Hiatus Halt, finally

It has been awhile since writing a blog or newsletter, so I wanted to touch base and let you know the Germany is still here and so am I!

Much has been happening, some more positive than others, but busy during it all.  In fact, things have been so busy that Facebook has been beyond my ability to view, which makes me feel really out of touch. A week or so ago I did spend a little while reading updates, but catching up with it all is impossible.

What has been going on?  These last months have all run together with a prolonged bout with sinus infections (two and the second one really set me behind at school and physically), which brought me to the end of the third quarter near the end of March.  At that break BFA hosted the tri-annual ICEC (International Christian Educators Conference), taking another week of time.  The first two days after school we staff members were the cleaning crew--the norm here as there is no regular cleaning staff.  The maintenance department takes care of keeping things working, but we do the weekly vacuuming, emptying of trash, etc., but this was more to prepare.  (Actually, there was an air of excitement seeing the transformation and knowing it would bless the people coming.) Then the conference itself involved four days. Fortunately the speakers and sessions were exceptional, but the 13 hour days eventually caught up with me. The day following the conference we reported for cleanup again, and finally we had a week of spring break.

This was soooooooo needed.  Teaching out of field has made this one of the most demanding years of my career.  Combine that with being sick, the conference, plus one more thing--really lousy weather!  In case you have not heard, Germany is not sunny like Naples. I had been proud that January and

February did not seem to depress me as I had been warned could happen, but with the continued gloom (in 60 years of record keeping, this year has had the least sun) and cold weather, things were beginning to wear thin.  The first day of ICEC someone wrote on the snow covered hood of a truck "It’s Spring!"  Well, our small group planned pre-season priced retreat in Italy to rest.  (Sounds exotic, but think of it like driving north of Gainesville only taking longer to get there.)  That entire week we (all of Europe it turns out) were under a huge cloud...nothing but rain and more gloom. Grace, my roommate there, and I returned early to do school work.  As you can gather, I was not ready emotionally, physically, or mentally for school to begin.  That first week back was disastrously draining, so I wrote my small group and asked them to pray.

Wow, they did not know they had such power in prayer!  Within a couple of days the sun came out, weather warmed..and I began to come out of my malaise.  Oh, that doesn't mean the school pressures disappeared, that won't happen until this term is over, but now I have been able to function better.  A TeachBeyond contact in the states warned that should this happen it was SAD, seasonal affect disorder.  Hearing about it is one thing; having it affect your entire outlook and not even realize what is happening is another.  I was totally unaware that was the difficulty until things returned to normal.

It is now quite a bit later, and much more could be said, but this update will bridge the long gap.  We have had some sun, but would you believe it is now May 22 and turtle necks are needed with umbrellas?  The warmth and sun here are like winter is in Naples, a day or two then gone.  Whole days of sun could be counted on one cartoon character's three-fingered hand. There are times in the day the sun will peak out, but then quickly retreat behind the clouds like its shy. These two pictures were taken on the same day just minutes apart!  No, the second one is not a black and white picture either. 

       

          

Even the German people are asking what happened to spring!

More later...