Dear friends, " Hello" from Germany after
a very eventful summer.
Doris and Chad had a wonderful wedding
here in our town. It was a big family enterprise in which everybody had their
part and did it well. As a whole family, including Lisa's Luke and Cathrin's
Mike, we worked together in preparing and carrying out the big event. Here in
Germany, there is a short reception after the wedding ceremony to which everyone
can come. Then there is a big dinner and celebration for the invited guests in
the evening with a program of skids, picture shows, songs, games, etc. There
were 60 people in the evening. The wedding ceremony was at a many centuries old
church 2 miles away (Mappach, for those who have been there). My brother Hermann
and his family did all the music, and the two dads did the actual wedding
ceremony. After that, the young couple and a few of us rode to Gupf in a
beautiful carriage with a "Just Married" sign drawn by two big draft
horses (friends of ours did that with joy and for free). In our own little town
of Gupf, we had cleaned out and arranged the hay loft of the also centuries old
barn where we had once kept our horses. Lisa and team did a wonderful job of
decorating church, carriage and barn, and visiting family helped immensely. The
weather was wonderful, and we all had a good time. Even Mark, who had come home
with a very bad case of bursitis in his knee 10 days before the wedding and
needed antibiotics for 2 weeks, was able to walk again. Luke and Mike were able
to do the jobs he would have done and had a great chance to show what kind
of guys they are - and we more than appreciated them. And even the small budget
we had, more than covered all expenses. I felt a little bit like in the story of
the feeding of the 5,000 where there were even left-overs. Thank you all who
prayed for this big event!!! Your prayers were answered beyond expectations!
Doris and Chad are now settled in
Detroit, Chad with "Youth Works Detroit" and Doris with a job she is going to
start tomorrow (Sept. 30). Lisa and Cathrin are in their last year before their
Master's degree. Lisa just experienced God's faithfulness in giving her the
right project for her Master's thesis and the people for the committee she
needs (plus she also has a teaching position), and Cathrin is still very busy
doing her internship in Georgia (where Mike lives) and doing her online-studies.
Susi was able to go on a short visit to Georgia, NC, MD and New York City.
(Thanks, Joan and the O'Conners for your hospitality!) Her health is improving,
and I am so glad that the treatment of her heart problem was so successful.
Jana and I are back in school. Even
though she still says she hates school, she actually enjoys it more and more.
God in his faithfulness keeps sending the right people her way who can help her
grow out of the "I am stupid, I cannot learn" mode which had been implanted in
her heart by the bad times 2-3 years ago.
I am "just" an aide to my special needs
student for the 4 core classes without the afternoon class of German, which
gives me more time than last year. And on Wednesdays I still enjoy attending our
international bilingual CBSI bible study where I translate the opening part and
the lecture at the end. This is a great way of reaching women who seek
God.
Mark just came home from a trip to
Romania, which went very well, and is getting ready to fly to the US on
Tuesday. There will be our bi-annual EBF conference in Michigan, the missions
conference at the Church of the Open Door in Fayetteville,NC, and Aarin Walker's
wedding in Indiana - all in 3 weeks. We hope he will be able to see many of you
during this time. Since he also wants to be available to help his parents in
Michigan, he might not be able to do as many visits as he had hoped. But I am
glad that he can be there to help - Germany is very far away otherwise.
Thank you so much for being our friends
and sharing our ministry. God bless you all, Maria for the whole Walker
family
