To the surprise of every German we continue to have good weather. In March it seemed as though it rained everyday. As soon as April rolled in we’ve had nothing but warm sunny days. It has been really good for us, because we are able to explore more of Celle on our bicycles and we see a lot more people out.

We are getting busier and busier. We recently placed an ad in the newspaper to start an English speaking group. We hope that this will be a good way for us to meet people and lead a discussion to talk about some spiritual things. We think it will appeal to a lot of Germans since many of them can speak English and are looking for ways to practice. Please pray that we have a good response to the ad and that God leads the discussions we have with those people.

We will also be having a Bible study in our home so that we have a place to invite the English speaking group to. Randy Smelser (the missionary that planted the church we attend in Peine) will be driving up on Wednesdays to help out with this.

When Alyssa was in the States earlier this month her family helped us out buying a Nintendo Wii. For those of you that don’t know what a Wii is, it is a video game system that reads the movements of a remote control. It is good for all ages and easy to learn how to play. In the two weeks that Alyssa has been back we have thrown a Wii party and have another one planned for tomorrow (Tuesday). We have been able to use the Wii to get younger people to visit us. They are all very excited about it. So far we have had people from our church coming to play, but we told them they are welcome to invite their friends to come and play too. I have met a few of their friends and would like to get to know them better. Please pray that doors will be open for Alyssa and me to share our faith with all of the people we will be meeting.

Easter retreat and camp

My ultimate frisbee team.

I have finally recuperated from a week and a half of camp. It was a great experience for me. I was speaking German from 7 in the morning until around midnight every day, and then again usually around 4 in the morning when I had to tell kids to get back in bed and to stop pulling pranks on each other. Speaking German can at times be difficult especially at 4 in the morning. So it is good that I had so much practice the past two weeks. I was able to learn and form new sentences that they didn’t teach in language school. Things like “why is there toothpaste on the light switch?”, “what were you doing in girls’ room in the first place?” and “Who put the pillow in the toilet?” I do not know why we didn’t learn these things in language school, because they would have come in handy. I, in return, gave the kids new vocabulary for their English studies. Words like “Indian Dutch Rub” and “Wedgies”.

Dogpile is also a word the kids learned.

We really did have a good time and the Bible study part of camp went really well. I have been asked to help with a two week long camp in the summer as well.
Here is everyone that was at the camp.
The Easter retreat was very uplifting and encouraging. It was good to see so many Christians my age from around Germany. I made many new friends with Christians from across the country.
Here is everyone from the Easter retreat.
Alyssa was able to visit her parents over Easter. Her mother flew her back to surprise her father. Alyssa celebrated her father’s sixtieth birthday with the whole family. She really enjoyed being back and visiting everyone. She returned home this past Wednesday and has been working on getting over the jetlag since.
We are working on starting an English discussion group for Germans that would give Germans a chance to use their English. We hope that from the conversations within the group that we can lead the discussion to biblical topics. Please pray as we prepare that all goes well and that we find many that are interested.

We are so glad that there is only one more day of winter! It has been a long winter! This will be our first winter without a car. We've learned a few things about bikes this winter too. Apparently there's a reason I don't have memories of riding my bike in the snow when I was young. Apparently it's pretty dangerous. Despite that fact, we went out several times in the icy snow weather on our bikes. I did extra praying during those rides. It was strange to feel one of my bike tires sliding around under me. Hopefully we are done with winter, but I guess you never know!

Germany's weather is always surprising us. In the wintertime, the green grass never fades all the way to brown. There's even several bushes that keep their leaves throughout the winter. In the Midwest (of the USA), everything is dead, except the pine trees. We had our first warm day a week or so ago. It was shocking to see how quickly flowers started to pop up everywhere. I should take a few pictures of them. I'll try to do that this week. There's some purple ones that always make me think of my mom. (this is Alyssa writing) She loves purple.

I know the weather has been nice for you guys too! There's something about Spring that just makes everyone a little more grateful.

Bitter Sweet Birthday

The last Friday of February a lady at our church had a birthday party. She has been coming to the church since she was invited last summer by a friend at a preschool group. I think she has really enjoyed coming to the church and we have enjoyed getting to know her. She started coming to the church about the same time we came to Germany, so we were both learning the songs sung on Sunday mornings. The people at the church really helped her out for her birthday party by preparing all kinds of food. (I think it is normal in Germany that you throw your own birthday party and pay for everything, so I think it was very nice of her new church family to contribute and make sure she had a wonderful birthday. She had a several friends and family visit her and they all seemed to have fun at the party, and mingle with the people from the church. She was happy about this and was wanting to bring her friends and family with her to church. She changed her mind when she was verbally attacked by these people the next morning at breakfast. They didn’t like that she had changed and was going to church now. They really were very mean to her and said some hurtful things. On the other hand there were some that were supportive of her decision, and there was one family member that had also visited the church said she wished she had a church like ours in her town. Please pray for our friend as she goes through this hard time in her life.

