One Busy.......Life (May)

I thought about titling this post One Busy Summer, but then realized the busyness started in Spring and has gone on through Fall. So it is a little hard to title something One Busy Spring, Summer and Fall, so thought that I would just go with One Busy Life. As things have slowed down I have decided that I wanted to get back on hereand update everyone one what has happened since. I was going to do the entire update in one blog post, but after writing it all out, I think I am going to divide it up and do a separate post for each month. Although I am going to do my best to keep it as short of an update as possible.

May:

Stephanie's Sickness: In the middle of April Stephanie started getting sick so she went to various doctors, but non were able to diagnose her with anything. Each doctor had their own ideas, but all said that they were unsure. It got really frustrating and hard on her and the family since we knew that something was wrong, but no one was able to diagnose her. It was not till her trip to the US the beginning of June when she visited a US Neurologist when she finally got a diagnosis for Guillain-Barre Syndrom. By that point she was in the healing phase and there was no more treatment for it. (Picture from Mother's Day 2010)

3rd Annual Mother's Day Cookout with Andre & Ulrike: We had an incredible time with our close friends. It was great to finally have kids old enough that could walk and play on their own. However Hanna still found ways of wondering away to go explore on her own. We only cookout once, maybe twice a year and this is one of the times, so I personally always look forward to it.

Stephanie's 31st Birthday: Not too much pomp and circumstance was had for this birthday, due to sickness and schedule, but we did take time out to celebrate the wonderful blessing that God has given our family as well as so many others because she was born! I did surprise her by making her favorite chocolate cake.

Arrival of our RUF 2 Month Summer Short Term Team: With the perspective of College Student Work in the future we had a group of 3 college students and a family who does campus ministry come to Berlin to research what College Student Work could look like. With such a busy summer it was great to have a team look at what was already in place in Berlin and what options there are for the future. They were also able to ask several survey questions and have discussions in regards to the residence hall and what students were interested in. We are incredibly thankful for the Dirks, Andrew, Seth and Joseph for their work it truly was a joy and pleasure to not only work with each one of them, but to get to know each one of them as well. They are missed.(picture is taken actually on the day that they left and Tyler's wife Carrie and their two children are not pictured).

Our 6th Family Festival: Hard to believe that we have now had six festivals. This year there were two families from our church plant who volunteered (after I asked them) to help me out with the planning. This way we are in the process of transitioning leadership etc. to the church plant. I was skeptical (me of little faith) if we were going to have enough funding for the festival this year because of the financial problems many of the businesses are having, but of course as always God did his miracle and provided exactly enough funding. This was the first year that the festival actually broke even! WOOHOO!