From "Miss Susan" to "Aunt Su Su" - Passages

It's starting to seem more real. Leaving.

Only three more work days at PACE Center for Girls in Immokalee. I'll go from one familiar setting full of awesome teenage girls where I'm known as "Miss Susan" to a new and foreign setting among yet to be known teenage girls where I'll be known as "Aunt Su Su". I tell the PACE girls I love teen girls so much that just seeing them each week day isn't enough for me and so I'm gonna go live 24/7 with lots of teen girls. It's been interesting explaining to the PACE girls what a missionary is and what I'll do as a missionary dorm Mom and about the teen girls I'll be living with and the circumstances that would bring them to Black Forest Academy. I haven't quite figured out what it will look like, but I cannot help but think there will be opportunities for really cool connections and ways to communicate back and forth in supportive ways. So as June ends "Miss Susan" goes to work at doing all the things that need to get done before she can get on a flight to Germany to reinvent herself as "Aunt Su Su, the dorm Mom of Wittlingen."

Between here and there are a million and one (at least) "to be dones" including a serious ear surgery for our son Jay (scheduled for 6/24) and a minor knee surgery for me (6/28) and the continued effort to raise our financial and prayer support team and the clearing out of our home of 25 years. Other than that not much else going on. Yikes! :)

Reports of a Paucity of Mexican Food in Germany Unfounded? A Ray of Hope? Maybe!

Every Sunday morning, Kaufland (in German, literally, "Buy Land"), the "Big-K" of Deutschland, emails me its weekly newsletter. One Kaufland newsletter feature I'm especially drawn to each week is its Rezept der Woche, the Recipe of the Week.

I was pleased to see this Tex-Mex-Torte recipe featured this week.

You see, last week, Susan, Janelle, and I had the privilege of Skyping with the young ladies who'll live at Wittlingen dorm next year. One of their questions for us was what kinds of foods we like to cook. Janelle, I believe it was, piped in that we enjoyed cooking and eating Mexican food, which drew a big Harrah! from at least one of the girls at the dorm.

Wouldn't you know it, though, all the "Moving-to-Germany" books I've seen since then, including all the "Click-Here-To-Look-Inside" snippets, unanimously declare authentic Mexican food utterly unavailable in Germany.

I was much heartened this morning to see Kaufland's Tex-Mex-Torte ("Tex-Mex-Pie") as the Recipe of the Week. Not so much for the recipe itself, but rather in the ingredient list accompanying it. My theory is that Kaufland would never promote a recipe requiring ingredients that it doesn't stock.

So, this Rezept der Woche is a ray of hope that we can take our Mexican food recipes with us to Germany.

Meeting the Wittlingen Dorm Team

Wittlingen Dorm, Wittlingen, Germany

Susan, Janelle, and I had the awesome opportunity yesterday afternoon of Skyping with the folks at Witt. It was such a blessing to meet the young ladies we'll have the privilege of parenting in the Fall. Janelle was pleased to meet an entire new set of friends she'll get to enjoy in the next step of our adventure.

We'd previously Skyped with Susie and Joe, the current Witt dorm parents, and with Jess and Sarah, the two resident assistants who'll be returning to Witt next year. We'll have huge shoes to fill succeeding (we cannot possibly replace) Susie and Joe, and we're so pleased to have Jess and Sarah returning to work with us. Joe and Susie could not have been more complementary of Sarah and Jess.

It's official, Susan will be known in Witt as "Aunt Su Su," and I'll be "Uncle Jim." The choice drew applause from the girls, and it seems to me a much better selection than our kid's suggestion that I be called "Großvater."

So we continue to pray that God continues to open doors for our service at Witt. While we have almost all of our required initial start-up funds collected or pledged, we're still a way away from having the monthly support pledges we need.

Please prayerfully consider if you might be led to partner with us in our service to missionary families who, in turn, are serving God in sometimes hostile and, even, dangerous places in the world. We cannot serve without the financial support of Believers back home.