Our trip to Germany for two months of the summer was so fantastic so that it’s hard to know where to begin. We spent about six weeks with Dieter and his mom and they were both so kind and generous. They made us feel at home the whole time. How nice for Lorin and me that they were such great cooks.

Lorin and I did not have much time to travel (to castles and other places further away) during our visit because we stayed so busy with church and new friends. Everyone was so helpful and showed us lots of interesting places and things to do. And, of course, many of them were also great cooks. I enjoyed learning about new foods that I had not tried before. The church members really looked after us and made sure that we were well taken care of in many ways, including traveling on the trains. They escorted us to and from the trains and made sure we got on the correct one, even at times staying with us until the train left. We found traveling by trains an excellent way to get to our many destinations along with lots of walking. I became healthier and lost several pounds (I’m afraid that I found those pounds when we got back to N.C.). The church members helped us with furnishing our apartment. We were only there in the apartment for two weeks and they supplied us with the basics to get by on and more. During those two weeks we had two house guests from the Virginia Baptist Mission Board stay with us for eight days. It was a special time of getting to know the whole group and of realizing what these young people were able to accomplish as they helped the church in outreach ministry in early August.

We barely had time to get over jet lag (a three-day weekend) and both of us were right back in our schools and busier than ever. I am trying to take care of several doctor visits and just had cataract surgery. It’s nice to be able to see better now. School has been extra busy for me this year. Our library classes used to be 45 minutes one time a week for each class plus the in-between times for checking out books. Now it is 30 minutes two times a week for each class. There is a lot of traveling back and forth for the classes and for me it has been hard to get in a good lesson and have time to check out books. I guess I’m just getting older and slower and this is a good time to retire. I am so ready.

We had a garage sale the beginning of October and sold so much of our furniture and other items. It’s hard to give up some things, but for the most part it was a good feeling to get rid of items that we hardly use or need. It’s so amazing to realize how much stuff we had and it took trying to get rid of it to come to full realization. Lorin and I both are pack rats and for me it is mostly photography and scrap booking supplies, plus various frames and a few crafty things. There’s nothing like moving to a different country to make us really trim things down to a minimum. I won’t miss the stuff, but the tough part is knowing how far we will be from family and friends.

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