Happy Saturday-After-Thanksgiving!

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with your friends and family. I know that I have much to be thankful for. Despite the frustrations I often feel in learning German and acclimating to life in Bremen, God has blessed me richly.

The Abercrombies and I got back to Bremen on Wednesday night. We had a great time in Paris, despite the fact that the public transit workers were on strike. It actually proved to be beneficial, though, because we got to ride the subway for free...when it was running, that is. We did do a whole lot of walking. Sometime in the next couple of days I'll post more about our trip, complete with some pictures.

The biopsy of the spot in Elsa's stomach came back as benign. That's a major praise! Elsa's understandably more at ease now and seems to generally be happier. Thank you for your continued prayers on her behalf.

I spent Thursday and Friday afternoons working at Elsa's. Here are a couple pictures of the books I've "cataloged":


There was no way for me to take a picture of ALL of the books at once. I had lined them up in stacks based on the numbers I'd assigned them, and the line stretched too far down the wall for all of them to fit in one picture. You may wonder why they were on the floor in the first place, and the answer is that there simply wasn't room for them on the shelves. Elsa has been working to clear "non-book" items and old magazines from shelves, and I've been weeding old, out-dated books from the collection. I have a feeling the recycling pick-up people are not going to like coming to Elsa's house anymore.

Speaking of weeding the books, yesterday I came across an old, spiral-bound book with the words "Physical Science 101" on the cover. I opened the cover to discover that it was published in 1958 and was a course book from one of Jim's early semesters at Harding as an undergraduate. And...it was written by Dr. Joe Pryor.

I know that won't mean anything to some of you, but I couldn't help think about Dr. Joe sitting in his wheelchair beside the front pew during services at College church, still singing along with the old hymns. Or about the time about 4 or 5 years ago when I was walking to church one Sunday morning and met another young woman from Harding who asked me to sit with her and "an elderly couple" she sat by each week. That was the day I officially met Dr. Joe and Ms. Bessie Mae. They invited me to their home for lunch, and I learned first-hand how kind and caring they were.

So I smiled and put the book back on the shelf.

Still here

The past month has been rather busy.

I've spent a lot of time helping Elsa organize Jim's books. We've cleaned out a lot of stuff, including old magazines and book catalogs. Let's just say Jim was not one for getting rid of things.

So far I've been following Elsa's lead in this project, but it's looking like I'm going to be taking over. She's doing well dealing with Jim's death, but she's getting overwhelmed. She doesn't like the books ("overwhelming," "annoying," and "frustrating" are just a few of the adjectives she's used to describe them lately), and the project of getting rid of them is daunting to her. So, I've said I want to do whatever I can to help, and with her permission, I'm going to take charge so she doesn't have to worry about so much anymore.

To complicate matters, Elsa is worried about her own health right now. The surprise of Jim's cancer scared Elsa, so she went to the doctor and said she wanted a full checkup. A couple days ago she had a stomach scan and a lump was found. They've taken a biopsy and the results will hopefully be in tomorrow. Please pray that the lump is benign and also that Elsa can relax and be able to deal with this situation properly. She's blaming herself for a lot of things right now that are not her fault, and she does not need to add worry about her own health to the grieving she's already experiencing.

I recently taught the 2 to 4-year old Bible class at church while Katerina was out of town for a few weeks. It was definitely another learning experience and another test of my language skills. Overall, despite some nervousness, it went very well, and I'm on the list to sub in the future if needed.

Mark and Karen's daughter Elizabeth arrived in town last Thursday for a visit. This is her 3rd visit to Bremen this year, and she said that this time she was coming to see me. She spent Friday night at my apartment, and she, Mark, Karen, and I are actually leaving this evening to go to Paris for a few days. Elizabeth wanted to travel some where outside of Germany, and when Karen found flights for 10 Euros per person, round-trip and including taxes and fees (no, that's not a joke. Ryanair is a wonderful thing.), we said, "Okay, Paris it is then." The only place in Europe I've been besides Germany is the Schipol Airport in Amsterdam, so I'm looking forward to this trip.

I'll update after we get back to let you know about Elsa's test results. Thanks for your prayers and support. I couldn't make it without you.