The Mayer Family

Today Evan started school here at home with good ole Mom & Dad for his teachers. We are using Sonlight Curriculum and he enjoyed the day very much.

Yesterday was a beautiful day and we ended up spending it differently than anticipated. We found out that morning that the Vuelta a España (Tour of Spain) bike race was coming through the city later that afternoon so we went to check it out. It was a pretty big event, and we enjoyed watching. Here’s a link to the website for anyone interested:

http://www.lavuelta.com/07/ingles/recorrido/listado.html?e=16

Evan & Ellie being silly

Evan & Ellie feeding the pigeons, a favorite thing to do for them!

Looking over the city

-Wendy

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Here are a few clips from our recent Germany trip.

Here is one to make the Grandma’s nervous. It’s Evan’s first bike riding experience without training wheels. Read more about it in the September 7 post. This will make you realize why we were praying the whole time.

This is Ellie in our rental car. We pulled up to refuel at a gas station and like usual she spotted her favorite restaurant.

-Wendy

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What would Evan and Ellie do without Elephant? I’ve lost count of the hours both Evan and Ellie have spent playing with Evan’s beloved Elephant. It has been a huge source of joy and entertainment, has “chased” Ellie all around the house many times with much shrieking and screaming, been missed and anticipated when left at home, and of course argued over. Although we say the Elephant belongs to Evan, Ellie insists daily that it is “mine”, and I can officially claim ownership since Elephant was given to me by Kevin as a pre-Mother’s day gift before Evan was born! So far Elephant has been fortunate enough to keep all of his body parts with all the rough play and we hope he survives for awhile.

Ellie, Evan & Elephant

Evan with his friend Miguel

These days Kevin & I have each been spending several hours each day in language study. Right now we’re doing the Rosetta Stone computer program from our home. This has been good but also has its challenges with separating home life with study time. We also try to get practice speaking with neighbors and local people when we can. Some days it feels like we are getting a grasp on the language and other days we feel discouraged.

The last two nights Ellie has crawled up on to our open window on the sill and looked out into the dark night sky saying “God?” “God?” “Hi, God”. Sometimes we wonder if she can see things we can’t. I love the way children are so honest about talking to God and in praising him. The other day Ellie was loudly and happily singing her own made up song as I pushed her in the stroller on the street. The words basically consisted of “Jesus, Jesus…” in her own made-up tune.

-Wendy

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We were excited to arrive back to familiar soil on Monday morning, and happy to have our guest, who was also at the conference in Germany, arrive that evening. Wilbur Miller spent this week with us, and it was a pleasure and encouragement to talk, dream, pray and worship together. Ellie couldn’t quite say his name and fondly referred to him as “Yogurt”, but by the end of the week it was starting to sound a little closer to Wilbur. Because of his kindness, we also enjoyed a date evening out last night while he babysat!

Presents from Wilbur and Shirley! Thanks a million!

Guys washing dishes, what a wonderful sight, and a blessing to me!

Our neighbors Miguel and Margarita welcomed us home with a cake! Evan & Ellie were excited to see their friends again, as were we!

-Wendy

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…Holy Spirit in Missions Conference
The main reason for our trip was to go to this conference. It was a very neat experience to meet together with believers from 24 different countries. The worship time was incredible. During and before our trip to Germany, I (Wendy) had been reading the book The Heavenly Man, an intense and inspiring story of some Chinese Christians (a book that I would highly recommend). After arriving at the conference, we found out that one of the men in the book was scheduled to speak! We were thrilled for the chance to listen to the testimony of Peter Xu, and challenged by the commitment and perseverance of these Christians.

Kevin with Peter Xu. Part of his story is also written in the book Back To Jerusalem, one of the most incredible books we’ve ever read.

Worshipping God together at the conference

We enjoyed learning to know a local family who hosted us in their home during the conference. We found out the first night that our hostess, Margarita as well as her husband (who we didn’t meet since he was out of the country at the time), both attended Goshen College at the same time as Kevin did. They didn’t remember each other, but it was neat to make that connection. Kevin only attended Goshen College one semester before switching to Cedarville University. Margarita and her three children were wonderful hosts to us! Evan and Ellie thoroughly enjoyed playing with their children and Evan didn’t want to leave.

Jessica, Sabrina, Sebastian and Margarita

Margarita and her children took Evan, Ellie and I to a park close by one day, which the children loved, as well as a driving tour of the city, a little shopping and our first Pizza Hut since leaving the US! Yum!

Ellie being her cute self

...thoughts
Being in Germany made me miss Spain. I guess that’s a good thing. It’s frustrating to be in a place (again) where you can’t understand hardly a single word that anyone is saying! I have such a long way to go in learning Spanish, but at least I can understand some things. I’ve read 1 Corinthians 13 several times in the last week, and one thing that keeps jumping out to me is that speaking unknown languages isn’t something that will last in eternity, but love will. So I guess while I still want to master speaking Spanish, I want to “master” even more ways to show the love of Jesus. It looks impossible to be all of the things that chapter describes. I’m glad I’m not doing it alone.

-Wendy

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…visiting friends
Next we went to visit some friends in Cologne, Germany. We enjoyed talking, eating and a tour of the Cologne Cathedral. Evan & Ellie loved playing with their girls.

Ellie with Abby and Audra

-Wendy

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…the vacation part
We started at a castle/youth hostel beside the Rhine River in Bacharach, Germany. When we arrived we found that the hostel had accidentally not reserved our rooms like we had requested, so we begin by rearranging some of our plans. It ended up working out just fine, and with other guest’s cancellations, we were able to stay at the hostel five nights.
Some highlights included:
- Boat ride on the Rhine river

The Rhine River

Evan & Ellie

- Renting bikes- their weren’t any little bikes with training wheels available and Evan had never learned to ride without, so we decided to get a small bike for Evan and try to teach him. Kevin spent about an hour and a half that morning trying to teach him, and after many scrapes, bruises and crashes, he seemed to be getting the hang of it. So we set off on the trail, the rapidly moving Rhine River on one side, and at times rapidly moving cars on the other. I think Kevin and I spent half of our bike ride praying that Evan wouldn’t end up in the river, in front of a car, or causing a crash with another biker! Thankfully all went well, with only a few minor crashes, and we ended up riding about 8-9 miles that day! We all slept well that night!

Kevin teaching Evan

Riding

Kevin & Evan

Ellie enjoying the easiest ride of anyone

We enjoyed all the greenery, something you won’t find much of in Southern Spain right now

- Eating lots of bratwurst and sauerkraut
- Visiting Burg Eltz

Burg Eltz is Rick Steve’s favorite castle in all of Europe. As he says: Lurking in a mysterious forest, it's been left intact for 700 years and is furnished throughout as it was 500 years ago. Thanks to smart diplomacy and clever marriages, Burg Eltz was never destroyed. It's been in the Eltz family for 820 years.

The highlight for Evan & Ellie was wading in a stream near the castle!

- And of course, sleeping in a real castle!

The Castle/Hostel we stayed in

The view from our hostel room in the castle

-Wendy

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