Sorry we don’t have any photos and that we haven’t blogged much but we hope to get our DSL (that’s Internet connection for you non-computer geeks) but I just have to say this area is beautiful with a white blanket. Hope to talk to you more later.

Dear friends and family,

We are doing very well here! We arrived Tuesday, January 10th and we’re able to stay at the e-Dot director’s home for the first week. This was wonderful to get over jet lag and not worry about what to cook.

Last Tuesday (the 16th) our container arrived. In one hour 15 of our new best friends had everything placed into our apartment. It’s not a very big apartment (by American standards) but everything we brought fits very nicely. The last few days have been unboxing and running around finding things. Yesterday we went to Ikea and Super Wal-Mart (yes, they have that here) to find wardrobes, and appliances. Our e-Dot team mates have been so helpful taking us around and helping us learn the rules of driving.

Alex had a ½ day try at Kindergarten on Wednesday and really loved it. He’ll officially start next Monday, the 22. He is doing very well and even had a short play date today. He especially loves his new bunk bed that one of the other missionaries gave to us. We are all getting used to the walking and the amount of time that it takes to get anything done – mostly because of a much slower pace of life here and the fact that we don’t know where to find things.

We will be picking up our new (to us) car tomorrow. It’s a Ford Focus Diesel Station wagon we bought from a local dealer who “takes care of the missionaries”. Courtney got a chance to follow behind the dealer as he test drove one of our car options on the autobahn. He got up to 111 mph. That’s not the one we’re buying, but a similar one.

Our phone was installed yesterday but our DSL will still take a couple of weeks so please be patient if we don’t reply to your e-mail promptly… but we would like to hear from youJ.

Overall we are doing well. We are overwhelmed with decisions to make, often with vague or incomplete information to base those decisions on… but we keep on going.

Some prayer requests:

1) We are blessed with a beautiful apartment and know its God’s gift as a resting and re-energizing place for us to base out of. Our clothes washer/dryer combo unit in our kitchen is having problems. It runs for 2 to 45 minutes and then cuts out for no reason we can discern. We are praying that it is “user error” rather than something truly wrong as we’d hate to have to buy a new one at this point.

2) Our landlord’s mother, Frau Vollmer, lives downstairs. She is 83 but lively and loves children (read – can tolerate loud noises). We are unsure of her relationship with God but pray that as we become great friends that we can be a light to her.

3) Alex will start school on Monday. Pray for him as he gets used to language and cultural challenges. There are 2 other MK (missionary kid) boys that go there. Also pray that as our family interacts with the teachers and the parents that we will find opportunities to become friends and share our faith.

4) We will be starting language school in February. Pray that we can choose the right school and that our minds will begin to absorb the language here.

Quote of the week: From Frau Vollmer our landlord’s mother who lives downstairs: “So do you speak Oxford English or American slang?” – She wasn’t being insulting at all, just an honest question that I wasn’t sure how to answer.

Thanks to all of you who give and pray so that we can be here,

Krista and Courtney Roes

Here are pictures of our apartment before our container arrives (which will be Tuesday):

Dear Friends and Family,

Well… we have arrived safely in Germany! Alex watched “Spongebob, Squarepants” in German yesterday. When I asked him if he could understand the cartoon he said – “Their voices speak German but how they move still speaks English”.

Here are some of the highlights of the last couple of weeks:

1) We sold our car before Christmas. We had a wonderful goodbye party on the 7th. Thank you to all of you who came. We had excellent goodbyes with family and friends who will be sorely missed.

2) Yesterday we watched the sun rise over the Swiss Alps as we flew in. None of us slept much – Alex slept for about 2 hours – I think we were too excited.

3) We were warmly greeted at the Zurich airport by our team and then made our way up to the home of E-Dot’s director to spend a few days decompressing and getting settled before we move in to our apartment next week. They have 3 kids (youngest is 8 ) so Alex has had a great time playing and has refused to do any catching up on sleep even when they are at school.

4) Yesterday we registered with the government so that our shipping container can clear customs this week and should arrive for us at our new apartment next Tuesday. Today we spent at the bank and the telephone company ordering our new phone. We also got to tour our new apartment … and I loved it! It’s not big but it is very bright and “open” feeling and everything has been well cared for.

5) One of our team members Sue, speaks Germany fluently and was also the most recent to arrive, so she is our tour guide, helper and translator. We can already tell that we are starting to pick up on things a bit. Our formal language classes won’t start until February.

So overall we are doing really well. Here are a few praises and prayer requests:

1) We are here! What an amazing work God has done and thanks to the many of you who prayed and gave and encouraged us along the way.
2) Pray for the custom’s process with our container. We don’t anticipate any problems, but prayer never hurt.
3) We had asked for prayer about the Euro- and you must be praying because it has dropped a little bit. Keep it up – particularly next week when we’ll need to transfer the money to buy our car.
4) Alex was accepted into the kindergarten next door to us! Pray we’ll have wisdom when to have him begin and that he will transition smoothly. Only one of the staff speaks English so it will be a full immersion class for him.

I know this was long…. Check out Courtney’s bog on our website to keep up with our day to day journey. Our e-mail will stay the same.

Love,

Courtney and Krista Roes
www.roesgarden.com
Courtney@roesgarden.com
Krista@Roesgarden.com

In 1981:

• Prince Charles got married

• Liverpool crowned Soccer Champions of Europe

• Australia lost the Ashes Tournament

• Pope died

In 2005:

• Prince Charles got married

• Liverpool crowned Soccer Champions of Europe

• Australia lost the Ashes Tournament

• Pope died

LESSON TO BE LEARNED:

The next time Charles gets married, someone should definitely warn the Pope.

Thanks for the info Tee