My first day of school...

So I visited Frau Bitar's second grade class today! I was really looking forward to it and it went so well! I told them that I wanted to show them how much English they already know. I scared them when I said that I'd describe the word in German and they'd answer in English, but there are several words that are the same (Hand, Finger, Stop, Glass, Hamburger). It was cute to see their little light bulbs go off. Then I read them some Dr. Seuss books and sang them "Herman the worm". They seemed to have had a good time and one of the boys even said he loves me (okay, so i think he was just excited about the English he knew). Frau Bitar seemed thrilled with what I did and asked me to come back. It was so much fun!!!

We were not amused...

Actually we were. We had to leave the room after discovering that every article of clothing Fiona has was strewn about her room.

Singing with Papa

Of the top ten ways to meet your neighbors...

I would not recommend the method I recently emplyed. It was early in the evening, yet completely dark. I was pulling out of our driveway and met our neighbor's leased, black bmw. A moral battle ensued. I informed our neighbor lady, but since we couldn't really assess the damage, I said, "Sie wissen ja wo ich wohne." As you can see, I did make my mark (my damage is on the left), but she had, just two days prior, had a run in with her garage (on the right). We got to talking and it turns out she's an elementary teacher at the school just down the road from the church! I told her that I had also studied to be an elementary teacher and she asked me to be involved in her school's English afterschool program! When we talked yesterday, she found out that my damage would cost about 50 euros, she said to just forget about it since her damage would cost considerably more. I'll be going in to meet her colleagues on thursday to talk about how I can help them enrich their English classes and I'll be visiting Frau Bitar's (our neighbor) class on Friday. (I'm so excited abou this because I've been wanting to see how they structure their English classes at such a young age--third grade, which is actually the second grade in the US.) We both said we're glad to have come in contact, despite the situation.

To keep in your prayers...

Dietmar came to our Christmas Eve service. We found out later that it was the first time he'd ever been in a church. Brett came home very excited last night because he was at the Biblestudy in Hannover! It was a completely new experience for him, and he kept saying, "I just didn't know about this!" He really seems drawn to the idea and plans to return!

And second of all, it's been a long time in coming, but we will be appointing elders on January 21st. The men, Uwe Bullert, Randy Smelser and Stefan Duckeck, have been meeting and working toward this for over a year. We are excited to be officially placing two Germans in positions of leadership. We've invited some guest speakers from the area and will be having a potluck dinner afterwards.

Christmas Eve

This is us at the Sutojo's after the Christmas Eve service. We had Raclette and it was good!

Christmas

Christmas was great. Fiona really enjoyed ripping open presents. At first she just couldn't believe we were letting her rip paper. Then she really got into it. One lesson learned, take whatever the present is out of it's original box; it needs to be quickly accessable!

So this is a blog...

I just learned about blogs at the Mid-Winter Rally. I know they've been around for a while, but I'm just not really good at computer stuff. Everyone told me that it's sooooo easy, so we'll see. Like I said, we just got back from the Mid-Winter Rally. It was an amazing time of resource sharing, fellowship, learning, encouraging and laughter! It is absolutely a highlight of our year. Fiona did well, though she didn't sleep as much as normal. There were several "big kids" there and she loves watching them.
Funny story about New Year's Eve...
Fiona stayed up and was in a pretty good mood. We went outside to watch Papa and the other guys set off fireworks. Cory, our intern, put his hat on her head and she was asleep within 2 minutes!