn’t a big deal compared to a kick in other sensitive areas. Anyways, it was weird and the kick in the arm did me in. Note: he was once on the German National Karate Team, and is a master karate instructor. Now my right foot is slightly swollen and hurts when I push off my toes. Hopefully it isn’t broken. L

So there you go, that’s what we’ve been up to in the month of February. What do we have coming up? First, Heather’s good friend Elizabeth is coming to visit us on Monday! Her husband Matt works as a commercial pilot so she was able to get tickets to visit us. Unfortunately Matt is working so he won’t be able to come out too. But we are really looking forward to having Elizabeth here. After that we only have another 4 weeks and then I have two weeks off for spring break! We really like these breaks during the year. The down side is that I’ll have a much shorter summer vacation.

We hope and pray all is well with you. Please feel free to leave a comment.

From Germany, Scott, Heather, Stanley and Holly

A note from Stanley while I was writing this.

Stanley says “I love Germany love Katey.” and “I really love you love Blake. I really liked when you gave the turtle Blake stuffed animal.” and “I really love you Grandma Sue and I’m drawing pictures for you.”

Holly says, “Hallelujah!”