Weimar Wonders

Who would have thought?!

We picked up April and Clint Everhart last weekend on our way west to visit the historical town of Weimar. After spending a couple hours touring the nearby site of Buchenwald Concentration Camp and then posing for a few pictures in front of the MASSIVE bell tower memorial (we are probably close to 100 meters away from it still in the picture) which can be seen easily from the distant Autobahn, we headed into town to enjoy a rare delicacy in Germany.

Authentic mexican food! (well, Clint ordered barbeque ribs, but those are also impossible to find here.)

Weimar's a beautiful town with a rich past--Bach, Goethe and Schiller are three of the big names who lived and worked there. So who would expect an awesome mexican restaurant in the midst of all the formal history?!

I think we'll have to plan a trip back for next month-! Mmmmmm.....

Just a quick announcement/update: Grady and I have decided to stay here for one more year! He signed the contract this past week and we are relieved to have the hard decision finally made. Thank you all for your prayers.

Double Wedding

Yesterday we had the honor of attending the wedding of not just one couple, but two! Stephan and Daniela (the main couple in the picture) pledged their life to one another as did a younger sister of Daniela and her groom. Having never experienced such a unique celebration, it was a real treat to see how the style and ideas of both couples came together to coordinate into one grand event. We traveled about an hour east of Dresden to the small town of Crostwitz and enjoyed a whole day of eating, entertainment and joy!

To Stay or Not to Stay

Well it's coming down to the wire, Grady and I are pretty much on the very edge of having to make a final decision about where to live come December. The obvious easiest choice would be to stay where we're at now, accepting the one year contract extension offered to Grady by his company. We could keep this cool apartment, maintain already-existing relationships, and despite ongoing cultural stress (ie. language, small differences that pile up) it would be the least disruptive to our current lifestyle and habits.

But...

Here's the thing, we're going to move back to somewhere in North America next year anyway. The new contract is for one year, so it's not like a permanent decision to live here or there. What I mean is, we're going to have to "uproot" sometime, whether it be this year or next, moving ourselves and our accumulated goods to a new home and starting with new friends, a new job, a new place to live, and a somewhat new culture. We want to make sure that if we choose to stay here it's not just to avoid all of this for the time being. Grady came to Germany on a one year contract in 2002 and has been blessed to be able to extend it every year since, but we're wondering if now is the time to finally accept our North American-bound fate and take the courageous step of venturing into something new.

God has really blessed us by providing so many options for us to consider, it's just the challenge now of choosing which of all the good choices to decide on and follow through with (although sometimes I even find myself wishing that we only had one option and no hard decision to make-!). Of course no choice will be perfect, and we understand that God will bless our decision whichever way we choose.

Any thoughts or advice for us on this matter? Even just some words of encouragement would be helpful in this uncertain time-! Here's to trying to live a life guided by the Father!

The Real Responsibility

"My job was to plant the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God, not we, who made it grow." -1 Corinthians 3:6 (NLT)

an excerpt from my latest and final newsletter--some closing thoughts about the mission work here

Two years have come and gone and I am overflowing with gratitude to each one of you for helping me along the way and making it possible for me to be here in Dresden. I have learned so much about God in this new culture and have become familiar with a people who at one time built grand churches with towering steeples but now find no reason to trust in anyone beyond themselves, despite the lingering religious history and daily sound of the church bells that once served as a reminder of something greater. It is a special challenge to bring the word of God into the lives of Dresdners, much less claim to choose a relationship with God and seemingly admit a weakness. This country doesn’t suffer as others do from physical poverty or starvation and so many people remain wealthy and fed, not eager to search for anything more. There is the real danger of becoming apathetic toward the lack of religious interest of this culture, or at the very least let one’s Christianity slip into the background of relationships with an unconscious effort to not make things uncomfortable. Missionaries on these mission fields are in such need of constant encouragement that they are not alone in their faith and that what they are doing does matter, because the results don’t show it. That’s when I’m just so glad that God asks us only to plant the seed and not feel the pressure of if it grows or not. I pray I have been a consistent seed-planter!