Things are coming together for us. Next month classes at the Volkshochschule (means volks-folks or peoples/ hoch-high/ schule-school) I love how similar the vocabulary can be sometimes. Anyway this is a school for night school classes. We are planning on taking a few classes. We are hoping to improve our German and hopefully make some new friends in the area.

As far as ministry goes, I (Zach) will be teaching the junior high Sunday school again for the month of February. I really enjoyed it last time and feel like it was really good for my German. The preparation throughout the week really helps me with the practical side of speaking and improving my vocabulary.

I have also checked out a few books from the library to read. I am excited about how much German I can speak and understand, but writing is still hard for me, so I hope to improve that through reading and maybe a class at the Volkshochschule.

Alyssa will be attending a lady’s retreat from the 6^th through the 8^th of February. It is a lady’s retreat so I don’t know much about it, but I hope she has a good time with fellow Christians here in Germany.

I will be helping at a church camp the week before Easter. I am really looking forward to it. I am hoping to get to know some new people and get to know some of the kids from our church a little better.

This coming Sunday I am double booked. I will be attending a LAN party with some of the kids from our church. It is planned for Sunday night, which also happens to be the Super Bowl. A friend told me that it will be broadcast here, but of course we are 6 hours ahead of Eastern Time. Someone once told me that many Americans working in Germany have the day off after super bowl Sunday because they all stay up late and watch it. I don’t know if that is the case in this area of Germany or not.

I have found some other Christians here in Celle and have been able to get to know them better through two home Bible studies that I have started attending.

2008 In Review
January 4-Zach quit his job to do fulltime support raising

January 15-moved out of our apartment and sold the stuff we couldn’t bring and boxed up all of the things we could.

February 8- Zach’s birthday! Doesn’t that cake look amazing. I’m a great cook.

Sometime in April we realized we had enough money raised that we could afford to live in Germany for at least a year! So we bought our tickets and got everything ready. So scary, even just looking back.

May 10-My Birthday. (Mexican Food-we can’t get good Mexican food here. We were preparing ourselves. Our last meal before we boarded the plane was actually Mexican. We tried to make ourselves sick of it before we left. We did not succeed.)


May something-Sending off party in my home church in Ohio


May 14-Left the USA for Germany

May 15-Arrived in Germany

June 2-Started Language School

September 21-Our first nephew was born! We haven't met him yet, but we can't wait to! We're so ecited about being an aunt and an uncle! Here he is Elisha Amos...

Cute

November 1-Got our own apartment

Before....

....After

November 28-Finished Language school!!! Longest 6 months of my life. Augghhh! So hard. I think our teacher yelled at us everyday. I would never make it through boot camp. Or maybe it would be nothing compared to being yelled at in German. (just kidding)

On one of our "field trips"
Our teacher is the one in the red.

Zach and one of our good friends.
Playing at the park

Our last day of school. It was kind of sad to say good bye. One of the students that is studying classical guitar came and gave us a private concert!

Month of December-Zach started teaching Sunday school in German. He had some help from a high schooler, but I heard he did very well!

December 24-Christmas Eve Services.

December 26-Midwinter Rally One of the high lights of the year. About 40-60 missionaries working in Europe get together once a year for fellowship and encouragement.




December 27-We went to Wittenberg!!! We got to see where Luther nailed his 95 theses.

That's just a short look at our year! Hope you enjoyed the glimpse.

First let me start of by saying that we are sorry that it has been a while since our last update. We have not had internet for a while and a lot has happened.

We are finished with language school. Our last day was in November. So we are excited to be moving on to the next stage of our ministry. We are able to understand a lot and are continuing to learn new vocabulary. We are doing a lot to continue our language studies on our own. It is currently my everyday goal read something in German (newspaper or a chapter of a book); listen for a period of time to German (radio or TV); and find an opportunity to speak German. Not only am I trying to read, hear, and speak German everyday, but I (Zach) am teaching the junior high Sunday school class in German. This takes quite a bit of preparation for me.

We have made friends with one of the girls in our language school class. She is very nice and married to a German. We were invited to his birthday party and able to meet some of his friends. We are thankful for this friendship that we have and hope to continue it even though we are not seeing her everyday. They came to Celle recently and visited us. We have plans to meet with them this Saturday too.

Apartment news-

We feel that God has been blessing us left and right. We are all moved into the new apartment. We are thankful and amazed with how God is blessing us. There are many people our age in our apartment building. We are hoping to get to know them all better.

Prayer Requests:

Pray that God guides and leads us to where we are best suited to do ministry.

Pray that we are able to make German friends that we can practice our speaking with and share our faith with.