Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Nein.

Sorry folks for the blog backlog! Last Sunday was a travel day from one part of Germany to another and I just completely lost track of what day it was.

Thursday, Oct. 15th, Glenn and I flew into Basel, Switzerland which is a very small and quaint little town on the border touching both France and Germany.




We were told that when we exited the customs area, we should exit on the side that will take us to France. How cool is that? We were picked up by one of our personnel and taken to our little gasthaus (guesthouse=hotel) where we stayed for 3 nights.



Our gasthouse

Our first meeting was in the town of Kandern, Germany where there is a boarding school that some of our children attend when they get into high school.



Fountain in the center of town

We were there for a meeting of TCK education consultants (Third Culture Kids). There were about 15 of us. Only two of us were officially TCK consultants; the rest were teachers (and Glenn). The meeting was very helpful. With all of the changes within our organization, I felt so out of the loop and uninformed. By attending this meeting, I realized all the others involved in TCK education felt the same way, and that the new policies and guidelines will not be ready until January. Phew! I thought I'd missed something along the way!



Typical German village

We didn't have any free time so the only pictures I took were on our way out of town on Sunday as we headed to a town north of Frankfort about 4 1/2 hours away for a conference for first termers.



Horrible traffic on the autobahn

Before the reorg, our conference for first termers was called Ebenezer and was held in Prague, Czech Republic. Now, by combining Central and Eastern Europe with Western Europe, we have a new name, E-migrate, and a new location, Holhauzen, Germany.

On a side note: I lived in Germany when I was 3-5 years of age (in Heidelburg and Frankfort), and then again when I was in 7th and 8th grade (in Mannheim) so I was thrilled when I saw the road signs leading us to some familiar towns! Maybe on another visit to Germany, we can take an extra day and drive to Mannheim to see if I can recognize my old stompin' grounds!




Most of the participants have been living overseas for 9-15 months. Glenn and I came to do member care appointments to see how they were dealing with all the adjustments. We had some great messages and seminars on various topics.

The picture above has been "played with" to disguise the innocent, but I wanted to show you a slide he showed during one of his presentations. It is a slide of an exit off of Interstate 95 that passes through Virginia and Washington, D.C. This is the exit we took to get to our house when we lived in Springfield, Virginia when I was in high school! Between my house and the interstate was one row of houses, we were that close! I lived about 1/2 mile from this sign.



Our prayer "triplet"

We were divided into groups of three and prayed together about specific needs during the conference.



Fellowship time

We were in sessions for the most part from 9 am until 6 pm with 30 minute breaks scattered through-out the day. Everyone loved the breaks because it was a good time for getting to know people. We also had some free time in the evenings (except when we had member care appointments) for playing games and chit-chatting. As leaders, we were asked to make ourselves "available" so we didn't have a lot of time for checking emails and updating our blog!



Small group time

Glenn and I facilitated a small group where we discussed certain assigned topics.



Aren't they cute?

And, of course, there is always a children's program at the end of the week when they show off what they have learned. The children are taught by a volunteer team that comes out from the U.S. for this specific purpose. Now THAT'S MEMBER CARE for the whole family! The kids love it and the parents enjoy having child care too!



Solving the problems of the world

Glenn and Mick are "processing" all they've seen and heard during the week.



Brause Stabchen


And totally unrelated to the conference but a definite perk...while we were there in Germany, I found the candy that I used to eat when I lived in Mannheim. It is called Brause Stabchen, or Sour Sticks.


Little sour sticks

Some kids never grow up.



Geneva, Switzerland by air

The conference ended on Thursday night so we flew home on Friday with a 4 hour lay-over in Geneva's airport.




We had a great 10 days in Germany but I was so exhausted that I slept 12 hours our first night home!

Glenn heads out Monday for a meeting elsewhere in Hungary and will be gone until Thursday. I'll be here, holding down the fort until he returns. Home, sweet home.