On Friday was my first official full day in the office and my list of “todos” is humungous. As you can see, we don’t have the whole team in the office right now as summer time is a time for people’s HMA (Home Ministry Assigment - also known as furlough), vacations, children’s graduations and we have a lot of trips scheduled throughout Europe. Come Monday (my second official day in the office), I’ll be the only one.

I have to say I am really excited about getting full time into the work God has called us here to be a part of. Part of my position is to help in formulating a long term technology strategy for what we are going to be doing in eDOT, now and in the future. There is a group of volunteers that are eager to help (but we could always use more if you are interested) whose expertises are just outstanding. I am amazed as I get to know these volunteers just the level of experience that God is bringing to this team. There is a great sense of anticipation as we are on the verge of having more courses ready to be used throughout Europe, as we are starting to having courses translated into Farsi, as we are developing different programs that churches housing computer centers can use for outreach into their communities, and as we develop websites that are going to be doing all sorts of things.

Please pray for us and the eDOT team as we:

• go through yet another transistion from language school to the office
• spend time as a family going through the adjustments of living in a different culture
• work on developing friendships within the German community to both work on our German language skills and to be a witness for Christ here
• look at all that is to be done and feel a bit overwhelmed, that we will be able to prioritze appropriately and move in God’s timing and not in our own

Check out some more photos of my first day in the Photo Album

Ok, I know most of you are reading this are from America and there you are questioning how come gas prices are going way over the $3/gallon mark especially as everyone is starting their summer vacations. Well, I just wanted to share with you what the gas prices here are like.

Above is pictured one of the cheaper gas stations that is in our area (and on a good gas price day since it fluctuates daily, sometimes it seems hourly). At first glance you might think we have it great here in Germany with gas prices (and compared to some places in the world, it is good). However let me explain the prices to those of you in the states.

The first price (the really cheap one) is for Erdgas, which is pretty much only used in certain farm vehicles. The second price there is for diesel (yes, diesel is cheaper than gas in Germany). The bottom three prices are for gas and equate to the levels of “Regular, Plus and Premium” found in the states. So the price of regular gas looks pretty good at 1.349 but you have to remember that that is Euros per liter. So to get that to Dollars per Gallon, we have to multiply the 1.349 by 3.7854118 (the amount of liters in a gallon) and then multiply the result by 1.35 (the current rate of Dollars to Euros) which means gas currently goes for $6.89/gallon for the cheap gas.

That is one of the reasons cars are smaller here and why bicycles and walking are favored in town transportation (and why we bought a diesel)