Hunter begins Kindergarten

Hunter has completed his first couple of weeks of German kindergarten, and he loves it! He comes home speaking little German sentences, luckily I am still able to keep up and understand. He loves the routine and structure and each time we pull up his says, "this is MY school"...can't you see him puffing out his chest. While we are not fully potty trained, the teachers are allowing Hunter to wear pullups, and thus reducing a lot of my stress. We had been telling him about kindergarten for a couple of months, so as to help him prepare, so when I went to drop him off the first day he gave me a kiss and said, "bye mom, you'er done, you can go home now". As I walked away from the school I was the one with tears in my eyes. It took Hunter's best buddy Lukas a little longer to adjust to the whole idea, but finally things went well (much to his parent's delight) the day I took Hunter and Lukas to school together. Hunter is pictured above after his first day of school; he really refused to pose for any pictures the whole day, so this is the best I could do.

Ministry has been really busy this month. I have been leading worship twice a week. We are doing 3 nights a week with the teens, plus we have had 2 large events this month. We started our kick-off with a bowling night that went great; 90 kids from the high school and middle school showed up for some fun, fellowship, and food. Last week we sponsored an Athletic dinner for all fall sports teams. I made enough spaghetti to feed 100 people; this was quite an undertaking...we had 85 people attend, with very little leftover. Needless to say, I am not craving Italian any time soon. Immediately following the dinner Cheyenne, our intern hosted a Girls lock-in with 18 middle schoolers. Everything went great...except for the lack of sleep...I stayed up until 3am. Chris is busy volunteering for football again this year, and has organized 5 teen Bible studies, which are going great. Cheyenne is busy volunteering with cheerleading and having a Bible study and support raising to try to stay here in Hohenfels for a while longer.

Cheyenne has been a real blessing to our ministry and our family. She loves Hunter and is great with the teens. She is currently living with us, which has been a blessing for Chris and I; it gives us chances to go on evening walks and be away from the house while Hunter sleeps; she is also a great babysitter. The teens love her and she is a fantastic role model for them. She has really become a member of our family.

We are in the midst of fall weather, with winter quickly approaching. The local farmers are calling for this to be a big, heavy winter in Bavaria, because the birds left early this year. We have a prayer request for one of our German neighbors. Julia is 18 months old, and was born with something wrong with her hips; she spent the first 6 months of her live in casts. She has been going to physical therapy since birth and they just gave her parents a grim report that Julia's hips are not developing properly. While she can walk, it is not well and very unbalanced; she has come so far since we first met her. So, they want to put her in casts for a year. While that doesn't sound great at any age, I expect this is very hard news for the parent's of a 18 month old, who wants to be out and about. Please pray for Julia and her parents. May God intervene in their lives in a grand way.