I'm embarrassed that we haven't posted here in almost a month despite the fact that so much has happened! Even though we were no longer in classes this past month, it turned out to be an extremely busy time. Here's some of the things that have happened:
We found a new apartment! Earlier this month, we began the search for a more permanent place in Cologne. Everyone we talked to assured us that the process of finding an apartment in Cologne would be a long one. The first day we looked at apartments, we ended up viewing 3 different places in the city. The first place we looked actually turned out to have everything we wanted in a place for a price the fit our budget. It seemed crazy to us that we would sign on the very first apartment we saw. But, within a week we had signed a rental contract and were given the keys! It was such an answer to prayer that the search was so easy. This coming month, we'll be working getting the apartment ready for us to move into later in January.
As part of our cultural training, we spent a week in Berlin earlier this month. The purpose of the visit was to meet with our GEM language supervisor who lives in Berlin and participate in some cultural learning activities. It was a great experience, and we really came away with a deep knowledge of Germany. I definitely want to share more about what we learned, so I'll probably save that for another post later.
Finally, this past week we celebrated our very first Christmas in Germany! We weren't sure how we would handle our first holiday season away from our family. There were a few difficult days, but on the whole we had a blessed time. We were fortunate to have great friends who took us in during Christmas. It was wonderful to participate in the Christmas holiday German-style. There is so much deep tradition and fun family activity during the entire month of December. It was a wonderful and refreshing time.
We're looking forward to the new year and all that God has in store for us and this city. We hope that each of you are blessed this coming week!
