the sound of settling

It's Thursday October 18th, 2012 and we have just moved into the place where we will rest our heads for the next (at least) 3 years. 3 YEARS. That is longer than we've even been married yet. Neither of us has lived anywhere for three straight years in over 10 years, nomadically inclined I suppose. Of all our moves though, this one has taken the cake as far as culture shock and time needed to adjust. Proudly, we can say that after 5 weeks (and our own residence) we are beginning to feel more comfortable in this foreign land and look forward to the growing pains that are sure to come. We've never been better friends, more considerate spouses, or patient and kind with one another than we have since we left Dulles Airport.

We haven't been doing this on our own though, no way. God is so ever-present in our lives here is intoxicating. I wish I had slowed down enough, been less proud, to have seen His hands so unmistakably in our lives before. We've been praying for community since January when this opportunity became a reality for us, but had no specifics in mind- just fellow believers to share life with. Well wouldn't you know the small world that we were shown it truly is.
.  Our best friend here so far, that we met our first Sunday at a church plant, worked at Camp Wabanna in Maryland and played music at our best-friends-from-Maryland's wedding 7 years ago!
. The other American couple who we've had consistent friendship with since arriving here is not only from Michigan, where Jason and I met, but her mom works with our best friend from college/grad school.
. We've also been at the pastor's house two nights in a row now to borrow various tools we needed to build some IKEA furniture. We feel so incredibly fortunate, blessed beyond belief, to already know people well enough and feel comfortable enough to call them just to borrow tools. Two days in a row.

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Speaking of the various cities we've lived, here is a picture from the first morning we woke up at home, drinking out of Starbucks mugs we've acquired in these place.

And of course, we forgot to pick one up in Annapolis/ Baltimore/ Washington D.C. before we left. Sooo if any of our awesome, yuppie, Starbucks-going friends would like to send us one of these, we'd be grateful forever and probably send you something equally awesome in return :) I wonder what it says about me that, I am nearly fluent (with reading) any German words on the menu at a coffe shop but I still confuse saying 'excuse me' and 'good bye'.

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In other news about living in Germany. None of our electronics that use more power than a computer/ cell phone charger work. None of them. There are these transformers that can be purchased that are supposed to convert power from the 220v European setup to power our American-100v appliances. So far we haven't gotten a single thing to work, we've just blown a lot of fuses. This week we had to repurchase a hair dryer, an electric tea kettle (more on this nifty new appliance to come), an iron, and a microwave. Lucky for us, the mass amount of American military stationed here ran into this same problem as well, so there is a regular rotation of these commonly-used items on BooKoo (Craigslist) for us to snatch up a cheaper-than-Walmart prices. Good thing too because my need for a coffee pot is becoming too great to bear and as soon as November hits, a crock pot will definitely be a necessity.

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To end this post about the joys of beginning to settle in and get down out here, this morning Autumn and I came across this at the park: