I'm BACK!!

After a fun week in Kaiserslautern seeing old friends and spending time with family (my Dad and my sister came as well!!), I am now in Elstal. That name probably means nothing much to you, but to ME it means free and frequent access to high-speed internet. Yay!!

In Kaiserslautern, I spent time with the Schuff family. We've known one another since I was a wee child ... Frau Schuff worked in the nursery at Faith Baptist Church and Claudia and I were in elementary school together.

On July 7th, we attended the wedding of Christina Reiser and Thomas Hase. The Reisers have also been friends for years and years, so it was fun to see them again, and of course nice to be present at the celeBRATION (it included tons of yummy food, a fire-eating short person and fireworks over the lake. Quite the to-do!!) Christina and Thomas married at the "Standesamt" at 11:00 a.m. (the official wedding), and then they had a church wedding. This is typical in Germany. The Standesamt wedding is the only one officially recognized by the State, but people can get married in church as well if they so choose. Usually there are a few days (sometimes even more than a year) between the two, but Christina and Thomas wanted to do everything at once and have a memorable anniversary: 07/07/07. My Dad preached the sermon (IN GERMAN!!!!!) at the church wedding.

The next day, Dad preached at Faith Baptist Church in Einsiedlerhof, where he had served as pastor for around 13 years or so (from 1972 - 1985).

Now, as I noted above, we are in Elstal, staying at a guesthouse on the campus of the German Baptist Seminary. It takes about 30 minutes to get into Berlin by train. The trains run once an hour. We'll be here until the end of July, and then I'll be out of internet range again until the end of August (20th? 21st? whenever the jetlag wears off....)